Arthur Schopenhauer and the Current Conception of the Origin of Species: What Did the Philosopher Anticipate?

Abstract

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) was deeply influenced by Plato and conceived each species as an Idea, whose shape is essentially and permanently predetermined. He rejected Lamarck’s proposal of organ’s use/disuse as a source of evolution, but he was close to the orthogenetic movement that developed after his death. The philosopher did not conceive biological individual variability as a source for evolution, mathematical population analysis, and gradual evolution; he even imagined an ultra-rapid saltatory model in “higher forms.” Moreover, he conceived a metaphysically based coupling among all phenomena which resembles the contemporary model of natural drift of evolution. Hence, Schopenhauer did not strictly anticipate Darwin’s model of natural selection. However, he expressed in his own words competition and struggle for life. The philosopher thus anticipated more the orthogenesis and natural drift and less the Darwinian’s mechanisms of evolution than what is generally alleged. His work is a valuable philosophical source in the contemporary search for a new synthesis in evolutionary thought.