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(Nonfiction. 13-18) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By emphasizing the experimentalist nature of pragmatist ethics and logic, Pearce's last two chapters put Darwin centre stage again, even if it is only an implicit presence, as evolution is now considered to be "a process of experimentation" (250). As the book stops at 1910, Pearce is absolutely right to restore the balance, but we may still wonder why pragmatists have continued to refer to Darwin as eulogistically as James and Dewey once did. After reaching the final page of his treatise on how the concept of pragmatism has evolved, we are left with the impression that the central figure for the pragmatists was in fact Spencer, not Darwin. [Extracted from the article]

Philosophy needs to face up to the global problems of our times: Nicholas Maxwell: Our fundamental problem: A revolutionary approach to philosophy. Maxwell thinks we can find an explanation if we embrace a purposive interpretation of Darwin's theory of evolution. Maxwell thus contends that our institutions, social endeavours and culture, need to adopt an I aim-oriented i rationalism, to transform knowledge-inquiry into wisdom-inquiry. [Extracted from the article]

Similarly, Wallace and Darwin differed on domestic breeding (which Darwin saw as analogous to the operations of nature), with Wallace refusing to see nature as both selecting and governed by chance. Unlike Darwin, who incorporated both soft selection (competition) and hard selection (environmental factors) in his models for selection, Wallace focused more exclusively on hard selection. Costa then compares and contrasts Wallace's and Darwin's evolutionary thinking, their similarities and differences regarding transmutation and natural selection, and explains the way in which the two naturalists corresponded regularly and shared their evolutionary ideas. [Extracted from the article]

Bratman presents a compilation of scientific evidence and essays analyzing the evolutionary emergence of humans from apes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although Ferenczi and Otto Rank were early collaborators, Falzeder tells us that after their break, "when Ferenczi was in New York and they met by chance in Penn Station, [Ferenczi] ignored Rank. It should be noted that Ferenczi ([4]) writes movingly about his long and complicated relationship with Freud in his I Clinical Diary i , and the I Correspondence i between Freud and Ferenczi SP 2 sp describes in detail many of the relationships that ended in disappointment for Ferenczi or others (Freud and Ferenczi, [10]-1914, [11]-1919, [12]-1933). At the festive opening of the Ferenczi Archives on September 29, 2012, Peter Rudnytsky ([13]), gave a moving account of the long process of publishing the Freud-Ferenczi Correspondence and refers to Judith Dupont and André Haynal as "our Ferenczian couple." "Dupont, the literary executor of Ferenczi's estate, is the living link connecting us to Ferenczi, [and we thank her] for her magnanimous and farsighted gift of the Ferenczi Archive to the Freud Museum". [Extracted from the article]

As Romizi argues, Zilsel's approach to the question of determinism exhibits features similar to those of Franz Serafin Exner, one of the key figures of Vienna Indeterminism. As a whole, Romizi's study offers a systematically well-founded as well as historically informed treatise on the formation and long-term development of the concept of scientific determinism. In this regard, Romizi argues in the third part of her study, scientific determinism was often advocated or rejected as a substitute for other social and political issues that went far beyond the natural sciences and also involved ethical and religious beliefs. [Extracted from the article]

Companion and commentary on Alfred Wallace: Charles H. Smith, James T. Costa and David Collard (eds): An Alfred Russel Wallace companion. This is followed by "Wallace and the "Preter-normal"", a chapter that discusses in some detail Wallace's controversial adoption of spiritualism. Chapter 6 discusses "The main influences shaping Wallace's Views on Human Evolution", emphasising the "two-stage theory of human evolution" hinted at earlier, also discussing Wallace's dislike of the colonial system. [Extracted from the article]

Since there is usually thought to be a close link between selection and adaptation, one might think that the two types of agential thinking stand or fall together. Agential thinking (type 2), on the other hand, is more problematic - though it too can yield insight, it can equally easily mislead, and is an inappropriate metaphor for many forms of natural selection. My disquiet with the metaphorical personification of natural selection is that it encourages the erroneous but still widely held view that evolution by natural selection is an inherently directional process, tending towards increased fitness, but this is true only of the simplest forms of natural selection. Thus to the extent that a broadly Darwinian or adaptationist outlook is defensible, and to the extent that organisms exhibit sufficient unity of purpose, agential thinking (type 1) will generally be applicable, and will often be useful. [Extracted from the article]

