The Role of Evolutionary Logic in the Modern Approach to the Philosophy of History

Document Type : Short Paper

Author

Department of Philosophy of Science, Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran.

10.22059/jihs.2026.408595.371866

Abstract

Karl Löwith, in his book Meaning in History (1949), argues that in Christian theology the meaning of history is tied to viewing our world as a realm of sin and death. He believes that the change in the meaning of history starting in the eighteenth century was the result of the Industrial Revolution and the French Revolution. This article examines the role of Darwinism, alongside these two factors, in changing the meaning of history. It also offers a critique of Löwith’s view and, more broadly, of similar beliefs about the idea of progress and modern eschatology. The article argues that Darwinian evolution and evolutionary thinking are inseparable from the modern worldview, and that they help resolve the ambiguities in this worldview that concerned philosophers like Löwith

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References

یاسپرس, کارل. (1949). آغاز و انجام تاریخ (ترجمۀ محمدحسن لطفی).
 
Berdyaev, Nicolai. (1936). The meaning of history, translated by George Reavey.
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Bury, John.B . (1920). The Iead of Progress: An Inquiry into its Origins and Growth. London: Macmillan and co.
Koselleck, Reinhart. (2002). The Practice of Conceptual History: Timing History, Spacing Concepts. Stanford University Press.
Lowith, Carl. (1949). Meaning in historty. University of Chicago.
Paulin, Batairwa. (2013). Catholic eschatology and evolutionism. Rajna Vihara, Volume 14, Number 1-2.
Sober, Elliot. (2024). Evolutionary Theory, Concepts, Inferences and Probabilities. Cambridge University Press.

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