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Chapter 8 - Darwin and Agency – Intention or Automatism?

from Part II - Automatism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2024

By
George Levine
Edited by
Suzy Anger  and
Thomas Vranken
Suzy Anger
Affiliation:
University of British Columbia, Vancouver
Thomas Vranken
Affiliation:
University of the South Pacific
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Summary

Darwin’s theory, in its uniformitarianism, its materialism, and its elimination of all metaphysical explanations and any element of intelligent agency from the world’s biological phenomena has been taken as an important influence in the growth of the idea that all living creatures are automata – more or less “conscious machines.” Darwin himself, in a least four different aspects of his writing, belies this inference from his theories: the metaphorical work done by his dominant idea – natural selection; his anthropomorphism; his views on instinct; and his theory of sexual selection.

Keywords

anthropomorphismevolutioninstinctDarwinconscious automatamaterialismmetaphornatural selectionsexual selection
Type
Chapter
Information
Victorian Automata
Mechanism and Agency in the Nineteenth Century
 , pp. 170 - 192
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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