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DARWIN AMONG THE PHILOSOPHERS:HULL AND RUSE ON DARWIN,HERSCHEL, AND WHEWELL

Phillip Honenberger

In a series of articles and books published in the 1970s, David Hull (1935–2010) andMichael Ruse (1940–) proposed interpretations of the relation between nineteenth-century British philosophy of science, on the one hand, and the views and methodsof Charles Darwin, on the other, that were incompatible or at least in strong interpre-tive tension with one another. According to Hull, John Herschel’s and William Whe-well’s philosophies of science were logically incompatible with Darwin’s revolutionarytheory. According to Ruse, however, Darwin discovered and developed his theorythrough direct adherence to those philosophies. Here, I reconstruct Hull’s and Ruse’sinterpretations of the Herschel-Whewell-Darwin relationship and then, drawing onHull’s and Ruse’s published record and archival correspondence in the years 1968–76—particularly regarding reduction, laws, and species—I offer an explanation for theirdifferences, namely, their different orientations to logical empiricism.

1. Introduction

In a series of articles and books published in the 1970s, David Hull (1935–2010) and Michael Ruse (1940–) proposed very different interpretations of

Contact Phillip Honenberger at the Department of History and Philosophy of Science, Universityof Pittsburgh, 1101 Cathedral of Learning, 4200 Fifth Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15260 ([email protected]).

Research for this article was supported by funding from the National Science Foundation, grant#1632593. I thank audiences at the 2015 meeting of the International Society for the History, Philos-ophy, and Social Studies of Biology, the 2015 meeting of the Society for the Philosophy of Science inPractice, and Dartmouth College’s 2016 Ecology, Evolution, Ecosystems, and Society lunch series foropportunities to present early drafts of the article and for feedback; Abraham Gibson and LynnetteRegouby for comments on an early draft; Michael Dietrich, Matt Lund, Daniel Nicholson, MichaelRuse, and Betty Smocovitis for conversations on the article’s themes; and Lance Lugar and staff at

HOPOS: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science, vol. 8 (Fall 2018).2152-5188/2018/0802-0002$10.00. © 2018 by the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science.All rights reserved. Electronically published September 5, 2018.

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the relation between nineteenth-century British philosophy of science, onthe one hand, and the views and methods of Charles Darwin, on the other. ForHull (1972/1989, 1973), John Herschel’s and William Whewell’s philosophiesof science could not support Darwin’s revolutionary theory, owing to incom-patibilities between Darwin’s theory and Herschel’s and Whewell’s methodo-logical and metaphysical commitments. According to Ruse (1975/1989, 1979),however, Darwin’s discovery of his theory was largely due to his adherence tothe prescriptions of Herschel’s and Whewell’s philosophies of science. On theface of it, these interpretations are incompatible or at least in strong tension withone another. How is the divergence to be explained?

Without seeking to resolve the issue concerning Darwin, Herschel, andWhewell directly (about which a fair bit has been written),1 here I use Hull’sand Ruse’s divergent interpretations of that relationship as an entryway intoexploring their own philosophical differences in the 1960s and 1970s. One im-portant factor leading to differences in their Darwin interpretations, I argue,was Hull’s and Ruse’s different orientations to another set of controversies char-acterizing the philosophy of science of their day, namely, that concerning theadequacy of the logical positivist or logical empiricist heritage to the philoso-phy of science in general and the philosophy of biology in particular.2 Accord-ing to standard narratives of the history of philosophy of science, the status oflogical positivism or logical empiricism was very much contested at the time, astory supported by the hypothesis proposed here.3 Hull’s and Ruse’s differencesregarding this tradition are clearly evidenced both in published articles (includ-ing discussions of one another’s work) and in unpublished correspondence inthe years 1965–75—that is, the years leading up to the publication of theirDarwin interpretations.4 In addition to explicit statements of affiliation withor criticism of logical positivism or logical empiricism as such, these differencesare further manifest in their positions on a number of contested issues such asreduction, laws, and species.

1. For an overview, see Hodge (2008, 2009) and Pence (2018).2. Following Uebel (2013), I assume that “logical positivism” and “logical empiricism” designate the

same tradition, although I also follow the practice of using the terms differently to signal historicallyearlier and later representatives, respectively. See Godfrey-Smith (2003, chap. 2) for an example. Ruseand Hull refer to “logical empiricism” more often than to “logical positivism.”

3. See Callebaut (1993), Godfrey-Smith (2003), Zammito (2004), and Nye (2011) for versions ofthis narrative. Some recent literature has challenged the narrative: see Zammito (2004, 279 n. 15) for alist of sources.

4. The unpublished correspondence is found in the David L. Hull Papers, 1965–2004, ASP2005.01, Archives of Scientific Philosophy, Archives & Special Collections, University of PittsburghLibrary System.

the Archives of Scientific Philosophy, University of Pittsburgh, for assistance in accessing the DavidHull papers. All errors are my own.

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In what follows, I provide a brief overview of the main aspects of the Herschel-Whewell-Darwin relationship relevant toHull’s and Ruse’s readings (sec. 2), con-duct a close comparative reading of Hull’s and Ruse’s divergent interpretations ofthat relationship (secs. 3–5), and propose an explanation of Hull’s and Ruse’s en-gagement with the topic in the first place, as well as their differences (secs. 6–7).

2. Overview of the Herschel-Whewell-Darwin Relation

A detailed discussion of Herschel’s and Whewell’s views in their own terms hasbeen conducted elsewhere and is not the central focus of this essay.5 Nonethe-less, it may be helpful to briefly summarize those features of Herschel’s andWhewell’s philosophies, as well as their relations to Darwin, on which Hull’sand Ruse’s interpretations agree.

JohnHerschel’s Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy (1830)argued for the great social utility of the physical sciences (in pt. 1) and provided asurvey of current physical theory covering such topics as “force,” “the communi-cation of motion,” and “sound and light” (in pt. 3). The middle of the book(pt. 2) concerned method: “the principles on which physical science relies forits successful prosecution, and the rule by which a systematic examination of na-ture should be conducted” (vi). There, Herschel addressed the topics of observa-tion, causation, induction, and laws of nature, among others. His views on theseissues bear similarities to the British empiricist tradition, as in John Locke andThomas Reid, claiming a primary evidentiary role for observation, observabletests, and analogies with cases of direct experience in scientific theory formationand confirmation.

William Whewell’s three-volume History of the Inductive Sciences, from theEarliest to the Present Times (1837) and his two-volume Philosophy of the InductiveSciences, Founded upon Their History (1840) featured detailed discussions of(among other subjects) physics, biology, geology, and the history of philosophy.Whewell’s views were influenced by Plato’s and Immanuel Kant’s epistemologiesand displayed idealist elements. He posited a fitting of repeated experience tofixedmental ideas, which he called “Fundamental Ideas” and “Ideal Conceptions”(1840, 36–41), as fundamental to science. These function similarly to Kantiancategories or Platonic ideas and include, for instance, space, time, and cause.Countering what he perceived as the overreaching of empiricism, Whewell ar-gued that sensory experience alone was insufficient to produce scientific knowl-edge.

5. See, e.g., Snyder (2011, 2017), Cobb (2012), and the references listed in those works.

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Darwin read some of the major texts expressive of Herschel’s and Whewell’sphilosophies of science. According to Darwin’s own autobiography, his readingof Herschel’s Preliminary Discourse in 1830 filled him with “a burning zeal toadd even the most humble contribution to the noble structure of Natural Sci-ence” (1888, 1:55). Darwin’s notebooks show a familiarity withWhewell’sHis-tory by 1839 at the latest, and Darwin probably began reading the work around1837 (Barrett et al. 1987, E37, 415). Darwin indicated his intention to readWhewell’s Philosophy, but it seems likely he never did; however, he read Her-schel’s long review of that work (Herschel 1841). Furthermore, Darwin knewboth Herschel and Whewell personally. The three men ran in the same circles,including the Geological Society of London. Darwin corresponded fairly exten-sively with Herschel and noted his conversations with Whewell in his autobiog-raphy. The epigram at the start of the Origin (Darwin 1859) is drawn (some-what enigmatically) from Whewell’s Bridgewater Treatise (1833), and there isno question that Darwin eagerly sought Herschel’s approval for the Origin.

Yet, Herschel and Whewell failed to favor Darwin’s theory in the wake of its1859 publication and even responded negatively. Herschel called Darwin’s the-ory the “law of higgledy-piggledy.”6 It is reported (perhaps apocryphally) thatWhewell prohibited the inclusion of any edition of Darwin’s Origin on theshelves of the library at Trinity College, of which Whewell was master.

