β Scribed by Peter J Bowler
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
Progress Unchained reinterprets the history of the idea of progress using parallels between evolutionary biology and changing views of human history. Early concepts of progress in both areas saw it as the ascent of a linear scale of development toward a final goal. The 'chain of being' defined a hierarchy of living things with humans at the head, while social thinkers interpreted history as a development toward a final paradise or utopia. Darwinism reconfigured biological progress as a 'tree of life' with multiple lines of advance not necessarily leading to humans, each driven by the rare innovations that generate entirely new functions. Popular writers such as H. G. Wells used a similar model to depict human progress, with competing technological innovations producing ever-more rapid changes in society. Bowler shows that as the idea of progress has become open-ended and unpredictable, a variety of alternative futures have been imagined.
Cover
Half-title
Title page
Copyright information
Contents
List of Figures
Preface
1 Introduction: Ladders and Trees
Rethinking the Shape of Progress
Historians and the Idea of Progress
Science and the Idea of Progress
Pattern, Process and Purpose
Part I The Ladder of Progress and the End of History
2 From the Chain of Being to the Ladder of Creation
The Scale of Nature
The Chain Temporalized
Evolution in an Age of Revolution
The Law of Parallelism
Fossils and Progress
Problems with Continuity
Development and Evolution
Developmentalism in the Age of Darwin
3 The Hierarchy of Humanity
The Hierarchy of Races
The Origin of Races
Evolution and Race
The Neanderthal Phase
The Scale of Mental Development
Descending the Scale
4 Progress to Paradise: Christianity, Idealism and History
Goals and Trends
Millennium and Utopia
Idealism and History
The Pulse of Providence
Christianity and Cultural Evolution
The Legacy of Hegel
Looking Forward
5 Ascent to Utopia: The Quest for a Perfect Society
Materialism and the Ladder of Progress
Enlightenment and Progress
From Philosophical History to Utilitarianism
Positivism: Order and Progress
Social Evolutionism
Industrial (R)evolution
Marxism
6 End of an Era?
The Goal of Evolution
Spiritual Evolution
Planning for Perfection
Legacies of Marx and Hegel
Part II Towards a World of Unlimited Possibilities
7 Darwinian Visions
The New Taxonomy of Nature
Monsters and Materialism
Acquiring Adaptations
Fossils, Extinction and Divergence
Darwin and Progress
Spencer and Progress with Divergence
Life's Splendid Drama
The Modern Synthesis and Progress
Innovation and Purpose in the New Darwinism
8 The Uniqueness of Humans
Darwin on Human Origins
Rethinking the Goal
The Modern Synthesis and Human Uniqueness
9 Branching Out: The Evolution of Civilizations
The Diversity of Invention
Histories of Others
Prehistoric Branching
The New Human Sciences
Outlining History
The Invention of Invention
Fictions of the Past
10 Towards an Uncertain Future
Invention as Creation
Progress and Pragmatism
Prophets of Progress
Fictions of the Future
Future Shock
Transforming Ourselves
On the Bandwagon
11 Epilogue: Where Did It All Go Wrong?
Bibliography
Index
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