Philosophy of Science Lecture Series: "Darwinian Analogies in Argentina: The Significance of Situated Science"

Thursday, October 26th from 4:30 to 6:00 p.m. in Quinn 212

Alex Levine, PhD
Chair, Philosophy Department
University of South Florida

“Darwinian Analogies in Argentina: The Significance of Situated Science”

One explanation for the persistent failure to of philosophers account for the success of Darwin’s arguments consists in the hypothesis that these arguments, rather than following some more familiar mode of inductive reasoning, must be understood as involving inferences from analogy. I argue that understanding such inferences and their persuasive power in their particular scientific contexts demand that we treat them as culturally situated. Much about them is revealed when we explore their removal from one cultural situation and their transplantation into another. My paper considers the fate of Darwin’s analogies when removed from the familiar context of Victorian England, and taken further afield than the equally familiar contexts of nineteenthcentury Europe and North America. I explore their transformation in nineteenth-century Argentina.