Uroboros, or biology between mythology and philosophy
ed. by W. Ługowski & K. Matsuno Wrocław
1998 Arboretum
Krzysztof Łastowski Institute of Philosophy,
Adam Mickiewicz University Szamarzewskiego 89c,
60-569 Poznań, Poland
Theoretical premises of modern sociobiological thinking can be found in the concept form ulated by Russian biologist and sociologist Peter Kropotkin (1904) w ho lived and worked at the turn o f the 19th and 20th centuries. The peculiar position o f the then-contemporary biology also had its contribution to the beginnings o f the form ative period of sociobiological thought. From the point o f view of philosophy o f science the evolutionary (Darwinian) paradigm was widespread in the last two decades o f the 19th century: the controversies around the concept of natural selection, presented by Darwin's opponents, confirm this domination even more markedly. It w as then that the idea of "mutual aid" w as form ed - the idea which, according to Kropotkin, was as essential a factor/mechanism o f evolution as the "struggle for survival". Kropotkin's concept w as immediately rejected. Consequently, the Darwinian paradigm remained unchanged form any years in its basic element, i.e. natural selection. This imperfection has been improved only by modern sociobiological ideas. The problem presented in the paper is essential for one m ore reason, namely that it indicates the existence - in the eyes o f a philosopher o f science - o f the myth o f self-sufficiency which is expressed in the belief that biological ideas are "impervious" to ideas belonging to other fields o f knowledge. If it is true that science is "governed" by paradigm s, then Kropotkin's idea could have been cognitively noticed only by W .D. Hamilton in the developmental process o f the 20th century evolutionary biology. From the point o f view o f the philosophy o f science it is worth noting that in m id-19th century Darwin (1859) and Spencer (1862) proclaim ed their concepts which caused the ideas of a "struggle for survival" and "natural selection" to become the main points of discussion on the evolution of living organ -239- http://rcin.org.pl/ifisisms. Even opponents o f evolutionary thinking became so entangled in the discussion o f Darwinian ideas that any issue not pertaining to the fundamentals of Darwinian evolution w as marginal to evolutionary biology in the making. On the other hand, evolutionary biology w as dominated by proponents and opponents of the ideas mentioned above: the struggle for survival and natural selection.
The Darwinian paradigm - to use the Kuhn's concept - dominated contemporary biology. The paradigm assumed that biological phenomena (and, in Spencer’s view, also social ones) w ere subject without exception to unrestrained mechanism s o f the "struggle for survival". This view w as supported by Hegel's philosophy which founded some appropriate concepts, such as "society of citizens" and "spiritualized animal kingdom ".
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