Year: 2012
Type: article
Abstract: Evolutionary models of cultural change have acquired an important role in attempts to explain the course of human evolution, especially our specialization in knowledge-gathering and intelligent control of environments. In both biological and cultural change, different patterns of explanation become relevant at different 'grains' of analysis and in contexts associated with different explanatory targets. Existing treatments of the evolutionary approach to culture, both positive and negative, underestimate the importance of these distinctions. Close attention to grain of analysis motivates distinctions between three possible modes of cultural evolution, each associated with different empirical assumptions and explanatory roles.
Author: Peter Godfrey-Smith
Institutions: The Graduate Center, CUNY, City University of New York
Language: English
Subfield: Cultural Studies
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W2103770387