Metaphysics, Materialism, and the Evolution of Mind by Charles Darwin

Metaphysics, Materialism, and the Evolution of Mind by Charles Darwin

First published in 1974 as a companion volume to Howard E. Gruber's "Darwin on Man", Paul H. Barrett's transcriptions of Darwin's M and N notebooks served to shed new light on the evolutionist's methods and motivation. Writing in the "New York Times Book Review", Stephen Jay Gould explained: "Darwin kept [these notebooks] primarily in 1838, when he was 29 years old. In them, he recorded his early conviction of evolutionary continuity between humans and all other animals...These notebooks display all the features of humanistic intellect that his detractors denied. We find erudition in his comments on Plato, Locke, Hume, Adam Smith, Whewell, Burke, Montaigne, Lessing and Spencer...We appreciate an artistic bent in his delight with nature and her prophet Wordsworth...We grasp the breadth of his bold attempt to clothe all human thought and behaviour in a new evolutionary garb...Charles Darwin was reconstructing the world and he knew exactly what he was doing."

"The serious Darwinist will want to possess the two notebooks with Barrett's notes and also a section including 'Old and useless Notes about the moral sense & some metaphysical points' ('useless' to Darwin in the 1850s, but not to us)" -Isis"

Paul H. Barrett was distinguished professor at Michigan State University and the editor of The Collected Papers of Charles Darwin, also published by the University of Chicago Press.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780226136592
ISBN 10	0226136590
Title	Metaphysics, Materialism, and the Evolution of Mind
Author	Charles Darwin
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	The University of Chicago Press
Year published	2011-12-15
Number of pages	252
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.