The Philosophical Dimensions of the Origin of Species. Part One

Abstract

THE PHILOSOPHICAL DIMENSIONS OF THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. PART ONE " Les philosophes pour lesqucls la cah~gorie du perime est un critere metaphysique, et la pensee a le devoir de vieillir en oubliant, peuvent-ils comprendre que si nous consultons les anciens c'est pour recourir a une fraicheur de regard aujourd 'hui perdue? Nulle thesaurisation d'experience, aucun des avantages et aucune des graces du vieillissement de la pensee ne sauraient remplacer la grace propre de sa jeunesse, la virginite de !'observation, !'elan intuiti£ de !'intelligence non fatiguee encore vers la savoureuse nouveaute du reel." (JACQUES MARITAIN) PROBABLY it is not possible for educated men not to accept John Dewey's statement that" few words in our language foreshorten intellectual history as much as does the word species." 1 Whether the word "foreshorten" here refers to a near-sightedness of modern scholarship in this area of intellectual history, or to the truth of Dewey's contention that Darwin's work by combining the word origin with the word species " embodied an intellectual revolt and introduced a new intellectual temper," 2 however, is another question which is worthy of consideration. To this extent, Dewey's contention is certainly true and accurate: in the whole matter of evolution, the mass of data which scientific research has uncovered and attested has had a cumulative effect in making an ancient and traditional problem about the nature of species a currently insistent one, and 1 John Dewey, "The Influence of Darwinism on Philosophy," in The Influence of Darwin on Philosophy (New York: Holt, 1910), p. 3. • Ibid., p. 1. STRUCTURAL OUTLINE I. The State of the Question. II. Approach to the Problem. III. The Logic of Evolutionary Science. V. Specific Structures in an Evolving World. VI. The Error of Univocally Ontologi2ed Kind-Essences. VII. The Operational Displacement of Typological Thought in its Implications for Hierarchy. VIII. The Two Hierarchies. IX. Conclusion. 75 76 JOHN N. DEELY one which, in the contemporary mind, serves to exemplify in a clear and striking manner the incompatibility of modern science and traditional philosophy. I. THE STATE OF THE QuESTION Whether there is an incompatibility between modern science and traditional philosophy is an interesting question, and one which admits of no single, simple answer; but the evolution of species may not be an illustration thereof, and it is certainly not a clear and striking illustration; for it is not entirely accurate to oppose the modern conception of species to the conception entertained by the ancients, particularly Aristotle, and to claim on this basis (as so many do) that the entire classical metaphysical approach to the essential structures of existence has been shown to be a cultural illusion. As a matter of fact, the intention guiding the theoretical efforts of the ancients was simply different from that which preoccupies the evolutionary biologists. The ancients dealt with the problem of species primarily in terms of knowledge, by reference to the question of whether the mind can lay hold in concepts of the necessities truly governing the ontological structure of the world; and in judgments, of the existence exercised by things independently of those conceptions which we form. By contrast, modern biology has approached the problem of species simply in terms of their reality in the nature of things, especially in the community of living things, and only secondarily has it given thought to the epistemological value of specific concepts. It is true, of course, that the ancients did regard the specific structures of extramental realities as fixed once and for all, and this on the basis both of inadequate observational data and cultural assumptions. But the question of species as addressed by modern biology was only placed rather late in Western history, beginning with the work of John Ray, Carolus Linnaeus , and Comte de Buffon, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This point may be illustrated textually, and its capital im- PHILOSOPHICAL DIMENSIONS OF THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES 77 portance indeed makes such illustration incumbent on us. First of all, with respect to the species problematic of traditionaJ philosophy so far as it traces its roots to Aristotle, Mortimer J. Adler, whose reputation as an authority on the Western intellectual tradition...