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Selected Works

Evolution

Articles 1 - 4 of 4

Full-Text Articles in Intellectual History

A Conquering Race: The Birth Of Social Darwinism In Pre-War Germany, Andrew T. Murphree Apr 2015

A Conquering Race: The Birth Of Social Darwinism In Pre-War Germany, Andrew T. Murphree

Andrew T Murphree

Popular opinion suggests that certain political and military leaders throughout history are the primary agents for change in civilization; however, such a conclusion represents a serious oversight regarding the powerful potential of emerging worldviews to dictate epochal moments throughout mankind. Certainly, dynamic figures rise to prominence to lead movements of conservatism, progression, and moderation, but the conduit of ideas serves as the essential catalytic force that ignites and sustains these patterns. The Great War of the twentieth century was a complex global conflict of immense proportions, unlike anything the world had ever known. Historians perhaps express the greatest perplexity in …

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From Aristotle’S Teleology To Darwin’S Genealogy: The Stamp Of Inutility, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015 (Pdf: Introduction)., Marco Solinas Apr 2015

From Aristotle’S Teleology To Darwin’S Genealogy: The Stamp Of Inutility, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015 (Pdf: Introduction)., Marco Solinas

Marco Solinas

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 …

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L’Impronta Dell’Inutilità. Il Tramonto Delle Cause Finali Nell’Impianto Evoluzionistico, In "Leussein. Rivista Di Studi Umanistici", Ii, 3/6 (2009), Pp. 127-145., Marco Solinas Dec 2008

L’Impronta Dell’Inutilità. Il Tramonto Delle Cause Finali Nell’Impianto Evoluzionistico, In "Leussein. Rivista Di Studi Umanistici", Ii, 3/6 (2009), Pp. 127-145., Marco Solinas

Marco Solinas

No abstract provided.

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Orang-Utans, Tribes, And Nations: Degeneracy, Primordialism, And The Chain Of Being, Gareth Knapman Dec 2007

Orang-Utans, Tribes, And Nations: Degeneracy, Primordialism, And The Chain Of Being, Gareth Knapman

Gareth Knapman

This article explores how early anthropological writing (1830s and 1840s) on the nation faced the question: How natural was the nation? In exploring development of the nation from the tribe, colonial ethnological writers in Southeast Asia also explored the limits of primordialism. Debates on the humanity of the orang-utan represented the search for these limits. The theme of degeneracy underpinned these connections. Degeneracy was a complex belief that connected the civilized nation to the savage tribe. Two methodologies underpinned this discourse: scientific rationality and imagination. Many contemporary studies focus on how scientific rationality created distance between the colonized and the …

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