From Aristotle's Teleology to Darwin's Genealogy: The Stamp of Inutility

194 Pages·2015·1.5 MB·English

by  Marco Solinas

From Aristotle’s Teleology to Darwin’s Genealogy

From Aristotle’s Teleology
to Darwin’s Genealogy
The Stamp of Inutility
Marco Solinas
Translated from the Italian by James Douglas
© Marco Solinas 2015
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in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in 2012 in Italian by Edizioni ETS, entitled L’impronta
dell’inutilità. Dalla teleologia di Aristotele alle genealogie di Darwin.
Published 2015 by
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ISBN: 978–1–137–44576–6
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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Solinas, Marco, author.
[Impronta dell’inutility. English]
From Aristotle’s teleology to Darwin’s genealogy: the stamp of inutility /
Marco Solinas, University of Florence, Italy.
pages cm
ISBN 978–1–137–44576–6 (hardback)
1. Evolution (Biology) – History. 2. Biology – Philosophy – History.
3. Teleology. 4. Darwin, Charles, 1809–1882. 5. Aristotle. I. Title.
QH361.S6513 2015
576.892—dc23 2014038560
The translation of this work has been funded by SEPS
SEGRETARIATO EUROPEO PER LE PUBBLICAZIONI SCIENTIFICHE
Via Val d’Aposa 7 – 40123 Bologna – Italy
[email protected] – www.seps.it
For Giaime Marcello

Contents
Acknowledgements x
Introduction 1
Part I The Aristotelian Teleological Tradition
1 The Original Framework 15
1 Consistency 1 5
2 To the margins 1 8
3 Fixed in time 20
4 Tools 2 4
5 Adaptations 2 6
6 Means of defence 2 9
7 Unseeing eyes 3 5
2 For and Against Aristotle 39
1 Regrafting and divergences 3 9
2 Reception and institutionalization 4 0
3 Rebirth 4 6
4 Mathematization 4 8
5 Teleological experimentalism 5 3
6 Chicks 5 7
7 Procreations preordained 6 0
8 The last stronghold 6 3
3 Indirect Supremacy 64
1 Persistence 6 4
2 Long shadows 6 5
3 Subtext 6 8
4 Œconomia naturæ 7 2
5 Short shadows 7 8
Part II The Evolutionary Revolution
4 Crisis and Hegemony 83
1 Under pressure 8 3
2 Elephant bones 85
vii
viii Contents
3 The challenger 8 7
4 The last great heir 9 0
5 Darwin’s Breakthrough 95
1 Haunted 9 5
2 A hundred thousand wedges 9 8
3 Barren virgins 1 00
4 The stamp of inutility 1 02
5 Metamorphoses 1 05
6 Variations 1 08
7 Revolutions 1 11
8 Genealogies 1 14
6 Dry Branches 116
1 Obsolescence 1 16
2 A double-edged sword 1 18
3 Techne 1 21
4 On the cusp 1 23
5 Archaisms 1 25
6 Corals 1 27
7 Circularity 1 28
8 Revenge 1 32
Notes 1 34
Bibliography of Cited Works 167
Index 1 77
Linnaeus and Cuvier have been my two gods,
though in very different ways,
but they were mere school-boys to old Aristotle.
Charles R. Darwin, Letter to William Ogle,
Down, February 22, 1882.