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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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