The Theory of Cultural and Social Selection
Published on 5. November 2009
Book
Paperback/Softback
266 pages
978-0-521-13614-3 (ISBN)
Description
In The Theory of Cultural and Social Selection, W. G. Runciman presents an original and wide-ranging account of the fundamental process by which human cultures and societies come to be of the different kinds that they are. Drawing on and extending recent advances in neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory, Runciman argues that collective human behaviour should be analyzed as the acting-out of information transmitted at the three separate but interacting levels of heritable variation and competitive selection - the biological, the cultural, and the social. The implications which this carries for a reformulation of the traditional agenda of comparative and historical sociology are explored with the help of selected examples, and located within the context of current debates about sociological theory and practice. The Theory of Cultural and Social Selection is a succinct and highly imaginative contribution to one of the great intellectual debates of our times, from one of the world's leading social theorists.
Reviews / Votes
'Runciman's puzzle is how to bring together different levels of change and differentiation in human existence - from the biological to the social - under a single analytic framework, one that rests firmly on a Darwinian logic of selection. ... Runciman ... deal[s] ultimately with human freedom or lack of it. Our choices in life are constrained, on the one hand by the physical facts of our place in the natural world given our universal evolutionary heritage, and on the other hand by locally varying institutional facts that determine how our behaviour will be interpreted and judged by those around us. Fires and billboards made from dollar bills put the distinctions suggested by Runciman ... into sharp relief by exploiting physical properties of artefacts while rejecting their institutional properties. ' The Times Literary SupplementMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Illustrations
Worked examples or Exercises
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 15 mm
Weight
390 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-521-13614-3 (9780521136143)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
W. G. Runciman
The Theory of Cultural and Social Selection
E-Book
06/2010
1st Edition
Cambridge University Press
€24.99
Available for download
W. G. Runciman
The Theory of Cultural and Social Selection
Book
11/2009
Cambridge University Press
€50.10
Shipment within 15-20 days
Person
W. G. Runciman has been a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge since 1971 and of the British Academy, as whose President he served from 2001-2004, since 1975. He holds honorary degrees from the Universities of Edinburgh, London, Oxford and York. He is an Honorary Fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford and a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Content
Preface; Prologue. The Darwinian legacy; 1. The neo-Darwinian paradigm; 2. Natural selection and evoked behaviour; 3. Cultural selection and acquired behaviour; 4. Social selection and imposed behaviour; 5. Selectionist theory as narrative history; Epilogue. Sociology in a post-Darwinian world.