Cultural Science : : a natural history of stories, demes, knowledge and innovation / / John Hartley, Jason Potts.

• VerfasserIn: Hartley, John,; Potts, Jason,
• TeilnehmendeR: Potts, Jason,
• Place / Publishing House: London : : Bloomsbury Academic,, 2014.
• Year of Publication: 2014
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (252 pages)

"Cultural Science introduces a new way of thinking about culture. Adopting an evolutionary and systems approach, the authors argue that culture is the population-wide source of newness and innovation; it faces the future, not the past. Its chief characteristic is the formation of groups or 'demes' (organised and productive subpopulation; 'demos'). Demes are the means for creating, distributing and growing knowledge. However, such groups are competitive and knowledge-systems are adversarial. Starting from a rereading of Darwinian evolutionary theory, the book utilises multidisciplinary resources: Raymond Williams's 'culture is ordinary' approach; evolutionary science (e.g. Mark Pagel and Herbert Gintis); semiotics (Yuri Lotman); and economic theory (from Schumpeter to McCloskey). Successive chapters argue that: -Culture and knowledge need to be understood from an externalist ('linked brains') perspective, rather than through the lens of individual behaviour; -Demes are created by culture, especially storytelling, which in turn constitutes both politics and economics; -The clash of systems - including demes - is productive of newness, meaningfulness and successful reproduction of culture; -Contemporary urban culture and citizenship can best be explained by investigating how culture is used, and how newness and innovation emerge from unstable and contested boundaries between different meaning systems; -The evolution of culture is a process of technologically enabled 'demic concentration' of knowledge, across overlapping meaning-systems or semiospheres; a process where the number of demes accessible to any individual has increased at an accelerating rate, resulting in new problems of scale and coordination for cultural science to address"-- Provided by publisher.

Table of Contents

Title Page; Copyright Page; Contents; Intro; Chapter 1 Curiously Parallel; The Nature of Culture; How each member ought to act; Curiously parallel; Certain favoured words: Social Darwinism?; Our only organon3; Nature versus culture?; Caught knapping; Part 1 -- Culture Makes Groups; Chapter 2 Externalism ; Self-creation; Communication creates individuals; Conciliating culture and knowledge: The cultural science approach; The 10 Recommendments9; Linked brains and externalized knowledge; Chapter 3 Demes; The creation of the self; Gallipoli -- The creation of national character Granddads -- On not having a story . . . Göbekli Tepe -- V. Gordon Childe and revolution; Gotcha?44 -- The big guns of storytelling . . . Fall silent?; Digital stories to constitute a new polity; Chapter 4 Malvoisine ; Big cooperation -- Universal or adversarial?; Big culture5; Malvoisine; Systemic violence; What happens when culture gets really big?; Chapter 5 Citizens; What is a citizen?; Rational citizen theory; The evolutionary puzzle of citizenship ; Creative citizenship; Health care versus racketeering?; Artists, consumers and the clash of systems; Part 2 -- Groups Make Knowledge Chapter 6 MeaningfulnessWhat evolves?; Something very much like knowledge; Meaning and language; meaningfulness and culture; Knowledge evolves; The cultural evolution of gentlemen (a short but instructive digression); The nature of culture and beyond biosemiotics; Meaningfulness and marriageability; Contesting cultural order; Chapter 7 Newness; The Janus face of culture; The dynamic scale of cultural change; Randomness makes variety; Consciousness makes creativity; Demes make newness; The economic sociology of newness: 'Irritating impact'; Chapter 8 Waste On the efficiency of cultural productionTrillions and trillions; Cultural efficiency; Children and waste; Wasted words?; The childish invention of culture ; Chapter 9 Extinction; Resilience and Ossification; A prosocial groupish animal, honed by conflict and extinction; How to protect valuable things; What is cultural extinction?; Conquest as cooperation ; Rules and ossification; Great cities as generators of semiosis; Complex culture; Outro; Chapter 10 A Natural History of Demic Concentration; The use of culture in society; Implications; A natural history of demic concentration How culture worksAcknowledgements; References; Index.