3. Hull’s Interpretation

In “Charles Darwin and Nineteenth-Century Philosophies of Science” (1972/1989) and the 70-plus-page introduction to Darwin and His Critics (1973),Hull takes up the question of why the most prominent philosophers of scienceof Darwin’s time and national background—particularly Herschel, Whewell,and John Stuart Mill—failed to be convinced of Darwin’s theory by the argu-ments he proposed on its behalf. In his answer, Hull construes Herschel’s andWhewell’s influence on philosophy and science as primarily retrograde: “Pro-fessional philosophers of science played a significant role in the reception ofevolutionary theory. Unfortunately, this role was largely negative” (1973, 32).For Hull, Darwin’s theory implied and required an alternative philosophy of sci-ence that had not yet been invented: “Evolutionary theory was not just another

6. Charles Darwin to Charles Lyell, December 12, 1859: “I have heard, by a roundabout channel,that Herschel says my book ‘is the law of higgledy-piggledy.’ What this exactly means I do not know,but it is evidently very contemptuous. If true this is a great blow and discouragement” (Darwin 1888,2:241).

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scientific theory. It was a theory that struck at the very foundations of the phi-losophies of science that were being used to judge it” (32).

The introduction to Hull (1973) is broken into four main sections, devotedto induction, occult qualities, teleology, and essentialism. These topics were se-lected as central themes of the philosophy of science of Darwin’s time. In eachsection, Hull discusses widespread commitments regarding the theme in ques-tion, showing how these variously were or were not compatible with Darwin’stheory. Hull’s analysis is summarized in table 1. (I have left Hull’s descriptionof the views of some figures, such as Bacon and Mill, out of the table.)

Regarding each of these main themes, Hull describes widespread confusionand some divergence of opinion between his actors. Nonetheless, Hull claimsthat Herschel’s and Whewell’s rejection of Darwin’s theory was logically neces-sitated by their philosophical commitments. As I read the main argument ofHull’s text—although this is buried to some extent by the text’s admirable de-tail—it was ultimately Herschel’s and Whewell’s essentialism (basically, the as-sumption that the phenomena that science studies can be organized into dis-crete and stable kinds) that was most significant in necessitating their rejectionof Darwin’s theory. Herschel’s and Whewell’s avowed commitments to an “in-ductive” logic of justification did not by itself necessitate this rejection (al-though combined with their other commitments, it did—see below), nor didHerschel’s warning against “occult qualities” or the two figures’ commitmentsto teleological explanations.

In Hull’s account, commitment to an inductive process of justification (i.e.,“inductivism”) is not necessarily incompatible with Darwin’s theory, at leastnot under all renderings of that often inexplicit notion, “induction,” althoughHerschel’s and Whewell’s specific versions of inductivism were. Herschel’s for-mulation of the inductive canon required that good inductions net their con-clusions with certainty, and the only inductive procedure adequate to this stan-dard, on Herschel’s view, was so-called eliminative induction: the enumerationof possible causes of the event to be explained, followed by empirical tests suf-ficient to rule out the sufficiency of all such causes but one (Hull 1973, 21–25). This version of induction can only achieve certainty under the assumptionthat the enumerated causes form a finite set of natural kinds. If the propertiesof possible causes can change from one causal situation to another, then elim-inative induction cannot offer certainty. A gradualist evolutionary theory suchas Darwin’s allows that possible causes (e.g., species or species attributes) canchange in this way. Therefore, even here (according to Hull) it is really Her-schel’s essentialism that brings his view into conflict with Darwin’s theory.

Likewise, Hull claims, Whewell’s view of induction is not strictly incompat-ible with Darwin’s theory of evolutionism as such; but Whewell’s essentialism

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Table1.

Overviewof

Hull,Darwin

andHisCritics(1973,3

–77)

Logicof

Discovery

Logicof

Justificatio

nUnobservableQualities

Acceptable?

Com

mitm

ent

toTeleology?

Com

mitm

entto

Speciesas

NaturalKinds/Essentialism?

Aristotle

Intuition

ofessences

Intuition

ofessences

Yes

Yes(I)

Herschel

Indu

ctionby

complete

elim

ination,*and

dedu

ction

Indu

ctionby

complete

elim

ination,*and

dedu

ction(P)

Not

acceptable(P)

Yes,externalteleology(P)

Yes(I)

Whewell

None

Self-evidence

(C)

Acceptable(C)

Yes,externalteleologyand

immanentteleologyy(P)

Yes(I)

Hull

None

Acceptun

certainty;perhaps

hypothetico-indu

ctive

model(C)

Acceptable;judged

bydegree

ofprecisionandorganiza-

tionthey

contribu

teand

theirconn

ectio

nto

empirical

data(C)

Unclear;p

erhaps

“yes”to

nontheologicalim

manent

teleology(C)

No(C)

Note.—C5

Com

patib

lewith

Darwin’stheory.P

5Prim

afacie(i.e.,at

firstglance)compatib

lewith

Darwin’stheory.I

5Incompatib

lewith

Darwin’stheory.

*Herschel’s

“ind

uctio

nby

completeelim

ination”

entails

acommitm

entto

naturalk

inds.S

eetext

forexplanation.

y Whewell’s

“immanentteleology”

entails

acommitm

entto

naturalk

inds.S

eetext

forexplanation.

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absolutely is. Hull writes, “Nothing in Whewell’s second-level philosophy ofscience was incompatible with evolutionary theory. He did not concur in thepopular conviction that a strict logic of discovery would assure truth. In the col-ligation of ideas why not superinduce the idea of evolution by natural selectionon the facts? Certain ideas are self-evident. Why not evolution? The answercan be found at a deeper level in a belief which Whewell shared with Aris-totle, Bacon, Herschel, andMill, a belief in the existence of natural kinds defin-able by a single set of necessary and sufficient conditions, a belief in essences”(1973, 36).

Regarding occult qualities, Hull claims that his actors did not agree on whatmarkers reveal a quality to be an occult one, nor did any of them provide asatisfactory account of the distinction (1973, 37, 42). The difficulty of speci-fying the distinction between occult and nonoccult qualities had become press-ing in efforts to reconcile Bacon’s explicit criticism of such qualities with suchpuzzling apparent exceptions to this principle as the (not directly observable)Newtonian gravitational force (43–49).

Hull himself suggests a solution to this problem, at least in part, by distin-guishing between two kinds of qualities that are sometimes said to be occult:“theoretical entities for which indirect evidence can be obtained and metaphys-ical entities which are unobservable in principle” (1973, 37; emphasis added).Only the latter deserve to be scorned. Certain entities that Newton’s and Dar-win’s theories recognize (such as gravitational force, speciation events, and theorigins of life) but that critics claim to be occult ought to be understood as the-oretical, not as metaphysical. (Newton’s “Hypotheses non fingo” shows a mis-understanding of this point, according to Hull.) Hull further suggests thatqualities are only observable, theoretical, or metaphysical within the context ofan overall theory. What are “metaphysical” qualities within the context of a giventheory are often ones that seemed “observable” in an earlier era of scientific the-orizing and explanation. As inquiry advances, and the empirical and theoreticalmotivations for recognizing such qualities wane in the wake of new facts andtheories, the rationale for recognizing these entities retreats to a merely intuitive,traditional, or ad hoc level. Aristotle’s essences are, for Hull, a paradigm case ofthis phenomenon (38–43).7

Herschel’s andWhewell’s commitment to an “external” teleology—the viewthat God created the world and its laws in accordance with his purposes, even if

7. The last point is significant insofar as it provides further evidence for the view that Hull had es-sences “on the brain” while composing this introduction. By this point in his career, he had alreadypublished lengthy and influential attacks on essentialism in biology (e.g., Hull 1965a, 1965b).

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he refrained from any further involvement subsequent to that creation—wasalso compatible with Darwin’s theory, even if not with Darwin’s personal the-ology. (Herschel’s and Whewell’s views that such external teleology could be apart of good science did, however, break with Darwin’s conception of the meth-odological canons of good science.) Finally, Whewell’s commitment to an “im-manent” teleology—the view that organisms and perhaps other objects of na-ture have their purposes inherent to or “in” them—was only incompatiblewith Darwin’s view insofar as the gradualism of Darwinian evolution precludeda fixed correlation between a type of natural object (e.g., a species) and its attri-butes (here purposes, tendencies, or ends).

In the 1972 article, Hull’s central message is the same: it was primarilyHerschel’s and Whewell’s commitments to natural kinds, and only secondly(and less significantly) their commitments to teleology, that made their rejec-tion of Darwin’s theory logically unavoidable:

Empiricists [like Herschel] and idealists [like Whewell] alike were op-posed to species evolving and with good reason. Evolution by chancevariation and natural selection conflicted with teleology, but with suffi-cient modification these philosophies could do without teleology. Anyevolution at all, regardless of the mechanisms, if it were gradual, conflictedwith the essentialist notion of natural kinds, and none of these phi-losophies [i.e., Herschel’s or Whewell’s] could do without natural kinds.The empiricists and idealists attributed a different ontological status tonatural kinds, but both agreed that their existence was absolutely neces-sary if knowledge was to be possible. Thus Peirce (1877) was correctwhen he observed, “The Darwinian controversy is, in large part, a ques-tion of logic,” and Dewey (1910) when he concluded, “The real signif-icance of Darwinian evolution was the introduction of [a] new ‘mode ofthinking,’” and thus to transform the “logic of knowledge.” (1972/1989,36–37)

Following Hull’s account, it is hard to imagine how anyone could adhere toHerschel’s and Whewell’s philosophies of science and be convinced by Dar-win’s argument in the Origin or of the validity of the theory he intended tosupport by that argument. Herschel’s and Whewell’s philosophies, to whateverextent they had an intellectual influence, could only have interfered withDarwin’s ability to draw the radical conclusions he did, as well as with the abil-ity of Darwin’s contemporaries and successors to extend the theory profitablyto new domains of application and to convince wider audiences of its truth.

