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On Sociocultural Evolution by Social Selection
Author(s) -
Schatzki Theodore R.
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
journal for the theory of social behaviour
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.615
H-Index - 51
eISSN - 1468-5914
pISSN - 0021-8308
DOI - 10.1111/1468-5914.00164
Subject(s) - sociocultural evolution , schema (genetic algorithms) , epistemology , sociology , agency (philosophy) , action (physics) , selection (genetic algorithm) , psychology , social psychology , social science , anthropology , philosophy , physics , quantum mechanics , machine learning , artificial intelligence , computer science
The essay criticizes an alleged new paradigm for explaining sociocultural change: selectionism. Part one describes the general selectionist explanatory schema, which selectionists claim applies to realms beyond the biological, in particular, the sociocultural. Part two focuses on the way most selectionists, in focusing on cultural change alone, wrongly separate culture from society. Particular atten‐tion is paid to the accounts these selectionists offer of human action. Part three fills out a conception of the sociocultural, the need for which is indicated by the arguments of the previous section. Part four then criticizes existing social (as opposed to cultural) selectionist accounts of sociocultural change, again focusing on the role of human action. The conclusion is that selectionism does not offer a new explanatory paradigm, but is only a label for a class of accounts that highlight the role of contextualized agency in explaining social change.

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