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"Starting with Aristotle and moving on to Darwin, Marco Solinas outlines the basic steps from the birth, establishment and later rebirth of the traditional view of living beings, and its overturning by evolutionary revolution. The classic framework devised by Aristotle was still dominant in the 17th Century world of Galileo, Harvey and Ray, and remained hegemonic until the time of Lamarck and Cuvier in the 19th Century. Darwin's breakthrough thus takes on the dimensions of an abandonment of the traditional finalistic theory. It was a transition exemplified in the morphological analysis of useless parts, such as the sightless eyes of moles, already discussed by Aristotle, which Darwin used as a crowbar to unhinge the systematic recourse to final causes. With many excerpts, a chronological sequence and an analytical approach, this book follows the course of the two conceptions that have shaped the destiny of living beings in western culture"--
List of contents
PART I: THE ARISTOTELIAN TELEOLOGICAL TRADITION The Original Framework 1. Consistency 2. To the Margins 3. Fixed in Time 4. Tools 5. Adaptations 6. Means of Defence 7. Unseeing Eyes For and Against Aristotle 1. Regrafting and Divergences 2. Reception and Institutionalization 3. Rebirth 4. Mathematization 5. Teleological Experimentalism 6. Chicks 7. Procreations Preordained 8. The Last Stronghold Indirect Supremacy 1. Persistence 2. Long Shadows 3. Subtext 4. conomia naturæ 5. Short Shadows PART II: THE EVOLUTIONARY REVOLUTION Crisis and Hegemony 1. Under Pressure 2. Elephant Bones 3. The Challenger 4. The Last Great Heir Darwin's Breakthrough 1. Haunted 2. A Hundred Thousand Wedges 3. Barren Virgins 4. The Stamp of Inutility 5. Metamorphoses 6. Variations 7. Revolutions 8. Genealogies Dry Branches 1. Obsolescence 2. A Double-edged Sword 3. Techne 4. On the Cusp 5. Archaisms 6. Corals 7. Circularity 8. Revenge
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“Solinas has written a concise, penetrating study of the philosophical underpinnings of natural history in Europe from Aristotle through Darwin. And he offers a perceptive analysis of how it was that history came to be fundamental to our understanding of the living world.” (Greg Priest, ISIS, Vol. 108 (04), December, 2017)
“It offers a bird's eye view of this long period, focusing on three philosophical pillars sustaining Aristotle's conception of natural world: fixism, essentialism, and teleology. … this book presents a didactic union between historic and philosophic approaches that will be of interest to biologists, historians, philosophers, psychologists, anthropologists, and general public. … the book makes a substantialcontribution to connecting history, philosophy, and the psychology of evolutionary thinking.” (Marco A. C. Varella, Human Ethology Bulletin, Vol. 31 (2), 2016)
“The translation is excellent and keeps the deep meanings and the fine taste of the dense prose of the young Italian philosopher. … the book is a very important contribution to the understanding of the roots of many modern biological discussions, offering a thoughtful reinterpretation of the movement, plenty of dense theoretical and philosophical consequences, from a figure of static nature seen as perfect and plenty of useful adaptations towards imperfections and inutilities of an ever-changing world.” (Nelio Bizzo, Medicina & Storia, Vol. 15 (8), 2015)
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"Solinas has written a concise, penetrating study of the philosophical underpinnings of natural history in Europe from Aristotle through Darwin. And he offers a perceptive analysis of how it was that history came to be fundamental to our understanding of the living world." (Greg Priest, ISIS, Vol. 108 (04), December, 2017)
"It offers a bird's eye view of this long period, focusing on three philosophical pillars sustaining Aristotle's conception of natural world: fixism, essentialism, and teleology. ... this book presents a didactic union between historic and philosophic approaches that will be of interest to biologists, historians, philosophers, psychologists, anthropologists, and general public. ... the book makes a substantialcontribution to connecting history, philosophy, and the psychology of evolutionary thinking." (Marco A. C. Varella, Human Ethology Bulletin, Vol. 31 (2), 2016)
"The translation is excellent and keeps the deep meanings and the fine taste of the dense prose of the young Italian philosopher. ... the book is a very important contribution to the understanding of the roots of many modern biological discussions, offering a thoughtful reinterpretation of the movement, plenty of dense theoretical and philosophical consequences, from a figure of static nature seen as perfect and plenty of useful adaptations towards imperfections and inutilities of an ever-changing world." (Nelio Bizzo, Medicina & Storia, Vol. 15 (8), 2015)
