Czechow wobec Darwina i darwinizmu

Lev Shestov defined Anton Chekov’s philosophy of life as materialist positivism. The writings of Chekov were visibly influenced by natural science. Being a representative of a 1880s generation, which believed in the “philosophy of little things” and a physician by education, he paid attention to the recent currents in natural history. Hence Darwin’s theory also drew his attention, and he supported it as a scientific theory as well as fought against journalism which was mocking at it. However, he was definitely against applying the Darwin’s discoveries to the social sciences, and expressed that attitude in his short story Duel.