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4. Ruse’s Interpretation

In “Darwin’s Debt to Philosophy” (1975/1989) and The Darwinian Revolution(1979), Michael Ruse presented a vastly different account of Darwin’s relationto Herschel’s and Whewell’s philosophies of science. On Ruse’s account, Dar-win’s methodological sophistication was due, in large part, to his familiaritywith the increasingly robust discipline of “philosophy of science” taking shapein Darwin’s day. The major figures here are, again, Herschel and Whewell. OnRuse’s account, Darwin’s eventual conviction in his theory derived in part fromits coincidence with Herschelian and Whewellian ideals, and Darwin’s debt toHerschel and Whewell is manifest in Darwin’s written presentation of his the-ory. Ruse writes, “An important factor in Charles Darwin’s development of histheory of evolution through natural selection was the philosophy of science inEngland in the 1830s. When this factor is recognized, then new light is thrownboth uponDarwin’s discovery of his evolutionarymechanism and upon the wayin which he prepared his theory for public presentation” (1975/1989, 9). Rusehighlights two features of Herschel’s and Whewell’s philosophies of science ashaving a particularly strong influence on Darwin: the Newtonian ideal of quan-titative laws and the vera causa (or “true cause”) ideal: “Were one to single outfrom the Herschel-Whewell philosophy the two features most likely to be man-ifested in any scientific theory consciously influenced by the philosophy, theywould probably be: first, the hypothetico-deductive model [i.e., a law-basedor “covering law” model—see further discussion below], and secondly the useof one central mechanism or cause to explain phenomena in widely differentareas [i.e., the consilience formulation of the vera causa ideal—again, see be-low]. Both of these features are manifested, to a significant extent, in Darwin’stheory in the Origin” (16).

According to Ruse, both Herschel and Whewell were methodological New-tonians, considering explanations of phenomena by universally instantiatednatural laws to be the highest methodological ideal in the sciences: “For Her-schel the paradigmatic sciences were the physical sciences, particularly Newto-nian astronomy (of the 1830s), and the claims Herschel made about the wayscience is, or ought to be, reflect this bias”; “Herschel and Whewell . . . pre-sented to the world a philosophy of science inspired chiefly by Newtonianphysics, particularly Newtonian astronomy” (1975/1989, 10, 30). In supportof the thesis that Darwin sought to follow this ideal, Ruse points to Darwin’sexcited reaction on first reading Malthus’s Essay on Population in 1838. Thisreaction, Ruse claims, was due to the recognition that Malthus’s model couldprovide a quantitative law for Darwin’s budding theory, as would be requiredby Herschel’s and Whewell’s Newton-inspired philosophies of science:

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Understanding the importance for Darwin of the Herschel-Whewell phi-losophy, Malthus’ contribution to Darwin’s discovery becomes readilyexplicable. Malthus showed Darwin how he could locate the struggle,with the consequent selection, in a hypothetico-deductively organizednetwork of laws; of laws which were, moreover, quantitative; in Her-schel’s and Whewell’s eyes the best kind of laws. . . . He now had quan-titative laws, leading deductively to the struggle, which he was then ableto extend to selection. Thanks to Malthus, Darwin was able to put hismechanism for evolutionary change into a satisfactory context, a context,that is, which satisfied the Herschel-Whewell theory ideal. (20–21)

The second methodological ideal that Ruse claims Darwin shared withthese philosophers, the vera causa (or “true cause”) ideal, requires that good sci-entific explanations appeal to causes that are “true” rather than only hypothe-sized or imagined.8 Seeking to fulfill this ideal raises a difficult question, how-ever: What does it mean to say a putative cause is a “true” one? Ruse (1975/1989) notes three criteria of verae causae recognized by his historical actors:

1. The theory explains phenomena on the basis of a cause that is knownby observation to be operative in at least some cases.

2. The theory explains phenomena that one did not expect it to explain.3. The theory explains phenomena in multiple domains (called by

Whewell “consilience of inductions”).

To contemporary philosophers of science, these criteria will sound familiar. Thefirst is similar to Humean inductive accounts and had been expressed byCharles Lyell and the geological “uniformitarians” in their debates with thecatastrophists. The second is similar to Bayesian theories of confirmation (seeEarman 1992 or Strevens 2012). The last is a kind of coherentist or holist cri-terion, similar to Kitcher’s (1981) “explanatory unification” or contemporaryaccounts of robustness.

Ruse argues that while Herschel and Whewell largely agree about the veracausa ideal, they also exhibit differences. Herschel, in continuity with the Brit-ish empiricist tradition, conceives of these verae causae as best known by anal-ogy from cases in which they are directly observed (i.e., criterion 1; Ruse 1975/

8. The term vera causa derives from the first of Newton’s regulae philosophandi (Newton 1687/1995,bk. 3), which reads, “We are not to admit other causes of natural things than such as both are true andsuffice for explaining their phenomena” (quotation from Butts [1970, 134]).

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1989, 24–25). Whewell, however, sees the primary criterion of a vera causa inthe breadth and variety of facts it is capable of explaining (criterion 3).9

As is well known, Darwin (1859) begins theOrigin with a description of the“artificial” selection practices of breeders, including of sheep, dogs, plants, andpigeons (chap. 1). Darwin then appeals to parallels between these cases and theMalthusian conditions of natural populations to argue for the widespread op-eration of the mechanism of natural selection (chaps. 2–4). Ruse interprets thisargument as following a Herschelian standard, namely, the establishment ofnatural selection as a criterion 1 vera causa. Ruse notes Herschel’s example, drawnfromNewton’s Principia, of a person whirling a rock attached to a string in a circleabove his or her head. Newton argued that just as the rock is retained in its orbitby the force of the string acting upon it, so the orbits of the planets around thesun may be explained by the operation of an analogous force, gravity (1687/1995, Def. V). On Ruse’s account, Darwin’s appeal to artificial selection in thefirst chapter of the Origin, to show the reality of selection as a force sufficientto explain the diversity of species (in the form of natural selection), is a parallelform of reasoning, conducted in deliberate adherence to the methodological pro-tocol Herschel expresses in this example.

Finally, Ruse (1975/1989, 16–17, 26) sees Darwin’s discussion of biogeog-raphy, paleontology, and embryology in chapters 9–13 of the Origin as aimedat establishing a Whewellian, criterion 3 vera causa. When, in the wake of thepublication of the Origin, critics challenged Darwin’s theory’s sufficiency bycriteria 1 and 2, Darwin increasingly appealed to criterion 3 in defense (Ruse1979, 236).10

On Ruse’s account, the argumentative structure of the Origin is based onDarwin’s understanding of the methodological canons of good science, an un-derstanding formed by his study of Herschel and Whewell. To celebrate theOrigin, therefore, is to celebrate the philosophies of science of Darwin’s day.

5. Summarizing the Differences, and an Objection

In sum, the main points of agreement and disagreement between Hull’s andRuse’s interpretations are the following. The first is Herschel’s and Whewell’sinfluence on Darwin. Hull and Ruse agree that Darwin read Herschel and

9. Ruse (1979) stresses this difference between Herschel and Whewell more so than Ruse (1975/1989).

10. Other aspects of the historical record that Ruse seeks to explain with his hypothesis are the pressurethatDarwin apparently felt to produce a workable genetic theory and the special importance, forDarwin, ofcriterion 2 in his treatment of embryology (1975/1989, 26–30). I pass over these arguments here.

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Whewell and was influenced by them. Yet, Hull reads this influence as unfor-tunate and indicative of philosophy of science’s low level of development at thetime (Darwin admirably went to the supposed authorities on the subject, butthey misled him), whereas Ruse reads the influence as a catalyst both for Dar-win’s discovery of his theory and for its presentation (the search for explanatoryprinciples with a lawlike character and for evidence that the principles in ques-tion are verae causae).

The second pertains to Herschel’s and Whewell’s motives for rejectingDarwin’s theory. Hull and Ruse agree that both Herschel andWhewell rejectedDarwin’s theory, but they gauge the motives for that rejection differently. ForHull, the matter is fundamentally logical: Herschel’s conception of science (in-cluding his theory of confirmation) relied on the possibility of parsing entitiesinto natural kinds. If this would no longer be possible for “species” on Darwin’sview—or (therefore) possible for other traditionally recognized kinds in biol-ogy such as “live births” and “lungs” (Hull 1974, 52)—then Darwin’s viewcould not possibly be correct. More precisely, it could not be scientific: its ex-planatory mechanism would amount to an oxymoronic “law of higgledy-piggledy,” as Herschel had charged. And Whewell’s Platonic and Kantian sym-pathies similarly entailed a commitment to essentialism. None of these viewswere logically compatible with a gradualist evolutionary theory such as Darwin’s.

