The philosophical implications of Darwinism

Antony Flew

pp. 3-33

in: Arthur Caplan, Bruce Jennings (eds), Darwin, Marx and Freud, Berlin, Springer, 1984

Abstract

When the word "philosophy" in each of these two apparently contradictory sentences is given the appropriate sense, both express plain and entirely compatible truths, truths that are both, in their different contexts, important. In the first, the relevant sense is wide and untechnical. It is in this original and most common understanding that biographers devote chapters to the philosophy of their subjects, professional associations invite leading figures to address ceremonial occasions on their personal philosophy of whatever it may be, and editors of serious general journals commission contributions to symposiums on the philosophical implications of new theoretical developments. In the second sentence quoted, the relevant sense is narrow and technical. In this specialist sense we could with equal truth say (1) that while most of The Laws and much of The Republic is not philosophy, Theaetetus is almost nothing but, and (2) that of the comparatively few pages of philosophy in Hume's second Inquiry, most are of intent relegated to the appendixes.¹

Cited authors

Darwin Charles