The Evolution of Cultural Entities
Michael Wheeler, John Ziman, and Margaret A. Boden
Abstract
Ever since Charles Darwin, scholars have noted that cultural entities such as languages, laws, firms, and theories seem to ‘evolve’ through sequences of variation, selection and replication, in many ways just like living organisms. This book considers whether this comparison is ‘just a metaphor’, or whether modern evolutionary theory can help us to understand the dynamics of different cultural domains. The ‘evolutionary paradigm of rationality’ has a significant role to play throughout the human sciences, but raises complex issues in every cultural context where it is applied. By fostering dis ... More
Ever since Charles Darwin, scholars have noted that cultural entities such as languages, laws, firms, and theories seem to ‘evolve’ through sequences of variation, selection and replication, in many ways just like living organisms. This book considers whether this comparison is ‘just a metaphor’, or whether modern evolutionary theory can help us to understand the dynamics of different cultural domains. The ‘evolutionary paradigm of rationality’ has a significant role to play throughout the human sciences, but raises complex issues in every cultural context where it is applied. By fostering discussion between scholars from a wide range of research traditions, this book aims to influence the evolution of all of them.
Keywords:
evolution,
languages,
laws,
selection,
replication,
evolutionary theory,
cultural entities,
evolutionary paradigm of rationality
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2002 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780197262627 |
| Published to British Academy Scholarship Online: January 2015 |
DOI:10.5871/bacad/9780197262627.001.0001 |
Authors
Affiliations are at time of print publication.
Michael Wheeler, editor
Lecturer in Philosophy, University of Dundee
John Ziman, editor
Emeritus Professor of Physics, University of Bristol
Margaret A. Boden, editor
Professor of Philosophy and Psychology, University of Sussex
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