B. Ricardo Brown, PhD.  Darwin, Marx, Nietzsche, Freud: Darwin and the Origin of Species I.
Channel: B. Ricardo Brown, PhD
Date: 2021-01-25

B. Ricardo Brown, PhD.  Darwin, Marx, Nietzsche, Freud. 
 Session II. Darwin and the Origin of Species, part one.
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As you read this weeks texts, notice how Darwin introduces the question of the origins of species and how he presents his book as essentially one long argument.
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Darwin. 1860. Preface and postscript from Journal of researches into the natural history and geology of the countries visited during the voyage of H.M.S. Beagle round the world, under the command of Capt. Fitz Roy R.N. London: John Murray. Tenth thousand. Final text. Pages v-viii.
     http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=1&itemID=F20&viewtype=text 
     
The Origin of Species, 1st edition: Origin of Species, Introduction.
     Complete Works of Darwin Online: http://darwin-online.org.uk/converted/pdf/1859_Origin_F373.pdf () pp. 1-6.

Origin of Species, Chapter III, “Struggle for Existence.”
     Complete Works of Darwin Online: http://darwin-online.org.uk/converted/pdf/1859_Origin_F373.pdf  pp. 60-79.

Origin of Species, Chapter IV, “Natural Selection.”
     Complete Works of Darwin Online: http://darwin-online.org.uk/converted/pdf/1859_Origin_F373.pdf  pp. 80-130.
    
SUGGESTED READINGS:

The Origin of Species, “An Historical Sketch of the Progress of Opinion on the Origin of Species Previously to the Publication of the First Edition of this Work” pages 53-64 of The Origin of Species (3rd edition), also available in Appleman, pp. 87-94.

Complete Works of Darwin Online: http://darwin-online.org.uk/converted/pdf/1861_Origin_F381.pdf  pp. xiii-xix.

The Origin of Species, Chapter II, “Variation under Nature” in Complete Works of Darwin Online: http://darwin-online.org.uk/converted/pdf/1859_Origin_F373.pdf pp. 44-59.

Francis Darwin. 1887. “Reminiscences of My Father’s Everyday Life” from The life and letters of Charles Darwin, including an autobiographical chapter. London: John Murray. Volume 1.   http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?itemID=F1452.1&viewtype=text&pageseq=1 (


John van Wyhe, editor. 2002-. The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online. (http://darwin-online.org.uk/


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Darwin, Marx, Nietzsche, Freud
SS.290
School of Liberal Arts & Sciences
Department of Social Science & Cultural Studies

  https://pratt.instructure.com/courses/7863
 
B. Ricardo Brown, PhD
Professor of Social Science and Cultural Studies
Email: BBRow993@pratt.du
URL: https://www.pratt.edu/faculty_and_staff/bio/?id=bbrow993
Twitter: https://twitter.com/UntilDarwin/
#DMNFss290
 
In this course we will examine our concepts of society, power, value, and desire through reading selected works by Karl Marx, Charles Darwin, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Sigmund Freud. The goal is to understand their ideas and the social context that shaped them through a close examination of their works not to attempt to prove or disprove their many arguments. The emphasis of the course will be on engaging the original texts and attention will be paid to how each writer went about their critiques as well as the revolutionary consequences that followed --- including those that were antithetical to their own views and work.

Detailed description

In this course we will examine the knowledge of social life and its relation to our concepts of society, power, value, and desire through reading selected works of Marx, Darwin, Nietzsche, and Freud. You might begin thinking about the course in this way: Darwin placed us in the natural world and showed that we share a common genealogical origin in nature. Marx shows us how we have changed that nature and at the same time changed ourselves. Nietzsche raised the problem of what those changes have cost us: what have we had to give up in order to have society? Finally, Freud sought to understand how we might deal the consequences of civilization/culture (he used the German kulture, which in English can mean either culture or civilization).

It is important to keep in mind that this course is only a single semester and so it can only serve as an introduction to some aspects of what are extensive and varied bodies of work. Many students do not have the opportunity to read any of these authors except for brief excerpts or secondary accounts. So the primary purpose here is to allow you to begin an engagement that, for the fortunate, lasts a lifetime.

So, we will examine the production of nature, society, power, and desire through the works of Marx, Darwin, Nietzsche, and Freud. And we examine them not because they are canonical “great works” but because they mark how works become canonical; not because we are concerned with “Great Men” or “Great Figures In Thought” but because these authors/works mark changes in knowledge and the limits to truth in their time by raising fundamental problems that the sciences of life and society seek to address address. The readings for this course will cover both their well known as well as more obscure, but often more important, works of social critique.