Cultural longevity: Morin on cultural lineages

Buskell, Andrew (2016) Cultural longevity: Morin on cultural lineages. Biology and Philosophy, 31 (3). pp. 435-446. ISSN 0169-3867

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Abstract

Morin has written a rich and valuable book. Its main aim is to isolate the factors involved in maintaining behavioural lineages over time, and to understand how these factors might interact. In doing so, it takes issue with the abstract and idealised models and arguments of dual-inheritance theorists, which are alleged in this account to rely on an overly simplistic notion of imitative learning. Morin’s book is full of ethnographic, anthropological, and psychological research, and there is much to commend in it. However, Morin’s arguments against the dual-inheritance theorists are less convincing when put under scrutiny, and his positive picture which includes appeals to ostensive communication, intrinsic appeal and cultural attraction has some difficulties. I argue that when we contrast dual-inheritance theorists and Morin, we find that there may be fewer differences and greater commonalities than Morin’s book might suggest.

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	http://link.springer.com/journal/10539
Additional Information:	© 2015 Springer Science+Business Media
Divisions:	Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > B Philosophy (General) B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology
Date Deposited:	27 Apr 2016 10:20
Last Modified:	15 Apr 2024 02:33
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/66246

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