REVIEWS 329 DARWIN'S PHILOSOPHICAL SIGNIFICANCE Michael Ruse: Taking Darwin Seriously: A Naturalistic Approach to Philosophy. (Ox- ford: Basil Blackwell, 1986. Pp. xv, 303. $24.95.) In 1981, the Arkansas Supreme Court, in a well-publicized trial, reviewed, and finally overturned the state law governing the teaching of evolution in the public schools. Michael Ruse, a well-known philosopher of biology, was one of the primary supporters for the challengers of this law, and this book is in some respects a continuation of his arguments for the evolutionary cause. His book seeks to make the case philosophi- cally for the general relevance of neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory for traditional philosophical problems, particularly focusing on epistemology and ethics. Well-written, readable, and intended as a general overview of issues, it provides a useful posing of questions and a survey of recent literature. After a brief exposition of the evidence for Darwin's theory, Ruse surveys the prior attempts since Darwin to work out either an evolutionary episte- mology or an evolutionary ethics. He describes Spencerianism, Huxley's responses, Toulmin's theory of concept formation, and aspects of contem- porary sociobiology, generally drawing negative conclusions concerning their success. Chapter four turns to the issue of human evolution, sur- veying recent work on this question, extending itself into discussion of social evolution and culture. In the concluding two chapters he presents his own arguments for the relevance of Darwin for contemporary issues in epistemology and ethics, seeking to overcome the fatal problems with prior attempts he details in the early chapters. I will confine my critical remarks generally to the issues raised in these last two chapters. Initially, readers of this journal might be inclined to question the most fundamental premise of this book: Is natural scientific theory, even if true, legitimately capable of being extended philosophically in this way to bear on classical questions of anthropology, ethics, theory of knowledge, and social existence? Ought Darwin, in other words, to be taken seriously on such questions? Between 1859 and 1940, libraries were filled with attempts to carry out the "Darwinizing" of philosophy—Spencer, Huxley, Mead, Sumner, Dewey, Alexander, Smuts, Teilhard de Chardin, to name but a few—all without notable success. Most of this literature seems almost un- readable today. More recently this program, under the banner of sociobi- ology, has had a popular, if apparently waning, influence on discussions of social ethics, politics, and morality. In light of this literature, Ruse's book may generate a feeling of deja ou. But this would be an unfair characterization. The larger question Ruse attacks is the possibility of completing a fully naturalistic position in phi- losophy, a question which could, and has been, discussed independently of Darwinism. The hero of the book, if one needs be identified, is not so much Darwin as David Hume.