Darwinian sociocultural evolution: solutions to dilemmas in cultural and social theory

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. INDICE: 1. Introduction; 2. History: where did something come from?; 3. Necessity: why did it evolve?; 4. Competition, conflict and cooperation: why andhow do they interact socially?; 5. The ideal and the material: the role of memes in evolutionary social science; 6. Micro and macro I: the problem of agency; 7. Micro and macro II: the problem of subjectivity; 8. Micro and macro III:the evolution of complexity and the problem of social structure; 9. Evolutionism: the old, the new and the future of the social sciences.

• ISBN: 978-0-521-74595-6
• Editorial: Cambridge University
• Encuadernacion: Rústica
• Páginas: 250
• Fecha Publicación: 14/01/2010
• Nº Volúmenes: 1
• Idioma: Inglés