Martina Valkovic – författare

This volume explores connections between two growing and complementary fields of research: cultural evolutionary theory and social ontology. It sheds light on the ontological aspects of cultural evolution that so far have been largely neglected and raises questions for social ontology regarding the relevance of evolutionary aspects of social phenomena.This volume shows that cultural evolutionary theory and social ontology are complementary disciplines that, while having their own subject matter and their own research questions, illuminate each other in interesting ways. While the contributors vary in their approach to the relationship between social ontology and cultural evolution, they explore their many common themes, including power, language, agency, interaction, and social institutions and roles. The chapters are divided into thematic sections organized around meta-perspectives on cultural evolution and social ontology, the power concept in cultural evolution and social ontology, and themes of interactions and collectives in cultural and social evolution. Together, the chapters demonstrate how social ontology can provide critical tests of central assumptions in cultural evolutionary theory, and how cultural evolution can provide accounts of the origins of social entities.Cultural Evolution and Social Ontology will appeal to researchers and graduate students working in cultural evolution, social ontology, metaphysics, social philosophy, philosophy of the social sciences, philosophy of biology, and philosophy of science, as well as those working in disciplines outside philosophy, such as anthropology and sociology.

This volume explores connections between two growing and complementary fields of research: cultural evolutionary theory and social ontology. It sheds light on the ontological aspects of cultural evolution that so far have been largely neglected and raises questions for social ontology regarding the relevance of evolutionary aspects of social phenomena.This volume shows that cultural evolutionary theory and social ontology are complementary disciplines that, while having their own subject matter and their own research questions, illuminate each other in interesting ways. While the contributors vary in their approach to the relationship between social ontology and cultural evolution, they explore their many common themes, including power, language, agency, interaction, and social institutions and roles. The chapters are divided into thematic sections organized around meta-perspectives on cultural evolution and social ontology, the power concept in cultural evolution and social ontology, and themes of interactions and collectives in cultural and social evolution. Together, the chapters demonstrate how social ontology can provide critical tests of central assumptions in cultural evolutionary theory, and how cultural evolution can provide accounts of the origins of social entities.Cultural Evolution and Social Ontology will appeal to researchers and graduate students working in cultural evolution, social ontology, metaphysics, social philosophy, philosophy of the social sciences, philosophy of biology, and philosophy of science, as well as those working in disciplines outside philosophy, such as anthropology and sociology.

This volume explores connections between two growing and complementary fields of research: cultural evolutionary theory and social ontology. It sheds light on the ontological aspects of cultural evolution that so far have been largely neglected and raises questions for social ontology regarding the relevance of evolutionary aspects of social phenomena.This volume shows that cultural evolutionary theory and social ontology are complementary disciplines that, while having their own subject matter and their own research questions, illuminate each other in interesting ways. While the contributors vary in their approach to the relationship between social ontology and cultural evolution, they explore their many common themes, including power, language, agency, interaction, and social institutions and roles. The chapters are divided into thematic sections organized around meta-perspectives on cultural evolution and social ontology, the power concept in cultural evolution and social ontology, and themes of interactions and collectives in cultural and social evolution. Together, the chapters demonstrate how social ontology can provide critical tests of central assumptions in cultural evolutionary theory, and how cultural evolution can provide accounts of the origins of social entities.Cultural Evolution and Social Ontology will appeal to researchers and graduate students working in cultural evolution, social ontology, metaphysics, social philosophy, philosophy of the social sciences, philosophy of biology, and philosophy of science, as well as those working in disciplines outside philosophy, such as anthropology and sociology.

This volume aims to clarify the epistemic potential of applying evolutionary thinking outside biology, and provides a survey of the current state of the art in research on relevant topics in the life sciences, the philosophy of science, and the various areas of evolutionary research outside the life sciences. By bringing together chapters by evolutionary biologists, systematic biologists, philosophers of biology, philosophers of social science, complex systems modelers, psychologists, anthropologists, economists, linguists, historians, and educators, the volume examines evolutionary thinking within and outside the life sciences from a multidisciplinary perspective. While the chapters written by biologists and philosophers of science address theoretical aspects of the guiding questions and aims of the volume, the chapters written by researchers from the other areas approach them from the perspective of applying evolutionary thinking to non-biological phenomena. Taken together, the chapters in this volume do not only show how evolutionary thinking can be fruitfully applied in various areas of investigation, but also highlight numerous open problems, unanswered questions, and issues on which more clarity is needed. As such, the volume can serve as a starting point for future research on the application of evolutionary thinking across disciplines.