Radick, G (2019) Darwinism and Social Darwinism. In: Breckman, W and Gordon, PE, (eds.) The Cambridge History of Modern European Thought. Cambridge University Press , Cambridge, UK , pp. 279-300. ISBN 9781316160855
Abstract
This chapter introduces the main scientific ideas associated with Darwin’s On the Origin of Species (1859) and examines the public life of these ideas, above all so-called “social Darwinism”: the notion that the survival of the fittest applies to society as well as to nature. Although the phrase “survival of the fittest” was coined by Spencer, Darwin adopted it, and also linked his theory of evolution by natural selection with human inequality. Nevertheless some of the greatest fans of Darwinism in the later nineteenth century were socialists, who represented their struggle for social justice as a continuation of the struggle underpinning natural progress. Only after 1900 did the term “social Darwinism” come to be used in its current sense, initially as a disapproving name for a minority position within European sociology, and by the mid-twentieth century as a generalized label for the naturalizing of competition and inequality. The challenges that this history raises are nowhere more complex or more distressing than in the case of Germany and Austria, where recognizably Darwinian ideas were current in the highest military circles before and during both world wars.
Metadata
Item Type: | Book Section |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2019, Cambridge University Press. This book chapter has been published in a revised form in The Cambridge History of Modern European Thought, volume one, https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316160855. This version is free to view and download for private research and study only. Not for re-distribution, re-sale or use in derivative works. |
Keywords: | biology, sociology, Darwinism, social Darwinism, survival of the fittest, race, Charles Darwin, Herbert Spencer, Karl Marx, Nazism |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures (Leeds) > School of Philosophy, Religion and History of Science (Leeds) > School of Philosophy (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 21 Sep 2018 08:57 |
Last Modified: | 19 Jan 2020 01:38 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Cambridge University Press |
Identification Number: | 10.1017/9781316160855.013 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:136023 |