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Greg Ransom mentioned Ernst Mayr's _One Long Argument:  Charles Darwin 
and the Genesis of Modern Evolutionary Thought_, and noted that it 
provides: 
 
> 'augmentations' of Darwin's 
> argument and reconstructions of it, pushing forward 'particular 
approaches' 
> in different directions, and engaging in a good deal of what might 
> correctly be labeled 'advocacy'.  If you wanted to, you might even call 
> it 'Whig' history. 
> 
> Is there anyone who hasn't understood Darwin, and the history of Darwin's 
> biology better after reading these books, or its place in intellectual 
> history? 
 
Having read Mayr's book and learned a lot of biological theory from it, 
perhaps I can comment on the relation between it and the current 
discussion on Whig history. 
 
I read Mayr's book to be introduced to the central arguments of Darwinian 
biology in order to converse better with my friends in biology. I did not 
read it for its historical treatment of Darwinism, and in fact was 
disappointed at several points with its disregard of particular historical 
issues I was interested in (specifically, my questions about the relation 
between Malthus and Darwin in the context of Victorian culture, and the 
relation between Darwinian biology and social science in the context of 
the interwar culture, were left unanswered--but that's okay, because I 
didn't expect Mayr to be asking the same kinds of questions I do). In this 
regard, the book functioned for me in a manner similar to MacIntyre's 
_After Virtue_, although Mayr has less problems with the dominant mode of 
Darwinian thought than MacIntyre does with the dominant mode of ethical 
thought. The point I am trying to make is this: both books are 
contributions to our understanding of theory. As such, they draw upon both 
historical work and contemporary theoretical work in order to re-cast the 
fundamental questions of their discipline today. THIS IS A PERFECTLY 
LEGITIMATE EXERCISE, in fact, it is a necessary exercise occasionally in 
every discipline. The exercise of recasting our fundamental questions is 
not Whiggish (i.e., it is not simply the ratification of current theory), 
but it also fits neither the categories of rational reconstruction or 
historical 
reconstruction. Richard Rorty calls it _geistesgeschichte_, which for lack 
of a better term is the term I use. 
 
Two points I want to make: 
 
1. _Geistesgeschichten_ are a necessary part of the re-formulation of 
traditions (interpretative communities, if you will) in almost every 
generation. By re-casting the tradition's fundamental questions, they 
prevent "normal discourse" (similar to Kuhn's "normal science") from 
becoming stale and assist newcomers in placing themselves in the 
tradition's conversation. Many historians of economic thought aspire to 
writing _geistesgeschichten_, and as such are simply participating in the 
re-casting of the fundamental questions of the scientific community of 
economists. None of my comments about the history of economics have been 
aimed at denying the relevance of this work. I have simply tried to 
distinguish this work from historical work on economics. 
 
2. Good _geistesgeschichten_ are extraordinarily hard to come by; bad 
_geistesgeschichten_ are a dime a dozen. What are the criteria for a good 
_geistesgeschichte_? I don't know. 
 
Ross B. Emmett 
Augustana University College 
 
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