But in Ruse’s account, this logical motive barely appears. Herschel’s andWhewell’s rejections are due rather to the deadly challenge that accepting Dar-win’s view would pose to their theological commitments. In Ruse’s account, allof the relevant actors—from Lyell to Whewell to Herschel to Darwin—wereplaying a dangerous game with the division of epistemic authority between sci-ence and theology. Whewell had even argued from what he had claimed toshow of the limits of scientific explanation, to the necessity of positing a divineagent as cause (Ruse 1979, 87–91). From this perspective, Darwin had movedback the line that distinguished theology’s domain from that of the sciences.Lyell’s and Herschel’s views were different from Whewell’s, but the same effortto grant yet divide authority characterizes each. Darwin’s disruption of thiscarefully negotiated balance of power between theology and science was theprimary factor in Whewell’s and Herschel’s rejection of his theory, accordingto Ruse.

And finally, the third point concerns induction. Hull and Ruse agree thatDarwin spoke of his method as “inductive.” But Hull sees this self-attributionas a symptom of the confusing plurality of (inconsistent) meanings attaching tothe term “inductive” at the time (Hull 1973, 16–17), while Ruse sees it as amark of a sophisticated set of techniques aimed at establishing a putative causeas a vera causa (criteria 1–3 in sec. 4 above).

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At this point, it might be wondered whether Hull’s and Ruse’s accounts arereally incompatible.11 In a sense, Hull and Ruse are asking different questions:What did Darwin borrow from Herschel and Whewell? (Ruse), and why didHerschel and Whewell reject Darwin’s theory? (Hull). Furthermore, what Dar-win borrowed fromHerschel andWhewell—their methodological protocols—need not be the same as those substantive commitments that Hull argues ne-cessitated Herschel’s and Whewell’s rejection of Darwin’s theory. Is it notentirely self-consistent to hold that Darwin borrowed some methodologicalprotocols of his predecessors, on the one hand, and to hold that these protocolshelped him to arrive at a theory that contradicted some other views held by hispredecessors, on the other?

It is true that Ruse and Hull are asking different questions. However, partlybecause of the differences in these questions and partly owing to the specifics oftheir answers, they end up construing the relation between Herschel, Whewell,and Darwin in very different ways: positively and sympathetically, on the onehand, and negatively and in tension with one another, on the other. The dif-ference is accentuated when we consider the divergent implications of eachconstrual for Darwin’s place in the history of science (and the history of thephilosophy of science). Ruse’s narrative implies a strong methodological con-tinuity from Newton to Darwin to the present. Hull’s narrative, in contrast,implies a continuous commitment to essentialism running from Aristotelianthrough Newtonian science, and it sees Darwin’s view as initiating a radicalbreak with that commitment—a break we still stand in the midst of, and strug-gle to make sense of, today. Even if their narratives are logically compatible,therefore, they are in what might be described as an affective or interpretivetension with one another. Whether Hull’s and Ruse’s views are only in inter-pretive tension or are actually incompatible, it is worth asking how and whytwo philosophers of biology of roughly the same generation could have devel-oped such different views of their common historical subject matter.12

6. Explaining the Similarities and Differences

In this section, I will argue that Hull’s and Ruse’s interpretive divergence on theHerschel-Whewell-Darwin relation may be partially explained by Hull’s and

11. I thank an anonymous reviewer for this objection.12. The point that scientific figures like Newton or Darwin may be differently cast by different

historical accounts, and that these alternative castings can tell us something about the narrators as wellas the narrated subject, is of course common knowledge among historians. Some particularly creativeand instructive studies of these alternative castings in the case of Darwin include La Vergata (1985),Depew and Weber (1995), Depew (2005), Smocovitis (2005), and Browne (2010).

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Ruse’s divergent orientations to a larger set of controversies in the philosophyof science of their time, namely, that concerning the strengths and limitationsof what was then called “logical positivism” or “logical empiricism.” By thetime Hull and Ruse wrote their historical accounts of Darwin’s debts to anddifferences from Herschel and Whewell in the 1970s, central tenets of the pos-itivist legacy in philosophy of science had been influentially challenged. ThomasKuhn and Paul Feyerabend are perhaps the best-known representatives of thesechallenges, but many figures—among them Michael Scriven, Wilfrid Sellars,W. V. O. Quine, Patrick Suppes, and N. R. Hanson—had publicly and influ-entially challenged canonical positivist commitments.13 Hull and Ruse werequite aware of these debates. Their differences in orientation on logical empir-icism’s adequacy as a philosophy of science were notable and particularly rele-vant where they touched on the applicability or correctness of logical empiricistphilosophies of science to biology.14

A consideration of Hull’s and Ruse’s published texts and unpublished cor-respondence in the years immediately preceding the appearance of their Dar-win interpretations (esp. 1968–73) gives evidence of these differences.15 Takenas a whole, these differences in orientation may be summed up (if a bit sim-plistically) as follows: Hull saw modern biology and logical empiricist philos-ophies of science as at odds with one another, whereas Ruse saw them as fullycompatible. Given the similarity of some of Herschel’s and Whewell’s commit-ments to those of the logical empiricists, the difference in orientation helps toexplain Hull’s and Ruse’s differences in interpretation of Darwin as well.16

Starting as early as 1968, Ruse and Hull were in regular correspondence.This correspondence included exchanged drafts of papers and books as wellas reflections on the state of the field, other work being done in the field, and ca-reer opportunities and changes. Nearly every text that either of the two figurespublished from 1969 to 1975 appears to have been shared, and commented on

13. Again, see Callebaut (1993), Godfrey-Smith (2003), Zammito (2004), and Nye (2011). Tosome extent, it was senior positivists themselves who led the charge: e.g., Hempel (1950).

14. Evidence of the importance of these two controversies—that regarding the adequacy of logicalempiricism as a philosophy of science in general and in application to biological sciences in particular—to philosophy of science in Hull’s and Ruse’s generation can be found in the interviews collected inCallebaut (1993). An influential school I do not discuss here are the Popperians, who were by theirown description neither positivist nor Kuhnian. Neither Hull nor Ruse affiliated himself with Pop-perianism, despite Hull’s early support from Popper himself (Winsor 2006).

15. The unpublished correspondence is in the Hull Papers, ASP 2005.01, box 44b. See also Hull(1977).

16. I do not claim that this difference in orientation is the only explanation of their differences.However, the neat resolution of the difference in terms of “different questions” (see sec. 5 above) wouldmiss an important difference in motive for construing Darwin’s relation to philosophy in one way or theother.

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at least partially, in correspondence. I think anyone reading this correspondencewould find plausible, even obvious, the claim that Ruse was relatively sanguineabout logical empiricism and its applicability to biology, whereas Hull was trou-bled by the inadequacies he perceived in it as a philosophical approach to sciencein general and to biology in particular. However, the reader is unlikely to read thiscorrespondence, and thus I must work to convince.

Before discussing Hull’s and Ruse’s telling divergences on logical empiri-cism, however, it is first worth noting how much the two had in common.Each was trained and appointed primarily as a philosopher but also exhibitedsignificant interests and training in the methods of history of science. Hull wasone of the first two PhD recipients of the relatively new Department of Historyand Logic of Science (later changing its name to History and Philosophy of Sci-ence) at Indiana University (Grau 1999). Although he followed the “philoso-phy” rather than “history” track, he would presumably have taken courses inhistory of science as well. Ruse completed a PhD in philosophy at the Univer-sity of Bristol, writing his dissertation on the applicability or nonapplicabilityof Kuhn’s account of theory change to biological sciences, and spent some timein the years 1972–73 as visiting scholar at Cambridge, working in the Darwinarchives and with social historians of science such as Robert Young.17

Another issue on which Hull and Ruse were remarkably close concerned thevalidity of modern evolutionary theory, including Darwin and the new evolu-tionary synthesis. Although they sometimes disagreed with figures like Mayr,Dobzhansky, Simpson, and Ghiselin, they were far more positive about thework of these “neo-Darwinian” thinkers than were many of their philosophicalcontemporaries writing on similar topics, for instance, Marjorie Grene (e.g.,Grene 1958, 1961).