These equilibrium concepts characterize a presumed end point of evolution; yet, as Okasha notes, when we look at how the evolutionary dynamics might play out, we get some results that seem to undermine the link between rationality and evolution. This is to say, it is not clear whether the results Okasha discusses "partly undermine the rational choice/natural selection parallel" (18) so much as they warn against over-reliance on ESS analysis or other equilibrium concepts. To see this, consider how the rational choice formalism would be applied to a biological case where an organism's fitness depends not only on its own phenotype, but on the phenotypes of other organisms as well. Let us consider a simple example where the fitness function is on outcomes not phenotypes, which Okasha also mentions when discussing frequency-dependent selection: the Hawk-Dove game (108). [Extracted from the article]

The agent concept is a scientific tool: Samir Okasha: Agents and goals in evolution. Okasha embarks on his discussion of agents and goals in evolution by suggesting that the widespread occurrence of these concepts within the evolutionary biology literature is odd from a wider scientific perspective. Okasha discusses Fisher's ([2]) "fundamental theorem" of natural selection, and warns that it provides no firm basis for supposing that cumulative evolutionary change across multiple generations results in perfect adaptation. This view clearly deviates from Dawkins' ([1]) selfish-allele approach, which Okasha endorses, but it appears more consistent with how evolutionary biologists actually speak of the interests of genes - particularly in relation to the intragenomic conflicts that Okasha believes most strongly motivate taking the gene's eye view at all (Gardner and Úbeda [7]). [Extracted from the article]

Why and when did "teleology" become a dirty word in biology? Not surprisingly, my favorable evaluation of the book is enhanced by Okasha's insightful treatment of my claim (since 1983) that, since biology is inescapably a matter of reverse-engineering the organisms that evolution has produced, it should adopt the intentional stance toward not just organisms, including plants and even bacteria, but toward the process of natural selection itself. Okasha would prefer to restrict "agential thinking" to organisms, but he himself recognizes the difficulty with any I criteria i for agency: "it is unclear how much behavioral plasticity counts as sufficient" (27). [Extracted from the article]

The Darwinian revolution and its counterrevolutionaries then and now: Randall Fuller: The book that changed America: how Darwin's theory of evolution ignited a nation. New York: Viking, 2017, x + 294 pp, $27.00 HB Michael J. Behe: Darwin devolves: the new science about DNA that challenges evolution. This self-taught naturalist sent a letter to Darwin from the island of Ternate while exploring the Malay Archipelago (probably March 25, 1858) outlining his theory of natural selection, prompting a shocked and distraught Darwin to finally unveil his theory (along with Wallace's letter) to the Linnean Society on July 1, 1858. Wallace's objections to Darwin's materialism were based on Darwin's own principle of utility, and Wallace's belief that natural selection primarily acted as an eliminative rather than a building force in nature (Flannery [14], 34). [Extracted from the article]

It has seldom been out of print, and in 2015 I The Annotated Malay Archipelago by Alfred Russel Wallace, i edited by John Van Wyhe appeared, updating the itinerary, and bringing the journey to life for the modern reader: it also points out Wallace's occasional errors. While, Wallace maintained, early hominids might have evolved through the agency of natural selection, as Flannery puts it: "The unique "social and sympathetic" capacities arising from advanced mental development set humans apart and freed them from the tyranny of natural selection" (16). Chapter five, "Wallace's Integrated World" seeks to reveal the essential unity of Wallace's thought. An Appendix reprints three of Wallace's most significant papers, including the one read as part of the joint Darwin-Wallace presentation to the Linnean Society in 1858, so that the evolution of his ideas can be traced. [Extracted from the article]

Jean Delville, La contre-histoire., by Daniel Guéguen & Jean Delville, The True Story., by Daniel Guéguen In the 1890s, Delville exhibited paintings in Péladan's Salons Rose+Croix and created his own gallery, called the "Salons Pour l' Art", and then a second, called the "Salons d' Art idéaliste". Guéguen concludes his book with a touching praise of Delville, whom he regrets is not better known, and adds a Masonic salutation: "Looking forward to seeing you my VDB [Very Dear Brother] Jean Delville in the eternal Orient". [Extracted from the article]

The article reviews the book "Evolution in Four Dimensions: Genetic, Epigenetic, Behavioral and Symbolic Variation in the History of Life," by Eva Jablonka and Marion J. Lamb.

Reviews the book, "A Devil's Chaplain: Reflections on Hope, Lies, Science and Love," by Richard Dawkins.