34 research outputs found
Internal History versus External History
The aim of this paper is to generalize a pair of concepts that are widely used in the
history of science, in art history and in historical linguistics – the concept of internal
and external history – and to replace the often very vague talk of ‘historical narratives’
with this conceptual framework of internal versus external history. I argue that this
way of framing the problem allows us to see the possible alternatives more clearly – as
a limited number of possible relations between internal and external history. Finally,
I argue that while external history is metaphysically prior to internal history, when it
comes to historical explanations, we need both
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The development of Darwin's evolutionary thought after 1859 ; A catalogue of the Darwin reprint collection at the Botany School Library, Cambridge
This thesis is not available on this repository until the author agrees to make it public. If you are the author of this thesis and would like to make your work openly available, please contact us: [email protected] Library can supply a digital copy for private research purposes; interested parties should submit the request form here: http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/collections/departments/digital-content-unit/ordering-imagesPlease note that print copies of theses may be available for consultation in the Cambridge University Library's Manuscript reading room. Admission details are at http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/collections/departments/manuscripts-university-archive
Darwin and his Critics. The Reception of Darwin's Theory of Evolution by the Scientific Community
The influence of the final cause doctrine on anatomists of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries concerning selected anatomical structures of the head and neck
Darwin, Malthus, Süssmilch, and Euler: The ultimate origin of the motivation for the theory of natural selection
It is fairly well known that Darwin was inspired to formulate his theory of natural selection by reading Thomas Malthus’s Essay on the Principle of Population. In fact, by reading Darwin’s notebooks, we can even locate one particular sentence which started Darwin thinking about population and selection. What has not been done before is to explain exactly where this sentence – essentially Malthus’s ideas about geometric population growth – came from. In this essay we show that eighteenth century mathematician Leonhard Euler is responsible for this sentence, and in fact forms the beginning of the logical chain which leads to the creation of the theory of natural selection. We shall examine the fascinating path taken by a mathematical calculation, the many different lenses through which it was viewed, and the path through which it eventually influenced Darwin