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Full Description
From his groundbreaking Violence and the Sacred and Things Hidden since the Foundation of the World, René Girard's mimetic theory is presented as elucidating "the origins of culture." He posits that archaic religion (or "the sacred"), particularly in its dynamics of sacrifice and ritual, is a neglected and major key to unlocking the enigma of "how we became human." French philosopher of science Michel Serres states that Girard's theory provides a Darwinian theory of culture because it "proposes a dynamic, shows an evolution and gives a universal explanation." This major claim has, however, remained underscrutinized by scholars working on Girard's theory, and it is mostly overlooked within the natural and social sciences. Joining disciplinary worlds, this book aims to explore this ambitious claim, invoking viewpoints as diverse as evolutionary culture theory, cultural anthropology, archaeology, cognitive psychology, ethology, and philosophy. The contributors provide major evidence in favor of Girard's hypothesis. Equally, Girard's theory is presented as having the potential to become for the human and social sciences something akin to the integrating framework that present-day biological science owes to Darwin—something compatible with it and complementary to it in accounting for the still remarkably little understood phenomenon of human emergence.
Contents
Contents Acknowledgments Introduction Part One. Questions of Methodology and Hermeneutics: Mimetic Theory, Darwinism, and Cultural Evolution Coevolution and Mimesis (William H. Durham) Genes and Mimesis: Structural Patterns in Darwinism and Mimetic Theory (Paul Dumouchel) Maladaptation, Counterintuitiveness, and Symbolism: The Challenge of Mimetic Theory to Evolutionary Thinking (Pierpaolo Antonello) Part Two. Imitation, Desire, Victimization: Examining Mimetic Theory on the Evidence Convergence between Mimetic Theory and Imitation Research (Scott Garrels) The Deepest Principle of Life: Neurobiology and the Psychology of Desire (William B. Hurlbut) The Three Rs: Retaliation, Revenge, and (Especially) Redirected Aggression (David P. Barash) Part Three. Violent Origins Revisited Violent Origins: Mimetic Rivalry in Darwinian Evolution (Melvin Konner) Mechanisms of Internal Cohesion: Scapegoating and Parochial Altruism (Zoey Reeve) A Mediatory Theory of Hominization (Giuseppe Fornari) Part Four. Interpreting Archaeological Data: Mimetic Readings of Çatalhöyük and Göbekli Tepe Animal Scapegoating at Çatalhöyük (René Girard) Self-transcendence and Tangled Hierarchies in Çatalhöyük (Jean-Pierre Dupuy) Rethinking the Neolithic Revolution: Symbolism and Sacrifice at Göbekli Tepe (Paul Gifford and Pierpaolo Antonello) Part Five. The Evolutionary Hermeneutics of Homo Religiosus Intrinsic or Situated Religiousness: A Girardian Solution (Warren S. Brown, James Van Slyke, and Scott Garrels) Homo religiosus in Mimetic Perspective: An Evolutionary Dialogue (Paul Gifford) About the Authors Index
