Darwinian Sociocultural Evolution: Solutions to Dilemmas in Cultural and Social Theory

Marion Blute

doi:10.1017/CBO9780511804755

Social scientists can learn a lot from evolutionary biology - from systematics and principles of evolutionary ecology to theories of social interaction including competition, conflict and cooperation, as well as niche construction, complexity, eco-evo-devo, and the role of the individual in evolutionary processes. Darwinian sociocultural evolutionary theory applies the logic of Darwinism to social-learning based cultural and social change. With a multidisciplinary approach for graduate biologists, philosophers, sociologists, anthropologists, social psychologists, archaeologists, linguists, economists, political scientists and science and technology specialists, the author presents this model of evolution drawing on a number of sophisticated aspects of biological evolutionary theory. The approach brings together a broad and inclusive theoretical framework for understanding the social sciences which addresses many of the dilemmas at their forefront - the relationship between history and necessity, conflict and cooperation, the ideal and the material and the problems of agency, subjectivity and the nature of social structure.

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Darwinian Sociocultural Evolution

Solutions to Dilemmas in Cultural and Social Theory

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Contents

Frontmatter
pp i-iv

Contents
pp v-vi

Preface: a postmodern metanarrative
pp vii-viii

Acknowledgments
pp ix-x

1 - Introduction
pp 1-22

2 - History: where did something come from?
pp 23-50

3 - Necessity: why did it evolve?
pp 51-79

4 - Competition, conflict and cooperation: why and how do they interact socially?
pp 80-112

5 - The ideal and the material: the role of memes in evolutionary social science
pp 113-137

6 - Micro and macro I: the problem of agency
pp 138-161

7 - Micro and macro II: the problem of subjectivity
pp 162-181

8 - Micro and macro III: the evolution of complexity and the problem of social structure
pp 182-198

9 - Evolutionism and the future of the social sciences
pp 199-208

References
pp 209-232

Index
pp 233-239

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Darwinian Sociocultural Evolution

Solutions to Dilemmas in Cultural and Social Theory

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