THE PHILOSOPHY OF DARWINIAN EVOLUTION: HISTORICAL CONSTITUTION, CONTINGENCY, AND BIOLOGICAL INTELLIGIBILITY

Abstract

Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection transformed the scientific understanding of life, but its philosophical significance extends beyond explaining biological change. This article argues that Darwin historicizes biological form: living forms become intelligible through descent, variation, selection, environmental relations, and contingent historical processes. The central problem is whether the history through which a biological form emerges is merely relevant to its explanation or is constitutive of its intelligibility. Through philosophical and hermeneutical analysis of Darwin’s principal works, together with critical engagement with major interpretations in the philosophy and history of biology, the article examines common descent, natural selection, adaptation, teleology, contingency, genealogy, and human evolution. It argues that Darwin’s historicization entails a corresponding naturalization, relationalization, and temporalization of biological intelligibility. Contingency is treated not merely as an event within evolutionary history but as a condition for understanding why particular biological forms emerged rather than others. The article’s original contribution is to synthesise these dimensions under the concept of historical constitution, understood not as a new evolutionary mechanism but as a philosophical thesis about intelligibility: biological forms do not merely possess histories; their histories are indispensable to understanding what they are.