Vědecký status darwinismu

• Authors: Vladimír Havlík

Title variants

EN

The Scientific Status of Darwinism

• Languages of publication: CS

Abstracts

EN

The philosophical attempt to explain the scientific status of Darwinism has been given significant attention in the methodology of science. Darwinism, unlike the physical theories which act as the model of what is scientific, does not meet the usual mathematical-experimental requirements and, due to this exceptional character, raises the philosophical question of how we might either reformulate the what it means for theories to be scientific or deny the scientific status of Darwinism. The aim of this paper is review some of discussions of this question in the philosophy of science, to find an acceptable and defensible position in the spectrum of opinion, and to assess the future perspective for this evolutionary process of philosophical reflection. This paper endeavours to show, on the basis of a critique of M. Ruse, that Darwin’s theory, the core of Darwinism, is fully axiomisable and that, as such, it fits the traditional hypothetico-deductive model of scientific theories. At the same time, however, we show the reason why it has a scientific character that is exceptional and specific – we point here to the much more complex and multi-levelled theoretical synthesis of Darwinism, which is unparalleled in contemporary natural science. It is for this reason that it difficult to find methodological standards for the estimation of the scientificality of Darwinism in philosophico-methodological reflection.

Keywords

EN

methodology of science; Darwinism; Charles Darwin

Discipline

• PHILOSOPHY: PHILOSOPHY

• Publisher: Institute of Philosophy, Czech Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Filosofický časopis (Philosophical Journal)
• Year: 2009
• Volume: 57
• Issue: 6
• Pages: 837-853
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Vladimír Havlík

• Filosofický časopis, redakce, Filosofický ústav AV ČR, v.v.i., Jilská 1, 110 00 Praha 1, Czech Republic