Review of From Darwin to Derrida by David Haig
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Review of From Darwin to Derrida by David Haig MIT Press 2020. ISBN 9780262043786 Samir Okasha1 Received: 15 October 2020 / Accepted: 15 October 2020 © The Author(s) 2020
David Haig is an evolutionary biologist best known for his pioneering work on the evolutionary implications of genomic imprinting, the remarkable phenomenon in which the phenotypic effect of a gene depends on whether it was maternally or paternally inherited. Haig’s key contribution was to connect genomic imprinting with the theory of kin selection, which led him to the insight that the maternally and paternally derived alleles of a gene within an organism would be selected to favour different phenotypic strategies, leading to within-organism conflict. In addition to his scientific work, for many years Haig has also been an active participant in the philosophy of biology, engaging with many of the main topics in that field. The 15 essays collected in From Darwin to Derrida are a reflection of Haig’s dual scientific and philosophical interests. The chapters bear intriguing titles (“Barren Virgins”, “Vive La Différance”, “Darwinian Hermeneutics”) and stem from Haig’s conviction that “the humanities and sciences have much to say to each other” (p. xxvii). Haig’s book touches on a dizzyingly broad array of topics—from the messy molecular details of riboswitches to the nature of human freedom. The book is written in a style that is informal and readable, despite tackling issues of considerable scientific and philosophical complexity. The book’s subtitle—“Selfish Genes, Social Selves and the Meaning of Life’’— reflects some of the main themes. Haig’s thinking has been heavily influenced by the selfish gene theory of Richard Dawkins, and he has much to say about the gene concept, the power and limits of gene selectionism, the notion of replication, cultural evolution, memetics, and related topics. “Social Selves” refers to Haig’s conviction that an individual organism is a collective entity, made up of genomic constituents with non-identical evolutionary interests. Haig argues that the resulting intra-genomic conflict, for example between imprinted genes at the same locus, or between nuclear and cytoplasmic genes, is analogous to within-person psychological conflict, and threatens the idea of an organism as an autonomous agent. “The Meaning of Life” refers to Haig’s interest in function and purpose, genetic information, * Samir Okasha [email protected] 1
Department of Philosophy, University of Bristol, Bristol BS6 6JL, UK
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and the origins of intentionality. These themes are also central in the work of Daniel Dennett, whose influence on Haig, and vice-versa, is apparent. One striking feature of Haig’s book is the attention he pays to the language used in biology, in particular to the role of metaphors in conveying biological ideas. Indeed, in an Appendix in the book, Haig sketches the outline of a philosophy of language, which includes the striking claim that “all meaning is metaphor”. (I suspect that Haig
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