A new look at evolution: Marx, Teilhard de Chardin, Vernadsky

Abstract

Abstract Three great thinkers Marx, Theilhard de Chardin and Vernadsky meditated about the future of mankind and attempted to look beyond the horizons of history. However their points of departure were quite different. For Marx the source of his thoughts about the future was his doctrine about the establishment and modification of forms of ownership. Telhard's analysis by contrast, was based on the idea of man as a special kind of phenomenon. It is man who has his own spiritual world, who was born of nature and is capable of changing the course of history. Vernadsky studied the evolution of the biosphere and the ever increasing intervention of man in the processes taking place in it. Early in the twentieth century he formulated the thesis that mankind was gradually becoming the principal geologenic force of our planet. Each different approach contained some elements of a modern “universal evolutionism” which is discussed and its historical roots revealed.