How did Hull and Ruse both come to write on the common topic of Dar-win’s relation to nineteenth-century philosophies of science? This topic had al-ready appeared in two publications by Ellegård (1957, 1958/1990), which dis-cussed Whewell’s and Mill’s reactions to Darwin’s theory as part of its publicreception. Hull and Ruse were aware of these works. A larger and perhaps moreimportant context of discussion for motivating Hull’s and Ruse’s engagement,however, concerned Darwin’s status as a philosopher and the continuity or dis-continuity of his ideas with those presented by philosophers before or after. Bythe late 1960s, influential historians had bad-mouthed Darwin’s philosophicalabilities (Barzun 1941; Himmelfarb 1959), while influential biologists-turned-

17. Hull Papers, ASP 2005.01, box44b, “Ruse” folders 1–2. On Kuhnian revolutions and biology,see Ruse (1970b, 1971c).

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historians had defended Darwin on the same point (Mayr 1962/2001; Ghi-selin 1969).

Mayr, for instance, construed Darwin as showing only limited interest inthe canonical philosophies of his day (which, Mayr implied, could only haveheld him back anyway) yet supplying the evidential and theoretical groundsfor an overturning of those (false) philosophies:

No one resented Darwin’s independence of thought more than the phi-losophers. How could anyone dare to change our concept of the universeand man’s position in it without arguing for or against Plato, for oragainst Descartes, for or against Kant? Darwin had violated all the rulesof the game by placing his argument entirely outside the traditionalframework of classical philosophical concepts and terminologies. . . .No other work advertised to the world the emancipation of science fromphilosophy as blatantly as did Darwin’s Origin. For this he has not beenforgiven to this day by some traditional schools of philosophy. To them,Darwin is still incomprehensible, “unphilosophical,” and a bête noire.(1962/2001, xi–xii)18

Mayr goes on to present Darwin as a scientist who made a profound philo-sophical contribution through his scientific work alone, oblivious to philoso-phy:

It is almost universally stated that Darwin was no philosopher, that hewas totally unphilosophical. Even though he himself would probablyhave pleaded guilty, this accusation is actually quite misleading. To besure, Darwin did not belong to any of the established schools of philos-ophy, nor did he ever publish an essay or volume explicitly devoted to anexposition of his philosophical ideas. Yet few writers in the last 200 yearshave had so profound an impact on our thinking. This holds for logic,metaphysics, and ethics. It has taken 100 years to appreciate fully thatDarwin’s conceptual framework is, indeed, a new philosophical system.(xviii)

Yet, Mayr did recognize the influence of Herschel’s Preliminary Discourse onDarwin, indicating that the latter may have learned from it his characteristic

18. It would be interesting to try to determine precisely what philosophers and “schools of philos-ophy” Mayr has in mind here. The logical positivists’ opposition to most of the traditional history ofphilosophy makes them a poor candidate.

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method. This method, according to Mayr, was somewhat unusual for the timebut had become standard practice among scientists by Mayr’s day: “the testingof a model developed on the basis of prior observations” (xxii). It seems Mayrdid not consider classifying Herschel among “the philosophers.” One differ-ence between Hull’s and Ruse’s treatment, on the one hand, and Mayr’s treat-ment, on the other, is in this classification. Another difference, at least in thecase of Hull, is Hull’s disinclination to believe that Herschel’s method helpedDarwin very much at all (see below).

As early as April 1965, Hull and Mayr were in correspondence about thehistory and philosophy of biological taxonomy.19 The earliest mention of Dar-win and nineteenth-century philosophies of science occurs in 1966, when Hullrefers Mayr to Ellegård’s 1957 article.20 And in a letter of February 1967, con-sistently with his favorable mention of Herschel in Mayr (1962/2001), Mayrindicates Hull should include a discussion of Herschel as a thinker to whomDarwin was indebted in his (Hull’s) “Metaphysics of Evolution” paper, a draftof which had already been sent to Mayr.21 Hull replies that

in the latest version of my paper I expand upon your thesis [presumably,that expressed in Mayr (1962/2001)] that Darwin’s conceptual frame-work presents a new philosophical system, especially a new idea of whatconstitutes inductive inferences. I have checked into Whewell and Mill.Whewell is opposed to Darwin in almost every respect. Mill’s system issomewhat more appropriate but differs with respect to the key issue ofinductive inferences. I wasn’t able to obtain a copy of Herschel as yousuggested (though I did order one), but from an approving commentby Whewell on Herschel’s system, I suspect his ideas didn’t help Darwinmuch either. I’m afraid Darwin had to devise a new logic pretty much onhis own. A sad comment on logicians.22

In sum, Hull presented himself to Mayr as developing the latter’s thesis thatDarwin’s work constituted a new philosophy, and he suggested the thesis hewould later develop in Darwin and His Critics, namely, that Herschel, Whe-well, and Mill only stood in Darwin’s way. Yet he seems already to favor a dif-ference of interpretation from Mayr concerning Herschel’s influence, a differ-ence that constituted, in a way, a radicalization of Mayr’s thesis that Darwin’s“conceptual framework” was “a new philosophical system.”

19. Hull Papers, ASP 2005.01, box 36, “Mayr” folder 1: Mayr to Hull, April 27, 1965.20. Hull Papers, ASP 2005.01, box 36, “Mayr” folder 1: Hull to Mayr, July 15, 1966.21. Hull Papers, ASP 2005.01, box 36, “Mayr” folder 1: Mayr to Hull, February 3, 1967.22. Hull Papers, ASP 2005.01, box 36, “Mayr” folder 1: Hull to Mayr, February 22, 1967.

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By 1969–70, Hull had drafted the introduction to Darwin and His Criticsand sent both Mayr and Ruse a copy for reading.23 The letter to Ruse appearsto be the first mention of Herschel andWhewell between the two, and the topicevidently struck Ruse as unfamiliar. But the import of the topic for both system-atic and historical questions was clear to Ruse:

I read your paper with very great interest. . . . As you can well imagine,much of it was new to me—the thing which struck me as being mostsignificant is the extent to which, just as in this century, philosophyand biology seem to have had an unhappy relationship—biology feelingmisunderstood by philosophy, and philosophy feeling that biology doesnot quite live up to the right standards of science. One question whichoccurred to me—do you think that biology (part. The O. of Sp) has hadany influence on the phil. of science, leading philosophers to revise theirideas drastically, or do you think that biologists have always had to waituntil changes were forced by physics—it does seem that e.g. essentialismdidn’t finally go until this century when physics threw it out.24

In a marginal note, Hull answers Ruse’s question about these alternatives—that is, biology having a direct influence on philosophy versus only having thisinfluence once physics accommodates or confirms biological hypotheses—with one cryptic word: “both.” Ruse continues:

A final point. . . . I’ve always thought of the D. revolution as somethingwhich brought b. [biology] closer to physics and chemistry—not somuch in the results since D. conflicted with the physicists, but in theunderlying assumptions about the nature of the world and the rightway to do science. If what you say about essentialism is correct, it wouldseem that D. lead to the introduction of historical concepts in b.—some-thing which we don’t get in ph. & ch. [physics and chemistry]. Hence inthis sense he drove the two branches of science apart. Of course, as youknow, I don’t much like looking at species as historical, but I can’t denythat leading biologists do keep emphasizing the historical nature ofthem—because of this they want to argue that bio. is fundamentally diff.from ph. & ch.25

23. Hull Papers, ASP 2005.01, box 44b, “Ruse” folder 1: Ruse to Hull, September 3, 1969; box 36,“Mayr” folder 1: Hull to Mayr, January 1, 1970.

24. Hull Papers, ASP 2005.01, box 44b, “Ruse” folder 1: Ruse to Hull, September 3, 1969.25. Hull Papers, ASP 2005.01, box 44b, “Ruse” folder 1: Ruse to Hull, September 3, 1969, p. 4,

emphasis in original.

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In response to Ruse’s question about this alternative—this time between theDarwinian revolution bringing biology and physics closer together versus push-ing them further apart (owing to the use of historical concepts in biology)—Hull again answers in the margins, “both.”

