Book contents
- The Cambridge History of Modern European Thought
- The Cambridge History of Modern European Thought
- The Cambridge History of Modern European Thought
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Preface
- Introduction
- 1 German Idealism: The Thought of Modernity
- 2 European Romanticism: Ambivalent Responses to the Sense of a New Epoch
- 3 History, Tradition, and Skepticism: The Patterns of Nineteenth-Century Theology
- 4 The Young Hegelians: Philosophy as Critical Praxis
- 5 Utilitarianism, God, and Moral Obligation from Locke to Sidgwick
- 6 Capital, Class, and Empire: Nineteenth-Century Political Economy and Its Imaginary
- 7 Positivism in European Intellectual, Political, and Religious Life
- 8 European Liberalism in the Nineteenth Century
- 9 European Socialism from the 1790s to the 1890s
- 10 Conservatism: The Utility of History and the Case against Rationalist Radicalism
- 11 The Woman Question: Liberal and Socialist Critiques of the Status of Women
- 12 Darwinism and Social Darwinism
- 13 Historicism from Ranke to Nietzsche
- 14 Philology, Language, and the Constitution of Meaning and Human Communities
- 15 Decadence and the “Second Modernity”
- 16 Nihilism, Pessimism, and the Conditions of Modernity
- 17 Civilization, Culture, and Race: Anthropology in the Nineteenth Century
- 18 The Varieties of Nationalist Thought
- 19 Ideas of Empire: Civilization, Race, and Global Hierarchy
- 20 Rethinking Revolution: Radicalism at the End of the Long Nineteenth Century
- Index
12 - Darwinism and Social Darwinism
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 August 2019
- The Cambridge History of Modern European Thought
- The Cambridge History of Modern European Thought
- The Cambridge History of Modern European Thought
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Preface
- Introduction
- 1 German Idealism: The Thought of Modernity
- 2 European Romanticism: Ambivalent Responses to the Sense of a New Epoch
- 3 History, Tradition, and Skepticism: The Patterns of Nineteenth-Century Theology
- 4 The Young Hegelians: Philosophy as Critical Praxis
- 5 Utilitarianism, God, and Moral Obligation from Locke to Sidgwick
- 6 Capital, Class, and Empire: Nineteenth-Century Political Economy and Its Imaginary
- 7 Positivism in European Intellectual, Political, and Religious Life
- 8 European Liberalism in the Nineteenth Century
- 9 European Socialism from the 1790s to the 1890s
- 10 Conservatism: The Utility of History and the Case against Rationalist Radicalism
- 11 The Woman Question: Liberal and Socialist Critiques of the Status of Women
- 12 Darwinism and Social Darwinism
- 13 Historicism from Ranke to Nietzsche
- 14 Philology, Language, and the Constitution of Meaning and Human Communities
- 15 Decadence and the “Second Modernity”
- 16 Nihilism, Pessimism, and the Conditions of Modernity
- 17 Civilization, Culture, and Race: Anthropology in the Nineteenth Century
- 18 The Varieties of Nationalist Thought
- 19 Ideas of Empire: Civilization, Race, and Global Hierarchy
- 20 Rethinking Revolution: Radicalism at the End of the Long Nineteenth Century
- Index
Summary
Whoever says “social Darwinism” says “survival of the fittest, in society as in nature.” There are good reasons to regret that the term ever acquired this meaning, and good historical studies to learn from in understanding how and why it nevertheless became the entrenched meaning. But there is also an oft-mentioned bad reason for regret, linked to bad history. Social Darwinism, it is sometimes said, has nothing whatever to do with Charles Darwin (1809–1882) or with the body of time-tested facts, theories, and practices deriving from Darwin’s work. On this view, Darwinism is science, and social Darwinism a pseudo-science masquerading as an application of Darwinism.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge History of Modern European Thought , pp. 279 - 300Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2019
- 5
- Cited by