Darwin's tangled legacy. Evolutionary perspectives in contemporary thought

The present issue discusses the uses, opportunities and misuses of the recent evolutionary research program when approaching key issues in contemporary philosophical thought. One aim of the current issue is to illustrate past and current avenues of productive dialogue between biology – evolutionary biology, in particular – and philosophy. Further, the issue investigates what the evolutionary conceptual and empirical repertoire can teach us about life and human nature conundrums and which interpretative paths, previously left unexplored by classic philosophical approaches, arise from such perspective. Never as in contemporary philosophical debates, the Darwinian perspective emerged as a vital tool or, in John Dewey’s words, as “the greatest dissolvent in contemporary thought of old questions, the greatest precipitant of new methods, new intentions, new problems”.