In his letter replying to Ruse, Hull expands upon these cryptic marginal an-swers: “I think there has been a reciprocal relationship between science andphilosophy, though the influence of science has been largely the influence ofphysics. Unfortunately most of the effect which evolutionary theory had onphilosophy was independent of the biological theory and sometimes even con-flicting with it.”26 And, “I agree that Darwin had conflicting implications forthe relation of physics to biology—both natural sciences but biology in somesense ‘historical.’ By the way, I think there are some historical terms in physics,e.g. metal fatigue.”27

One more point bears mentioning. Taking the larger context of historians’and biologists’ discussions of Darwin and philosophy into consideration, aswell as the Mayr-Hull correspondence and these initial reactions by Ruse, itseems plausible that both Hull and Ruse, in picking up the Darwin-Herschel-Whewell relationship, were self-consciously entering an ongoing conversationthat touched upon their (Hull’s and Ruse’s) home discipline (philosophy) yethad mostly thus far been examined by figures standing outside of it (biologistsand historians). And this implied that Darwin’s relationship to the philosophy ofscience of his day was especially relevant to Hull and Ruse figuring out the re-lations between biology and philosophy more generally—an issue that they, asparticipants in and advocates of the developing field of philosophy of biology,were especially inclined to care about.28

The earliest mention of Ruse’s own paper on Darwin, Herschel, and Whe-well (first published in 1975) is from a letter sent to Hull in 1972: “I’ve writtena paper on Herschel, Whewell & Darwin—when typed, I’ll send you a copy.”29

26. Hull Papers, ASP 2005.01, box 44b, “Ruse” folder 1: Hull to Ruse, September 22, 1969.27. Hull Papers, ASP 2005.01, box 44b, “Ruse” folder 1: Hull to Ruse, September 22, 1969.28. The common view that the philosophy of biology was largely an unestablished field at this time

(expressed, e.g., in Callebaut [1993] and Hull [2008]) has recently been challenged by (among others)Byron (2007) and Nicholson and Gawne (2014, 2015). See also Smocovitis (1996) for an early chal-lenge to the standard view. The correspondence between Hull and Ruse from 1968 to 1975 providessome evidence bearing on this controversy. One thing it shows, I would argue, is that the traditionalview was correct internal to the perspectives of Hull and Ruse at the time. Quotations would take metoo far afield of my main point in this article, but they may be briefly summed as concerning the rarityof individuals doing good work in the field, the lack of institutional support (e.g., jobs) for the field, theastonishing extent of biological ignorance shown by professional philosophers (including those writingon biological topics), and the lack of conceptual precision by prominent biologists writing on philo-sophical topics.

29. Hull Papers, ASP 2005.01, box 44b, “Ruse” folder 2: Ruse to Hull, undated [1972].

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Hull replies, “You did know that I deal with Whewell, Herschel and Mill in theintroduction to that book, but I must admit that I did not do any original his-torical research. Just read their printed stuff and letters.”30 Hull aims to easeRuse’s mind in a quickly sent follow-up letter: “The sentence in my previousletter where I mention my Herschel-Whewell-Mill-Darwin paper was notmeant to imply that you might have lifted anything from me. I am not proneto such things at all. God knows there is enough for all of us to do.”31 Shortlyafter this, Ruse writes,

By separate cover I’m sending you a copy of my paper on Darwin, Her-schel & Whewell. . . . I must confess that your last letter had [illegible]me somewhat altho. [illegible] remember that you dealt with D., W., &Mill, my recollection had been that your concern was, essentially, withthe reception of D.’s theory. Hence, I had thought I was on fairly safeground dealing with the discovery & development of the theory. I hopeit goes without saying that were my work to duplicate yours to an unwar-ranted amount, I would (and will) drop it on the spot.32

After having received and read Ruse’s paper, Hull writes, “As you said in yourletter there is little overlap in content, though there must have been a lot of over-lap in research. It is too bad that you didn’t have my introduction to the Darwinbook. It might have saved you some time in the library. Also my bibliography isextensive. I also wish I had had your paper in time, especially the Whewell let-ters. I could find almost nothing in print linking the twomen.”33 AndHull con-cedes some claims made in Ruse’s reading—without thereby reversing the mainclaims of his own (Hull’s) reading. He writes, “I agree that Darwin thought thathis basic postulates were laws—whatever he meant by the term. Herschell [sic]and Whewell were almost as vague and contradictory in their pronouncementson the subject. Herschel, for example, thought that the axioms of geometrywere generalizations from the facts by induction, i.e. empirical laws. WhereasWhewell thought that even the most empirical laws were the result of the mindsuperinducing ideas on the facts. Quite a difference if you ask me.” Hull thusconcedes Ruse’s reading of Darwin as especially concerned to develop a law-basedscientific theory, yet he implies that the vague and contradictory talk of “laws”by Darwin, Herschel, andWhewell precludes the inference that this necessarily

30. Hull Papers, ASP 2005.01, box 44b, “Ruse” folder 2: Hull to Ruse, December 10, 1972.31. Hull Papers, ASP 2005.01, box 44b, “Ruse” folder 2: Hull to Ruse, December 29, 1972.32. Hull Papers, ASP 2005.01, box 44b, “Ruse” folder 2: Ruse to Hull, January 1973.33. Hull Papers, ASP 2005.01, box 44b, “Ruse” folder 2: Hull to Ruse, January 22, 1973.

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made Darwin’s theory especially Newtonian or positivist. Hull likewise con-cedes Ruse’s claim about Darwin’s inspiration: “I agree that Darwin thoughtthat he was proceeding in a purely scientific manner toward the goals set outby Herschel, Whewell, et. al.”34 Yet this statement includes an implicit qualifi-cation: it expresses agreement about what Darwin thought he was doing, notabout what Darwin did.

The above narrative partly explains why Hull and Ruse were motivated towrite about Darwin’s relationships with the philosophers of science of hisday. It does not suffice, however, to explain the differences in their interpreta-tions. A central motive for these differences, I will now argue, can be found inHull’s and Ruse’s different orientations to logical empiricism.

The difference I have in mind can be discerned relatively directly. For in-stance, as early as the summer of 1969, Ruse writes to Hull of a “Ruse masterplan, i.e. showing that biology is like physics and chemistry,” the “climax” ofwhich would be “showing that bio. is not only like phy. & chem. but that itis phy. & chem.”35 And, in the introduction to his 1973 textbook The Philos-ophy of Biology, Ruse writes, “The dominant philosophical position on the the-ories of physics and chemistry . . . is the position commonly known as ‘logicalempiricism.’ . . . Anyone with the smallest acquaintance with the philosophy ofscience will know that [many of this tradition’s] claims, even as applied to phys-ics, have many critics. . . . With considerable reservations to be noted, I thinkthere is truth in [the logical empiricist] claims as applied to the physical sci-ences. Moreover . . . I think these claims apply in large measure to the biolog-ical sciences” (1973, 10–11).36

Compare this statement with Hull’s more divided opinion in the introduc-tion to his own textbook, Philosophy of Biological Science: “My underlying con-cern in writing this book is to investigate whether there is a single philosophyof science adequate for all science or whether there are many, each appropriatein its own domain. . . . My own prejudices in the matter are mixed” (1974, 7).Writing of specific favored positions in the logical empiricist tradition, however,Hull could be more critical. For instance, about reduction, he writes, “If myanalysis . . . is correct, then the conclusion seems inescapable that the logicalempiricist analysis of reduction is not very instructive in the case of genet-ics” (44). And, about the covering law model of explanation, he writes in corre-spondence that “I’m tired of explcations [sic] of concepts such as explanations

34. Hull Papers, ASP 2005.01, box 44b, “Ruse” folder 2: Hull to Ruse, January 22, 1973.35. Hull Papers, ASP 2005.01, box 44b, “Ruse” folder 1: Ruse to Hull, undated [summer 1969].36. Ruse goes on to qualify: “At least, I think they apply far more than many writers about biology

have supposed, and I suspect that where the claims fail for biology, they often fail for physics too.”

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which can be fulfilled only in unfulfillable circumstances. Couldn’t we also havean analysis such that on occasion something which someone is likely to rpduce[sic] could be accommodated. No one has ever produced an explanation that ful-fills all the requirements of the covering law model. If E is deducible, at least oneof the laws is false. If the laws aremade true (as far as our knowledge is concerned)deduction is no longer possible.”37

I will now give further evidence of this difference in published and unpub-lished writings on three topics: reduction, scientific laws, and species.

6.1. Reduction

In discussing the reducibility or nonreducibility of Mendelian genetics to molec-ular genetics, Ruse (1971a) and Hull (1972) engaged both with Kenneth Schaff-ner’s influential work on reduction in biology (1967, 1969) as well as with workon reduction and theory change in general by Nagel, Kuhn, and Feyerabend.

Ruse’s “Reduction, Replacement, andMolecular Biology” (1971a) argues thatthe relation between molecular genetics and Mendelian genetics is one of strongreplacement, specified as follows: molecular genetics explains everything thatMendelian genetics does; it explains more than Mendelian genetics does; and,where the two conflict, molecular genetics is superior (50–55). Ruse also arguesthat, while “formal reduction” in the sense articulated by Nagel (1961) does nothold between Mendelian genetics and molecular genetics, nonetheless there issomething very much like it that does, which can be summarized in two con-ditions: first, similarity between the two theories in comparison to a third sci-entifically respectable theory about the same subject matter (Ruse uses Darwin’stheory of inheritance as the example here); and, second, partial derivability ofthe propositions of the reduced theory by the reducing theory (Ruse 1971a,55–71). Thus, while Ruse concedes the inapplicability of Nagel’s formal ac-count of reduction, he is concerned to defend the reduction-like relation ofmolecular genetics to Mendelian genetics, namely, strong replacement and thetwo factors just mentioned.

