DIDIER MALEUVRE

                                                           CAN WE BELIEVE DARWIN?

FEW THINKERS OR SCIENTISTS have done more than Charles Darwin to put philosophical naturalism at the center of the Western intellectual outlook.  The view that the world hinges, not on divine consciousness, but on mechanistic processes, instincts, and chance; the notion that matter, not mind, rules life, and that consciousness is only a random offshoot of natural evolution rather than its planning center--all these conceptions which fasten the modern intellect to a secular mechanistic authority can be traced back to Darwin's The Origins of Species.  Indeed, one always seems to turn to Darwin when cheering scientific naturalism, or when booing its flattening views.  My interest here is to consider the objections against Darwinism, not those stemming from know-nothing religious outcry, but those rooted in philosophy.  These objections contend that, far from offering a compelling theory, Darwinism undercuts its own scientific authority and even refutes itself--that it takes away our reason to believe it.  I intend to show that the criticism according to which Darwin saps his own credibility overlooks the important fact that, along with the fabric of things, Darwin also revolutionizes the intellectual nature of belief.