Charles Darwin

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Charles Darwin

1809–1882

Première approchesimplification délibérée – le portrait en dit plus

Pour Darwin, toutes les espèces, y compris les humains, se sont développées pendant un temps immense par sélection naturelle, sans plan ni concepteur.

Repères

Sciences de la nature et sciences humaines · Europe du Nord · Science

L’évolution par sélection naturelle – elle a replacé l’humanité dans l’histoire naturelle.

Idées clés

Sélection naturelle
Filiation de l’homme

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Influence

A influencé 14

Herbert Spencer

a influencé
Spencer had formulated his evolutionism before Darwin, but after reading the Origin of Species he coined ‘survival of the fittest’ for natural selection (Principles of Biology, 1864). H. Spencer, The Principles of Biology, vol. I (1864); C. Darwin, On the Origin of Species (1859), 5th ed. (1869); SEP “Herbert Spencer”
Attestation: aussi dans InPhO · InPhO
Herbert Spencer › 1820–1903
William James

a influencé
James’s Principles of Psychology (1890) treated mind as a function serving the organism’s adaptation, and ‘Great Men and Their Environment’ (1880) applied Darwin’s spontaneous variation to history. W. James, “Great Men and Their Environment” (1880); The Principles of Psychology (1890); SEP “William James”
Attestation: brouillon IA
William James › 1842–1910
Sigmund Freud

a influencé
Freud took Darwin’s primal horde as a premise of Totem und Tabu (1912–13) and called his theory of descent the ‘biological’ blow to human self-love (1917). S. Freud, Totem und Tabu (1912–13); “Eine Schwierigkeit der Psychoanalyse” (1917); C. Darwin, The Descent of Man (1871); F. J. Sulloway, Freud, Biologist of the Mind (1979)
Attestation: brouillon IA
Sigmund Freud › 1856–1939
Henri Bergson

a influencé ✓
In Creative Evolution (1907) Bergson accepted evolution but argued that Darwin’s insensible accidental variations cannot explain convergent organs such as the eye, positing a vital impetus. H. Bergson, L’Évolution créatrice (1907); SEP “Henri Bergson”
Attestation: aussi dans Wikidata · Wikidata
Henri Bergson › 1859–1941
John Dewey

a influencé
In ‘The Influence of Darwin on Philosophy’ (1909) Dewey argued that the Origin of Species turned thought from fixed essences and final ends to change and concrete problems. J. Dewey, The Influence of Darwin on Philosophy and Other Essays (1910); SEP “John Dewey”
Attestation: brouillon IA
John Dewey › 1859–1952
Daniel Dennett

a influencé
Dennett read Darwin’s natural selection as an algorithmic process that yields design without a designer, a ‘universal acid’ for traditional ideas of purpose (Darwin’s Dangerous Idea, 1995). D. C. Dennett, Darwin’s Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life (1995); C. Darwin, On the Origin of Species (1859)
Attestation: aussi dans InPhO · InPhO
Daniel Dennett › 1942–2024

Tout afficher (14)Afficher moins

Friedrich Engels

a influencé
Engels likened Marx’s law of history to Darwin’s law of organic nature (graveside speech, 1883) and drew on Darwin for an essay on labour in human evolution (1876). F. Engels, speech at Marx’s grave (1883); “Anteil der Arbeit an der Menschwerdung des Affen” (1876, publ. 1896); letter to Marx (Dec. 1859)
Attestation: brouillon IA
Friedrich Engels › 1820–1895
Francis Galton

a influencé
Galton, Darwin’s half-cousin, said the Origin of Species turned him to heredity; Hereditary Genius (1869) led to his eugenics, which scholarship rejects as scientifically and ethically untenable. F. Galton, Hereditary Genius (1869); Memories of My Life (1908); C. Darwin, On the Origin of Species (1859)
Attestation: brouillon IA
Francis Galton › 1822–1911
Pierre Kropotkine

a influencé
Against Huxley’s ‘struggle for existence’ Kropotkin invoked the social instincts of Darwin’s Descent of Man (1871) to make mutual aid a factor of evolution (Mutual Aid, 1902). P. Kropotkin, Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution (1902); T. H. Huxley, “The Struggle for Existence” (1888); C. Darwin, The Descent of Man (1871)
Attestation: brouillon IA
Pierre Kropotkine › 1842–1921
Paul Rée

a influencé
Rée’s Ursprung der moralischen Empfindungen builds an evolutionary moral psychology on Darwin’s account of morality and altruism. Cadernos Nietzsche 37 (1), 2016 (abstract read); R. Small, Nietzsche and Rée (2005)
Attestation: brouillon IA
Paul Rée › 1849–1901
Yan Fu

