Teoría de las pasiones y lucha por la existencia: una mirada renovada a la influencia de Malthus en Darwin

• Autores: Daniel Labrador Montero
• Localización: Araucaria: Revista Iberoamericana de Filosofía, Política, Humanidades y Relaciones Internacionales, ISSN 1575-6823, ISSN-e 2340-2199, Vol. 28, Nº 61, 2026 (Ejemplar dedicado a: Antonio de Nebrija / La hispanidad como límite), págs. 123-144
• Idioma: español
• Títulos paralelos:
  • Theory of the Passions and the Struggle for Existence: A Renewed Perspective on Malthus’s Influence on Darwin
• Enlaces
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• Resumen
  • español

    Este artículo ofrece un nuevo enfoque a la hora de estudiar la influencia de Malthus en Darwin. Muchos filósofos e historiadores consideran que el insight malthusiano del naturalista implicó la simple aplicación del principio de población al mundo natural. Sin embargo, en este artículo se sostiene que, al asumir dicho principio, Darwin incorpora también otros elementos del pensamiento malthusiano, en particular elementos de corte antropológico y psicológico que remiten a la tradición de la escuela escocesa. Estos componentes, fundamentales para sostener la tesis de Malthus, son reelaborados por Darwin en clave biológica como parte de una operación conceptual más profunda. En este proceso, la noción de “lucha por la existencia” se convierte en una metáfora compleja y polisémica que articula aspectos esenciales de su teoría evolutiva. El artículo propone, así, una lectura innovadora del trasvase intelectual entre economía política y biología.

  • English

    This article offers a new approach to studying Malthus’s influence on Darwin. Many philosophers and historians have argued that Darwin’s so-called Malthusian insight amounted to the mere application of the principle of population to the natural world. However, this article contends that, in adopting this principle, Darwin also incorporated other elements of Malthus’s thought, specifically, anthropological and psychological components rooted in the tradition of the Scottish Enlightenment. These components, essential to the coherence of Malthus’s thesis, were reworked by Darwin in biological terms as part of a more profound conceptual operation. In this process, the notion of the “struggle for existence” becomes a complex and polysemic metaphor that articulates key dimensions of his evolutionary theory. The article thus offers an innovative reading of the intellectual transfer between political economy and biology.

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