Ahti-Veikko Pietarisen esitelmän kalvot Oscarin päivänä 28.11.2009

1. The Doctrine of Necessity (‐92); The Law of Mind (‐92); Evolutionary Love
“Philosophy, when just escaping from its golden pupa‐skin, mythology,
proclaimed the great evolutionary agency of the universe to be Love.
Or, since this pirate‐lingo, English, is poor in such‐like words, let us say
Eros, the exuberance‐love.”
“The gospel of Christ says that progress comes from every individual
merging his individuality in sympathy with his neighbors. On the other
side, the conviction of the nineteenth century is that progress takes
place by virtue of every individual's striving for himself with all his
might and trampling his neighbor under foot whenever he gets a
chance to do so. This may accurately be called the Gospel of Greed.”
Cf. The Fixation of Beliefs (1877): ”It is natural, therefore, that sympathy
and fellowship should thus produce a most ruthless power. “
”sympathy”: two meanings
1

2. “The nineteenth century is now fast sinking into the grave, and we all begin
to review its doings and to think what character it is destined to bear as
compared with other centuries in the minds of future historians. It will be
called, I guess, the Economical Century; for political economy has more
direct relations with all the branches of its activity than has any other
science. Well, political economy has its formula of redemption, too. It is
this: Intelligence in the service of greed ensures the justest prices, the
fairest contracts, the most enlightened conduct of all the dealings between
men, and leads to the summum bonum, food in plenty and perfect comfort.
Food for whom? Why, for the greedy master of intelligence.”

3. Darwin: natural selection is ”fortuituous variation” + ”crowding out of
the weak”
Lamarck: “a transmission of acquired characters of the general
nature of habit‐taking.”
“Of course, it is nonsense.”
“It is energetic projaculation … by which the new elements of form
are first created. Habit forces them to take practical shapes,
compatible with the structures they affect, and … gradually replaces
the spontaneous energy that sustains them.
Thus, habit plays a double part; it serves to establish the new
features, and also to bring them into harmony with the general
morphology and function of the animals and plants to which they
belong.
But if the reader will now kindly give himself the trouble of turning
back a page or two, he will see that this account of Lamarckian
evolution coincides with the general description of the action of
love.”

4. 1. Selective mechanisms do not direct the
adaptation, but continuously interacting habits
2. Changes not attributed to selection pressures but
love (= habits bringing them into harmony with
the general morphology)
3. Co‐evolutionary perspective
4. Baldwinian evolution
Habits are ”generalising tendencies” that enable
individuals to modify the contexts in which they operate
Not passed directly to the offspring (”energetic
projaculation”).

5. J.M. Baldwin (1896: 451), A New Factor in Evolution: ”The
ontogenetic adaptations are really new, not performed; and
they are really reproduced in succeeding generations,
although not physically inherited.” (’The Baldwin Effect’)
Love – co‐operation? Consistent with competition
Peirce: “I doubt if any of the great discoveries ought, properly,
to be considered as altogether individual achievements.”