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“Struggle for Existences”: Selection and Retention of a Metaphor

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Biology as Society, Society as Biology: Metaphors

Part of the book series: Sociology of the Sciences ((SOSC,volume 18))

Abstract

“The entire Darwinian theory of the struggle for existence is simply the transfer of the Hobbesian theory of bellum omnium contra omnes and the bourgeois-economic one of competition as well as Malthus’ demographic theory from society into organic nature. After having accomplished this trick ... it is easy to transfer these theories back from natural history into the history of society ... and to claim one had proved this thesis as an eternal natural law of society.” This famous interpretation of Darwin’s theory by Friedrich Engels has been repeated by Nietzsche, Spengler, and countless lesser scholars to this day. It also underlies the general understanding of Social Darwinism and contains a description of the origin and function of metaphors in science. It provides an example of three different ways that metaphors are used as media of exchange of meaning: 1) from everyday language to scientific language; 2) from scientific to scientific language, and 3) from scientific to everyday language. The history of science is full of examples of each of these cases, much has been written on them, and it can no longer come as a surprise that metaphors reflect the links between scientific, social, and political discourses, and therefore corroborate that science is very much a social activity rather than anything else.

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Notes

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Bielefeld, Germany

    Peter Weingart

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  1. Peter Weingart
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Bielefeld, Germany

    Sabine Maasen  & Peter Weingart  & 

  2. Harvard University, USA

    Everett Mendelsohn

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© 1995 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

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Weingart, P. (1995). “Struggle for Existences”: Selection and Retention of a Metaphor. In: Maasen, S., Mendelsohn, E., Weingart, P. (eds) Biology as Society, Society as Biology: Metaphors. Sociology of the Sciences, vol 18. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-0673-3_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-0673-3_7

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4020-0251-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-011-0673-3

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