LETTER TO PIETR LAVROVITCH LAVROV, FROM FRIEDRICH ENGELS

a discussion about the limits of Darwinism

Abstract

Socialism and struggle for existence, article written by the Russian philosopher Pietro Lavrovitch Lavrov, addressed Darwinian ideas, centering them on the struggle for existence, under a social level, that is, transposing and adapting Darwin’s thesis, exposed in The origin of species, from the biological to the social level, with the important increase of the concept of human solidarity. Responding to Lavrov's article, Engels writes to the Russian author in a letter, in 1875, his refutations to social Darwinism. This paper reviews, in a critical and explanatory way, Engels' letter to Lavrov, explaining the refutations and problematizations presented by Engels to the implementation of social Darwinism in the historical materialist perspective. Engels arguments cover the biological level, concerning the incompleteness of Darwinism itself; the social level, on the lack of evidence at this specific level; and, finally, the metaphysical, on the impossibility of transposing a thesis from a biological.