Darwin's _Entangled Bank_: The Relations Between Organisms and Natural Environment

This paper aims to determine whether Darwin’s theory of evolution was influenced by German Naturphilosophie. I start with a brief presentation of Naturphilosophie, a scientific and aesthetic approach that emphasizes the holistic understanding of the natural system and the interrelation of its parts. As I show, Naturphilosophen acknowledges the existence of a specific relation of reciprocal causality between various parts of nature, and recognize the valuable causal agency of life in the natural system. Moving forward, I analyze Darwin’s theory of evolution and identify the fundamental hypotheses of his conceptual framework. Since Naturphilosophen endorse a holistic conception of nature, and highlight the presence of reciprocal causality between its parts, I examine whether Darwin adopts any of these assumptions about the natural system. I turn to his understanding of the struggle for survival – a phenomenon that captures various relations between organisms and their environment. My analysis shows that Darwin recognizes the causal activity of the natural environment, but neglects the ability of organisms to modify their habitat for the sake of survival. Thus, he establishes the causal asymmetry between these two fundamental parts of his worldview. If that is the case, then Darwin’s theory does not represent a (fully) holistic worldview of nature, and the influence of Naturphilosophen on the formulation of his evolutionary theory is only partial.