Cultural Evolution

AvKate Distin

Inbunden, Engelska, 2010

1 081 kr

Beställningsvara. Skickas inom 7-10 vardagar. Fri frakt över 249 kr.

Fler format och utgåvor

Häftad

408 kr

Beskrivning

In this book, Kate Distin proposes a theory of cultural evolution and shows how it can help us to understand the origin and development of human culture. Distin introduces the concept that humans share information not only in natural languages, which are spoken or signed, but also in artefactual languages like writing and musical notation, which use media that are made by humans. Languages enable humans to receive and transmit variations in cultural information and resources. In this way, they provide the mechanism for cultural evolution. The human capacity for metarepresentation - thinking about how we think - accelerates cultural evolution, because it frees cultural information from the conceptual limitations of each individual language. Distin shows how the concept of cultural evolution outlined in this book can help us to understand the complexity and diversity of human culture, relating her theory to a range of subjects including economics, linguistics, and developmental biology.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum:2010-05-31
Mått:152 x 229 x 17 mm
Vikt:520 g
Format:Inbunden
Språk:Engelska
Antal sidor:282
Förlag:Cambridge University Press
ISBN:9780521769013

Utforska kategorier

Naturvetenskapens filosofi inom Naturvetenskap och teknik

Mer om författaren

Kate Distin was educated at Cambridge University and the University of Sheffield. She is the author of The Selfish Meme: A Critical Reassessment (Cambridge University Press, 2005) and the editor of the award-winning Gifted Children: A Guide for Parents and Professionals (2006).

Recensioner i media

'Why cultural evolution is cumulative in humans, but not in other species, remains a significant puzzle. Distin argues that our brain's ability to represent information to itself (so-called metarepresentation) enabled the accelerating increases in cultural complexity that are so distinctive of our species. She suggests that metarepresentation, first manifest in syntactic language, was later augmented by the storage and transmission of information through artifacts. Further, as stores of information, artifacts have significant advantages - they are stable, durable, and almost infinite in capacity - features that make it possible for cultural information to increase and diversify. Her approach brings fresh insights and novel perspectives to this difficult problem at the center of human evolution.' Robert Aunger, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

Innehållsförteckning

1. Introduction: small consequences of one general law; Part I. The Inheritance of Cultural Information: 2. What is information?; 3. How is information inherited?; Part II. The Inheritance of Cultural Information: Natural Language: 4. Natural language and culture: the biological building blocks; 5. How did natural language evolve?; 6. Language, thought, and culture; Part III. In Inheritance of Cultural Information: Artefactual Language: 7. How did artefactual language evolve?; 8. Artefactual language, representation and culture; 9. Money: an artefactual language; 10. Money: the explanatory power of artefactual languages; Part III. The Receivers of Cultural Information: 11. How does human diversity affect cultural evolution?; Part IV. The Expression of Cultural Information: 12. Aspects of the cultural ecology; 13. Patterns of cultural taxonomy; 14. Conclusion: a representational understanding of cultural evolution; Appendix: what about memetics?