Beyond the Meme
Development and Structure in Cultural Evolution
Published on 3. September 2019
Book
Hardback
576 pages
978-1-5179-0689-4 (ISBN)
Description
Interdisciplinary perspectives on cultural evolution that reject meme theory in favor of a complex understanding of dynamic change over time
How do cultures change? In recent decades, the concept of the meme, posited as a basic unit of culture analogous to the gene, has been central to debates about cultural transformation. Despite the appeal of meme theory, its simplification of complex interactions and other inadequacies as an explanatory framework raise more questions about cultural evolution than it answers.
In Beyond the Meme, William C. Wimsatt and Alan C. Love assemble interdisciplinary perspectives on cultural evolution, providing a nuanced understanding of it as a process in which dynamic structures interact on different scales of size and time. By focusing on the full range of evolutionary processes across distinct contexts, from rice farming to scientific reasoning, this volume demonstrates how a thick understanding of change in culture emerges from multiple disciplinary vantage points, each of which is required to understand cultural evolution in all its complexity. The editors provide an extensive introductory essay to contextualize the volume, and Wimsatt contributes a separate chapter that systematically organizes the conceptual geography of cultural processes and phenomena.
Any adequate account of the transmission, elaboration, and evolution of culture must, this volume argues, recognize the central roles that cognitive and social development play in cultural change and the complex interplay of technological, organizational, and institutional structures needed to enable and coordinate these processes.
Contributors: Marshall Abrams, U of Alabama at Birmingham; Claes Andersson, Chalmers U of Technology; Mark A. Bedau, Reed College; James A. Evans, U of Chicago; Jacob G. Foster, U of California, Los Angeles; Michel Janssen, U of Minnesota; Sabina Leonelli, U of Exeter; Massimo Maiocchi, U of Chicago; Joseph D. Martin, U of Cambridge; Salikoko S. Mufwene, U of Chicago; Nancy J. Nersessian, Georgia Institute of Technology and Harvard U; Paul E. Smaldino, U of California, Merced; Anton TOErnberg, U of Gothenburg; Petter TOErnberg, U of Amsterdam; Gilbert B. Tostevin, U of Minnesota.
How do cultures change? In recent decades, the concept of the meme, posited as a basic unit of culture analogous to the gene, has been central to debates about cultural transformation. Despite the appeal of meme theory, its simplification of complex interactions and other inadequacies as an explanatory framework raise more questions about cultural evolution than it answers.
In Beyond the Meme, William C. Wimsatt and Alan C. Love assemble interdisciplinary perspectives on cultural evolution, providing a nuanced understanding of it as a process in which dynamic structures interact on different scales of size and time. By focusing on the full range of evolutionary processes across distinct contexts, from rice farming to scientific reasoning, this volume demonstrates how a thick understanding of change in culture emerges from multiple disciplinary vantage points, each of which is required to understand cultural evolution in all its complexity. The editors provide an extensive introductory essay to contextualize the volume, and Wimsatt contributes a separate chapter that systematically organizes the conceptual geography of cultural processes and phenomena.
Any adequate account of the transmission, elaboration, and evolution of culture must, this volume argues, recognize the central roles that cognitive and social development play in cultural change and the complex interplay of technological, organizational, and institutional structures needed to enable and coordinate these processes.
Contributors: Marshall Abrams, U of Alabama at Birmingham; Claes Andersson, Chalmers U of Technology; Mark A. Bedau, Reed College; James A. Evans, U of Chicago; Jacob G. Foster, U of California, Los Angeles; Michel Janssen, U of Minnesota; Sabina Leonelli, U of Exeter; Massimo Maiocchi, U of Chicago; Joseph D. Martin, U of Cambridge; Salikoko S. Mufwene, U of Chicago; Nancy J. Nersessian, Georgia Institute of Technology and Harvard U; Paul E. Smaldino, U of California, Merced; Anton TOErnberg, U of Gothenburg; Petter TOErnberg, U of Amsterdam; Gilbert B. Tostevin, U of Minnesota.
Reviews / Votes
"Beyond the Meme is a collection of thought-provoking essays dealing with the multifaceted complexity and wide diversity of cultural systems."-Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science"An appreciation of how development and structure can be brought to bear on specific problems."-Evolutionary Studies
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Minnesota
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
45
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 51 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-5179-0689-4 (9781517906894)
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Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Alan C. Love is professor of philosophy and director of the Minnesota Center for Philosophy of Science at the University of Minnesota.
William C. Wimsatt is Peter B. Ritzma Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at the University of Chicago, and Winton Chair in the Liberal Arts and professor of philosophy at the University of Minnesota. He is author of Re-Engineering Philosophy for Limited Beings: Piecewise Approximations to Reality.
William C. Wimsatt is Peter B. Ritzma Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at the University of Chicago, and Winton Chair in the Liberal Arts and professor of philosophy at the University of Minnesota. He is author of Re-Engineering Philosophy for Limited Beings: Piecewise Approximations to Reality.