
From Darwin to Derrida
Selfish Genes, Social Selves, and the Meanings of Life
David Haig(Author)
MIT Press
Published on 17. February 2026
Book
Paperback/Softback
512 pages
978-0-262-05719-6 (ISBN)
Description
How the meaningless process of natural selection produces purposeful beings who find meaning in the world.
In From Darwin to Derrida, evolutionary biologist David Haig explains how a physical world of matter in motion gave rise to a living world of purpose and meaning. Natural selection, a process without purpose, gives rise to purposeful beings who find meaning in the world. The key to this, Haig proposes, is the origin of mutable “texts”—genes—that preserve a record of what has worked in the world. These texts become the specifications for the intricate mechanisms of living beings.
Haig draws on a wide range of sources—from Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy to Immanuel Kant's Critique of the Power of Judgment to the work of Jacques Derrida to the latest findings on gene transmission, duplication, and expression—to make his argument. Genes and their effects, he explains, are like eggs and chickens. Eggs exist for the sake of becoming chickens and chickens for the sake of laying eggs. A gene's effects have a causal role in determining which genes are copied. A gene (considered as a lineage of material copies) persists if its lineage has been consistently associated with survival and reproduction. Organisms can be understood as interpreters that link information from the environment to meaningful action in the environment. Meaning, Haig argues, is the output of a process of interpretation; there is a continuum from the very simplest forms of interpretation, instantiated in single RNA molecules near the origins of life, to the most sophisticated. Life is interpretation—the use of information in choice.
In From Darwin to Derrida, evolutionary biologist David Haig explains how a physical world of matter in motion gave rise to a living world of purpose and meaning. Natural selection, a process without purpose, gives rise to purposeful beings who find meaning in the world. The key to this, Haig proposes, is the origin of mutable “texts”—genes—that preserve a record of what has worked in the world. These texts become the specifications for the intricate mechanisms of living beings.
Haig draws on a wide range of sources—from Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy to Immanuel Kant's Critique of the Power of Judgment to the work of Jacques Derrida to the latest findings on gene transmission, duplication, and expression—to make his argument. Genes and their effects, he explains, are like eggs and chickens. Eggs exist for the sake of becoming chickens and chickens for the sake of laying eggs. A gene's effects have a causal role in determining which genes are copied. A gene (considered as a lineage of material copies) persists if its lineage has been consistently associated with survival and reproduction. Organisms can be understood as interpreters that link information from the environment to meaningful action in the environment. Meaning, Haig argues, is the output of a process of interpretation; there is a continuum from the very simplest forms of interpretation, instantiated in single RNA molecules near the origins of life, to the most sophisticated. Life is interpretation—the use of information in choice.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge (Massachusetts)
United States
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Dimensions
Height: 204 mm
Width: 136 mm
Thickness: 36 mm
Weight
417 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-262-05719-6 (9780262057196)
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
03/2020
MIT Press
€38.99
Available for download
Person
David Haig; foreword by Daniel C. Dennett
Content
Foreword by Daniel C. Dennett xi
Prologue: From the Beginning Was the Word xxi
1 Barren Virgins 1
2 Social Genes 17
3 The "Gene" Meme 53
4 Differences That Make a Difference 73
5 Limber Robots and Lumbering Genes 101
6 Intrapersonal Conflict 125
7 Scratching Your Own Back 143
8 Reflexions on Self 165
9 How Come? What For? Why? 183
10 Sameness and Difference 203
11 Fighting the Good Cause 233
Interlude 271
12 Making Sense 281
X Vive la differance 317
13 On the Origin of Meaning 321
14 On the Past and Future of Freedom 347
15 Darwinian Hermeneutics 359
Cadenza 379
Appendix (a Vestigial Organ): Words about Words 381
Acknowledgments 393
References 395
Sources 435
Index 437
Prologue: From the Beginning Was the Word xxi
1 Barren Virgins 1
2 Social Genes 17
3 The "Gene" Meme 53
4 Differences That Make a Difference 73
5 Limber Robots and Lumbering Genes 101
6 Intrapersonal Conflict 125
7 Scratching Your Own Back 143
8 Reflexions on Self 165
9 How Come? What For? Why? 183
10 Sameness and Difference 203
11 Fighting the Good Cause 233
Interlude 271
12 Making Sense 281
X Vive la differance 317
13 On the Origin of Meaning 321
14 On the Past and Future of Freedom 347
15 Darwinian Hermeneutics 359
Cadenza 379
Appendix (a Vestigial Organ): Words about Words 381
Acknowledgments 393
References 395
Sources 435
Index 437