In “Reduction in Genetics—Biology or Philosophy?” (1972), Hull argues,first, that the reducibility of Mendelian to molecular genetics is questionable

37. Hull Papers, ASP 2005.01, box 44b, “Ruse” folder 1: Hull to Ruse, May 12, 1969. It should benoted, however, that by January 1971, Ruse had convinced Hull that there was more to the coveringlaw model of explanation than Hull previously thought, motivating Hull to write, “Found myself de-ciding there was more in Hempel than in his critics on explanation. I’m terrified of letting Scriven readmy philosophy of biology book [Hull 1974]. . . . We will both be labeled Hempelians. That’s no badlabel.” By then, Hull’s 1972–73 readings of the Herschel-Whewell-Darwin relation were already inpress.

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on the basis of the relevant biology alone, without bringing in general philo-sophical considerations such as those of Kuhn and Feyerabend. Second, this factbodes ill for the value of contemporary philosophy of science since a favored con-cept (reduction) is found here not to apply and not to apply for scientific reasonsalone (491–92, 498–99). Hull considers several reasons why the putative reduc-tion fails. For instance, molecular biology would have to reduce all phenotypes totheir molecular components in order for such a reduction to be successful, whichwould be a prohibitively “massive” undertaking (493). Also, “the samemolecularsituation can result in phenomena which would . . . be characterized by differentMendelian predicate terms” (498). Such a “one-many relation” between molec-ular and the Mendelian descriptions could be eliminated only through the addi-tion of more and more “environmental” sources of information (e.g., effects ofepistasis). Chapter 1 of Hull’s 1974 textbook develops parallel arguments.

The first mention of reduction in the Hull-Ruse correspondence or in pub-lished articles by either is in a 1969 letter from Ruse to Hull. Ruse describesone of his current papers as follows: “I’ve just finished a paper on mol. bio.(and will send a copy) where I try to link the D. rev. [Darwinian revolution]with what is going on at present in mol. bio. I also look at the old reductionproblem—I’m not sure I say any more than Schaffner, but I try to tackle theproblem you claim he leaves unanswered, i.e. why call the relationship betweenmol. genetics andMen. Gen. ‘reduction’when formally it isn’t.”38 By September1971, Ruse has read a manuscript of Hull’s 1974 textbook, including the fa-mous first chapter on whether Mendelian genetics is being reduced to molecu-lar genetics. By this point, Ruse is able to write, “I think just generally I take amore optimistic view towards reduction than you do in chap. 1.”39 In a marginalnote, Hull writes, “I too.” Having received Ruse’s comments, Hull writes,

We seem to come to differing conclusions, but on a closer look, we don’tdiffer that much. We just use different tactics to get at the same point.You go at it from the side of an informal notion of reduction and showthat in this sense one might want to say that Mendelian genetics is beingreduced to molecular genetics. Even so, there are some problems. I go atit from the side of a fairly strict notion of reduction, the one common inthe logical empiricist literature, and show that in this sense Mendeliangenetics has not been reduced to molecular genetics. In my latest version,however, I make it clearer that this conclusion counts primarily against

38. Hull Papers, ASP 2005.01, box 44b, “Ruse” folder 1: Ruse to Hull, July 16, 1969.39. Hull Papers, ASP 2005.01, box 44b, “Ruse” folder 1: Ruse to Hull, September 1971.

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the logical empiricist analysis of reduction, because Mendelian geneticsin a significant sense is being reduced to molecular genetics.40

In sum, Ruse was much more sanguine than Hull about the prospects of aNagel-type theory reduction, or something like it, of Mendelian to moleculargenetics. His ultimate conclusion that such reduction did not work for thatcase was immediately followed by efforts to save the idea by other means.Hull’s rejection of the same, however, was followed either by woeful reflectionson the usefulness of philosophy for science at all (Hull 1972) or by the explicitconclusion that the logical empiricist notion of reduction was a misguiding in-fluence on the interpretation of the science (Hull 1974).

6.2. Laws

The disagreements between Ruse and Hull concerning the existence and struc-ture of biological laws are closely connected to those concerning species (dis-cussed in next subsection). Ruse seems to have first brought the issue of bio-logical laws to Hull’s attention by sending Hull a draft of his paper “Are ThereLaws in Biology?” (later published as Ruse [1970a]).41 There, Ruse took aim atJ. J. C. Smart’s (1963) negative answer to the question. Ruse’s strategy in thepublished version is to define the notion of a scientific law precisely and thenpresent a biological law that meets this definition (the Hardy-Weinberg law).42

In response to Ruse’s draft, Hull writes, “The paper you sent me is really agood paper. I was so amazed by your quotations from Smart that I immediatelychecked out his book. His chapter on biology was even worse than your paperled me to believe it would be.”43 Hull agreed, however, with one argumentmade by Smart: “He [Smart] seems to have only one point and he plays itfor all his worth—that is, the problem for law statements that refer to species(particular species) if species have to be monophyletic. . . . All the mice in theuniverse must either be localized on earth or stemmed from earth ancestors.Otherwise the species wouldn’t be monophyletic and, hence, not a species.On this score I think he is right.”44 Ruse, however, resisted, holding that species

40. Hull Papers, ASP 2005.01, box 44b, “Ruse” folder 1: Hull to Ruse, October 26, 1971.41. Hull Papers, ASP 2005.01, box 44b, “Ruse” folder 1: Ruse to Hull, January 1969.42. The definition of scientific law Ruse settles on is “a universal non-analytic statement which is

supported by a wide range of evidence (some of which came after the statement’s discovery) or which isembedded in a scientific theory” (1970a, 239). The similarity to vera causa criteria 1 and 2 of Ruse(1975/1989) is worth noting.

43. Hull Papers, ASP 2005.01, box 44b, “Ruse” folder 1: Hull to Ruse, April 21, 1969.44. Hull Papers, ASP 2005.01, box 44b, “Ruse” folder 1: Hull to Ruse, April 21, 1969.

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can as well be defined morphologically as phylogenetically and thus do nothave to be monophyletic (although in practice they usually are).45

Hull also notes a tension, highlighted by Smart, between the thesis that lawsare whatever statements of a science are general and fit into theories, on the onehand, and the thesis that biological statements about species can be laws, onthe other. In the same letter, he writes, “I find Smart’s reasoning here interest-ing. If species are made monophyletic, then statements about them might wellbe true because of evolutionary theory, but then these statements wouldn’t belaws because the names of individual species lack the requisite universality. Onthe other hand, if the names of species are defined merely as phenetic clusters,they are sufficiently universal, but then there is no reason to suppose that theyare true, because they weren’t embedded in a theory. Damned if you do;damned if you don’t.”46

The 1974 textbook appears to containHull’s first published discussion of lawsin biology (1974, 45–100). There, Hull seems to take pains to be fair to the va-riety of currently held views on the topic of laws in science in general and in bi-ology in particular. Reading between the lines of Hull’s seemingly balanced text,however, one can discern some positions. First, Hull himself believed biologicalscience to include laws, so long as the criteria of lawhood are appropriately gen-erous, as Hull (it seems) believed they should be. The clearest cases of these are inevolutionary theory—for instance, the Hardy-Weinberg law. Yet he rejected thelawhood (or truth) of a number of proposed laws (e.g., the “biogenetic law”) inareas of biology in which historical contingency plays a large role, such as phy-logeny and phylogenetic taxonomy. Further, to assert laws in some areas of bi-ology—development, for instance—was premature insofar as the empiricalsupport required one to affirm that any such laws were presently lacking.

Hull also distinguishes between “process laws”—“laws that permit the infer-ence of all past and future states of the system, given the values for the relevantvariables at any one time”—and other kinds of laws, for instance, “causal laws,developmental laws, and historical laws” (1974, 71). The latter are all perfectlygood instances of laws on Hull’s account, although they would not be on stricterrenderings of the notion of law. It is obvious that Hull considers the point anargument against the stricter renderings. Process laws describe closed systems,whereas the other kinds of laws describe partially open systems (72). The formerposit causes both necessary and sufficient for their effects; the latter posit causesthat are necessary but not sufficient, sufficient but not necessary, or neither nec-

45. For details of this view, see the subsection on species below for details.46. Hull Papers, ASP 2005.01, box 44b, “Ruse” folder 1: Hull to Ruse, April 21, 1969. See also

Hull (1974, 78–79), which cites Ruse and Smart and makes a similar point.

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essary nor sufficient (72–74). Hull briefly and sympathetically summarizes Scriv-en’s (1962) contextualist view of causal explanation: “A cause is a non-redundantmember of a set of conditions sufficient to bring about the effect. . . . Which ofthese is chosen for special mention as the cause of the event is context-dependent”(1974, 73–74).47 Many biological “laws” are not process laws. A philosophy of sci-ence that holds that only process laws are true scientific laws will not find any, or atleast not many, scientific laws in biology.

