On Mon, 29 Mar 2010 14:42:16 -0500 Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> writes:
> The concept of "altruism," invented by Comte, is a futile attempt to
> resolve the contradiction btween a radically individualist
> conception of
> humanity on the one hand and the obvious sociality of human history
> on
> the other hand. (This sociality is older than homo sapiens.)
In biological theory, the concept of altruism is given a technical meaning.
One important aspect of the work of much contemporary evolutionary biology, including especially the work of the gene-centered evolutionists like William Hamilton, George Williams, John Maynard Smith, and Richard Dawkins, is the use of mathematica models. Hamilton, for instance, in studying altruism introduced the use of cost-benefit equations. Most of these models, can be seen as representing an application of mathematics that had originally been developed for use by neoclassical economists. John Maynard Smith and other evolutionary biologists have pioneered the use of game theory, once again a type of mathematics that had originally been developed for use by economists. What Dawkins calls selfish replicators, are posited as rational maximizers of their self-interests.
This aspect of evolutionary biology is not altogether new. One hundred and forty years ago, when Darwin's *The Origin of Species* came out, Karl Marx noted that Darwin's theorizing represented the application of British political economy to biology. Darwin admitted as much in his Autobiography where he tells us that he came up with the idea of evolution by natural selection after reading the work of Malthus and Smith.
Jim Farmelant http://independent.academia.edu/JimFarmelant
> Dawkins
> accepts the absurdigy of radical individualism than tries to
> reconcile
> it with his own subjective impulses. It's all very silly.
>
> Carrol
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