Mind in Evolution as assessed through reviews of major texts

What kind of a thing are we? To find out I suggest we ask, how were we made? And one of the greatest discoveries of modern times is, we got made by having evolved. In this series of essays I review the various ideas people have come up with for how we evolved, different accounts telling us what kind of a creature we are. Be aware, these reviews are not a disengaged scholarly survey. They’re the opposite. For an impassioned advocacy of a non- physicalist natural-philosophy point of view, see the appendix.

Among the texts reviewed:

Zoonomia, by Erasmus Darwin Natural Theology, by William Paley Philosophie zoologique, by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, by Richard Chambers System of Synthetic Philosophy, by Herbert Spencer Darwin and the Darwinians, by Gertrude Himmelfarb Origin of Species, 6th edition, by Charles Darwin Social Environment and Moral Progress, by Alfred Wallace Life and Habit, by Samuel Butler Science and Philosophy of the Organism, by Hans Driesch What is Life? by Erwin Schrödinger Mind and Nature, by Gregory Bateson Creative Evolution, by Henri Bergson The Phenomenon of Man, by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin Biological Principles, by J H Woodger Genetical Theory of Natural Selection, by Ronald A. Fisher The Selfish Gene, by Richard Dawkins The Big Picture, by Sean Carroll Return of the God Hypothesis, by Stephen C Meyer Who’s in Charge? by Michael Gazzaniga Evolution and the Humanities, by David Holbrook Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge, by Edward O Wilson Evolution: A View from the 21st Century, by James Shapiro The Music of Life, by Denis Noble Mind and Cosmos, by Thomas Nagel The Great Evolution Mystery, by Gordon Rattray Taylor Limitations of Evolutionary Theory, by John Maynard Smith

For authors of texts reviewed: Download pdf