6.3. Species

In “Definitions of Species in Biology,” Ruse (1969) quotes Mayr’s, Simpson’s,and Dobzhansky’s expressions of the view that species cannot be adequatelydefined morphologically.48 He then argues that groups of organisms pickedout by biologists’ currently most favored species concept, Ernst Mayr’s bio-logical species concept or biospecies, are in most cases coextensive with morpho-logically defined groups, or morphospecies. According to the biological speciesconcept, species are “groups of actually or potentially interbreeding naturalpopulations which are reproductively isolated from other such groups” (Mayr1942, 12; quoted in Ruse [1969, 98–99]). According to the total morpholog-ical species concept, species are defined by (mostly) shared morphological char-acteristics (i.e., a cluster-concept of morphological characters). Ruse argues thatboth biospecies and total morphospecies are real (rather than merely arbitrary)groupings, a designation they earn by virtue of fitting into multiple, logicallyindependent scientific laws. (The claim foreshadows Ruse’s later discussion ofWhewellian consilience.) Furthermore, they (i.e., the groups defined by bio-species and total morphospecies concepts) usually fit into the same scientific laws,so we have good reason to treat them as coextensive.

In a short criticism of Ruse’s article, Hull (1970) presents three objections.First, Ruse does not distinguish between the question of how to define (and theassociated reality/nonreality of ) particular species groups (e.g., Canis lupus), onthe one hand, and species as a taxonomic category or “level,” on the other. Sec-

47. Hull studied with Scriven at Indiana andmaintained correspondence with him for some years after(Hull Papers, ASP 2005.01, box 52, “Scriven/Simpson” folder). Some of Hull’s suspicion of canonical log-ical empiricist positions, particularly early in his career, may be traceable to Scriven’s influence.

48. Regarding sec. 6.3 as a whole, fully retracing the arguments between Hull and Ruse on specieswould require a separate paper, particularly given the bulk it occupies in their early correspondence andthe gradual transition of Hull’s view, during this period, from a cluster-concept of species (e.g., Hull1965a, 1965b) to a version of Michael Ghiselin’s “species-as-individuals” thesis (e.g., Hull 1976). Here Iaim only to reconstruct the main differences expressed in Hull and Ruse’s published dispute and unpub-lished correspondence of 1969–71 that bear on their disagreements about the existence and structure ofbiological laws in the same period.

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ond, Ruse’s idea of a “total morphospecies” will be hopelessly arbitrary in prac-tice: systematicists are increasingly coming to realize that there is no objectiverule for counting and weighing morphological characters (Hull 1970, 281).Third, the fact that no character-based concept can answer the second question(that of the “species” taxonomic level) means that Ruse’s proposed consiliencebetween biospecies and morphospecies does not solve the problem of how todefine “species” in biology in the “taxonomic level” sense. Particular species mightbe defined by the biospecies or total morphological species concept or both, butthis fact alone gives no guarantee that the same rule will identify the same kind ofgroup for all organisms.

In his reply, Ruse (1971b) concedes Hull’s first point that he (Ruse) couldhave been clearer about the distinction between particular species groups andthe taxonomic category of species. However, Ruse rejects Hull’s third criticism,maintaining that his approach is still the right way to handle the general speciesdefinition. This is because convergence of multiple identification schemes (inhis later terminology, “consilience”) is still an argument for the reality of thething identified (in this case, “species”). Against Hull’s second criticism, Ruseargues that something like a total morphological concept must be possible, orelse it would be impossible to explain how biologists have classified and do clas-sify organisms into species in the vast majority of cases (371). Either we acceptthat something like the total morphospecies is a legitimate concept, or we mustdeny that the majority of taxonomists have any good reason to classify organ-isms as they do.

The earliest mention of species in the Hull-Ruse correspondence is a 1969letter in which Ruse writes to Hull about a paper he (Ruse) is drafting on spe-cies: “I think (may be wrong) that we differ somewhat on this topic.”49 And, ina letter from later that year (after Hull had read and responded to a draft ofRuse’s “laws in biology” paper), Ruse writes, “I feel that you and I have a fairlyfundamental disagreement over the ‘species problem’ (in view of the way it di-vides biologists this is not very surprising).”50 Ruse encloses a draft of the afore-mentioned species paper—which will soon become his first published articleon the topic (Ruse 1969). Responding to Hull’s reaction to his (Ruse’s) argu-ments against Smart in the laws paper (see discussion of the “mouse” examplein last section above), Ruse writes, “You will see from my paper that I woulddisagree with you over the ‘mouse’ question. . . . The biologist has alternativeindependent def ’s of ‘mouse.’ 1. (Potential) interbreeding with (earth) miceand (potential) rep. isol. [reproductive isolation] from all other organisms. 2. A

49. Hull Papers, ASP 2005.01, box 44b, “Ruse” folder 1: Ruse to Hull, January 8, 1969.50. Hull Papers, ASP 2005.01, box 44b, “Ruse” folder 1: Ruse to Hull, undated [1969].

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cluster of properties A1 . . . An. I see no reason why some organism from an-other planet should not fit both of these conditions and hence, rightfully becalled a ‘mouse.’ . . . Further, my mice wd be the same species and not mono-phyletic.”51 Ruse offers the following argument: “In support of my position,take a more plausible situation. Primitive life is at last created by man. . . .It is done at Guelph and atWisc-Mil. [the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee,Ruse’s and Hull’s affiliations at the time] quite independently, i.e. we do nothave monophyletic groups. However, the two sets of organisms (which wereput together in the same way) are absolutely identical—they interbreed etc.etc. I say they are the same species. . . . What say you?”52 Finally, in a letterfrom the summer of 1969, Ruse mentions the “Ruse master plan,” connectingthis to his view of species: “Of course, part of the reason why I like my position[on species] is that it fits in with the Ruse master plan i.e. showing that biologyis like physics and chemistry.”53 And, “at the moment I am working on the cli-max of the R.m.p. [Ruse master plan], i.e. showing that bio. is not only likephy. & chem. but that it is phy. & chem.”54 Presumably, Ruse thought his po-sition on species “fit” with his unificationist master plan because species wouldthen be like the natural kinds recognized in physics and chemistry—atoms andelements, for instance. Belief in species’ reality and identity would be supported,scientifically, by the same kind of evidence as supports belief in the reality andidentity of the entities postulated in physics and chemistry: figuring simulta-neously in multiple scientific laws (i.e., consilience).55

7. Conclusion

I have argued that Hull’s and Ruse’s differences regarding Darwin’s relation toHerschel and Whewell were due in part to Hull’s and Ruse’s differences regard-

51. Hull Papers, ASP 2005.01, box 44b, “Ruse” folder 1: Ruse to Hull, undated [1969].52. Hull Papers, ASP 2005.01, box 44b, “Ruse” folder 1: Ruse to Hull, undated [1969]. As far as

I can tell, Hull does not respond to this argument until much later (Hull Papers, ASP 2005.01, box 44b,“Ruse” folder 3: Hull to Ruse, September 30, 1975).

53. Hull Papers, ASP 2005.01, box 44b, “Ruse” folder 1: Ruse to Hull, undated [summer 1969].54. Hull Papers, ASP 2005.01, box 44b, “Ruse” folder 1: Ruse to Hull, undated [summer 1969].55. In a marginal comment on Ruse’s statement, “biology is like physics and chemistry,” Hull

writes, “I agree.” It is clear Hull believed biology was like physics and chemistry in some ways. Buthe would not concede that monophyletic species concepts could figure in laws or that covering law ex-planations were a sufficient paradigm for all statements in physics, chemistry, or biology. Ruse and Hullmight have agreed in a general sense that biology was not different in kind from physics and chemistrywhile still differing in their reading of the lawfulness (or not) of claims about species, as well as on therequirement of strict lawfulness for scientific statements or explanations in general. There is no similarmarginal agreement from Hull regarding Ruse’s second claim, that “bio. is not only like phy. & chem.but . . . is phy. & chem.”

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ing logical empiricism. I have refrained from critiquing or taking sides betweentheir views. My primary interest in recounting their divergences concerns whatthis connection tells us about Hull’s and Ruse’s work, as well as about the con-text of history and philosophy of biology of their time. The immediate lessons, Ithink, can be drawn directly from the material and interpretations provided.

However, this account is also a case study in how researchers with combinedprojects in the history and philosophy of a science (such as Hull and Ruse) mayallow their thinking about the philosophy of science to shape their thinkingabout its history.Whether this type of influence is in general a good or bad thingfor historical accounts is a matter too complicated to be treated here. However, Iam not in agreement with those who hold any influence of philosophical pre-disposition upon historical inquiry and argument to be a bad thing. Counsels ofattention to historical particulars, the search for contrary and diverse sources ofevidence, and recognition of the complexity and multivalency of historical re-ality are well taken. But it is easy to see that the history of science and of phi-losophy can never be philosophically agnostic, and not just because of the uni-versal scope of human bias. Science and philosophy are ongoing processeswhose completion is unlikely to arrive soon (even if they one day come to anend). Both the history of science and the history of philosophy of science thusdescribe objects whose ultimate bounds, and hence whose definition, import,and connections to other things, will remain indeterminate for a long time tocome. Sketching the histories of such objects from multiple points of view, forthe purposes of arguing for one or another general way of understanding theworld, seems to me both a precondition of writing good history at all and pre-cisely the sort of thing historians and philosophers should do.

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