Between social evolutionism and individual: analysis of the concepts “evolution” and “progress” in The Man Versus de State by Herbert Spencer (1884)

Abstract

The concepts "evolution" and "progress" have influenced the political, social, economic, and cultural landscape of the West since the mid-18th century. The terms, in vogue in scientific and philosophical language at the time, were gestated and strengthened industrial and political contexts of nineteenth-century Europe. In this order of ideas, the present article aims to study, from the perspective of Conceptual History, the concepts "evolution" and "progress" in the thought of Herbert Spencer in his work The individual against the State (1884), seeking to understand the connections of the terms with the strengthening of the idea of the individual, and with social Darwinism. For this, the article is divided in four, with which to understand the theoretical frameworks of Conceptual History, the enunciation context of the concepts, their theoretical and linguistic characteristics, and, finally, their link with theoretical-scientific positions (social evolutionism).