a influencé
In ‘On Strength’ (Yuan qiang, 1895) and the Tianyanlun (1898) Yan Fu introduced Darwin’s natural selection as a process in which things contend and Heaven chooses (wujing tianze), applying it to nations. Yan Fu, Yuan qiang (1895); Tianyanlun (1898); B. Schwartz, In Search of Wealth and Power: Yen Fu and the West (1964)
Attestation: brouillon IA
Yan Fu › 1854–1921
Edvard Westermarck

a influencé
Westermarck framed The History of Human Marriage (1891) with Darwin’s theory of descent and selection, arguing that lasting pair bonds, not promiscuity, go back to the earliest humans. E. Westermarck, The History of Human Marriage (1891); C. Darwin, The Descent of Man (1871)
Attestation: brouillon IA
Edvard Westermarck › 1862–1939
George Herbert Mead

a influencé
Mead started his account of the ‘conversation of gestures’ from Darwin’s Expression of the Emotions (1872), reading gestures socially rather than as expression (Mind, Self, and Society, 1934). G. H. Mead, Mind, Self, and Society (1934); C. Darwin, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872); SEP “George Herbert Mead”
Attestation: brouillon IA
George Herbert Mead › 1863–1931
Mary Midgley

a influencé
Midgley used Darwin and ethology to place human nature among the animals (Beast and Man, 1978) and criticised making evolution a secular creed (Evolution as a Religion, 1985). M. Midgley, Beast and Man (1978); Evolution as a Religion (1985)
Attestation: brouillon IA
Mary Midgley › 1919–2018

Critique

Critiques reçues de 4

Djemâl ad-Dîn al-Afghâni

critiqué par
Al-Afghani’s Refutation of the Materialists (1881) ridiculed Darwin’s theory among the ‘naturalist’ doctrines that, in his view, dissolve religion, morality and society. Jamāl al-Dīn al-Afghānī, al-Radd ʿalā al-dahriyyīn (1881), tr. N. R. Keddie, An Islamic Response to Imperialism, 1968
Attestation: brouillon IA
Djemâl ad-Dîn al-Afghâni › 1838–1897
Friedrich Nietzsche

critiqué par
Nietzsche’s ‘Anti-Darwin’ objected that life seeks power, not mere survival, and that the struggle favours the weak over the exceptional (Twilight of the Idols, 1889). F. Nietzsche, Götzen-Dämmerung (1889), Skirmishes §14 “Anti-Darwin”; Die fröhliche Wissenschaft (1887), §349; SEP “Friedrich Nietzsche”
Attestation: brouillon IA
Friedrich Nietzsche › 1844–1900
Sylvia Wynter

critiqué par
In “Unsettling the Coloniality of Being” (2003) Wynter read Darwin’s Origin of Species (1859) as the founding text of a second, biocentric conception of Man, in which the colonised and the poor appeared as the “dysselected” – a self-description of the West she set out to unsettle. S. Wynter, “Unsettling the Coloniality of Being/Power/Truth/Freedom”, CR: The New Centennial Review 3:3 (2003), 257–337
Attestation: brouillon IA
Sylvia Wynter › né(e) en 1928
Jerry Fodor

critiqué par
With Piattelli-Palmarini, Fodor argued that natural selection cannot distinguish traits selected for from coextensive ‘free riders’ and so does not explain adaptation (What Darwin Got Wrong, 2010). J. Fodor & M. Piattelli-Palmarini, What Darwin Got Wrong (2010), part II
Attestation: brouillon IA
Jerry Fodor › 1935–2017

Œuvres

1859De l’origine des espèces
La sélection naturelle comme moteur de l’évolution.

Position

Darwin expliqua la diversité de la vie sans concepteur. Les organismes varient, il en naît plus qu’il n’en peut survivre, et les variations qui aident dans la lutte pour l’existence sont transmises plus souvent. Sur de vastes périodes, cette sélection naturelle produit de nouvelles espèces, toutes descendues d’ancêtres communs. Le dessein apparent de la nature, que les théologiens avaient utilisé comme preuve de Dieu, pouvait ainsi résulter d’un processus non dirigé. Dans La Filiation de l’homme, il appliqua la théorie aux humains, y compris à notre sens moral et à nos émotions. Darwin a changé la manière dont la philosophie pense la nature humaine, la finalité, l’éthique et la connaissance, du pragmatisme à l’épistémologie évolutionniste.

Vie et contexte

Né en 1809 à Shrewsbury, Darwin abandonna la médecine à Édimbourg et fit des études pour devenir ecclésiastique à Cambridge. Le voyage du HMS Beagle (1831–1836), surtout en Amérique du Sud et aux Galápagos, fit de lui un naturaliste. Il vécut ensuite des décennies en savant privé à Down House, dans le Kent, et publia sa théorie en 1859, après qu’Alfred Russel Wallace fut parvenu à des idées semblables. Il mourut en 1882.