The Metaphysics of Evolution

by David L. Hull

Book by Hull, David L.

Genres: Philosophy

331 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1989

About the author

David Lee Hull was an American philosopher who was most notable for founding the field philosophy of biology. Additionally, Hull is recognized within evolutionary culture studies as contributing heavily in early discussions of the conceptualization of memetics. In addition to his academic prominence, he was well known as a gay man who fought for the rights of other gay and lesbian philosophers. Hull was partnered with Richard "Dick" Wellman, a Chicago school teacher, until Wellman's passing during the drafting of Science as Process.

Reviews

[Alexander Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a series of papers written by David Hull (and a handful of coauthors). This is a core collection of papers that played a major part in founding the "Philosophy of Biology." The book is modest in the sense that it does not go into delicate details of cultural evolution so much as frames them in relation to Darwinian thinking. That said, there are many chapters/papers here which are entirely dated beyond use for most who might find this text helpful.

For myself, I was more interested in continuing to understand the thought of Hull on evolution specifically because of his relationship to memetics, however there was minimal of value here in that regard. While there is some interests here with cultural evolution, it is almost exclusively framed towards philosophy of science. While interesting insights, it runs counter to the methodologies of science of science and science and technology studies today. Since this publication, much of what Hull is pointing out is much better understood to the point of triviality at times. But still this book holds up as showing the simple beginnings of a kind of philosophy of science that would later lead to _Science as Process_.

[Roger Neyman · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you're intrigued by the theory of evolution and its impact on our understanding of nature and of ourselves, and willing to wrestle (at times) to make it through the next paragraph, this book is a worthwhile read. Several articles focus on the concept of species, and that was my main focus, so I found that to be quite rewarding. My starting point was the question of 'human nature' in light of what we're learning about the evolution of Homo Sapiens Sapiens, mainly suspicious that too much was being claimed too glibly, and I found this intuition to be amply confirmed by Dr. Hull's perspicacious observations.