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Full Description
This volume examines how evolutionary principles can help us understand the dynamics of culture while acknowledging the risks of their uncritical application. Drawing on perspectives from the philosophy and history of science, anthropology, archaeology, behavioural science, and evolutionary biology, it explores how ideas about evolution have shaped - and at times distorted - our understanding of human nature and cultural change. The book also shows how biosemiotics provides a promising framework for bridging biological and cultural perspectives.
The volume is organised into four parts. The first discusses the historical roots of evolutionary thinking and the conceptual assumptions that made it possible, as well as the dangers of ideological misuse of analogies between cultural and biological evolution. The second part examines how evolutionary ideas have influenced anthropology and archaeology, while the third addresses key theoretical perspectives to the study of cultural transmission and change, including the cognitive mechanisms involved. The final part focuses on biosemiotics and explores how meaning-making processes connect biological and cultural evolution.
The volume does not propose a single unified theory, instead the contributors engage in a dialogue across disciplinary boundaries, showing how the humanities and life sciences can mutually inform each other through shared attention to evolutionary and semiotic processes. The book combines theoretical reflection with a balanced presentation of key ideas, aiming to make complex ideas accessible to readers from a range of disciplines interested in cultural evolution, biosemiotics, and the interplay between biology and culture.
Contents
Introduction (Jan Havlíček & Jan Toman).- Part 1:The Human Condition and Evolutionary Thought in the History of Ideas (Tomáš Hermann).- .1. Progress or Decline? The Evolution of Culture According to Some Ancient Thinkers (Vojtěch Hladký & Eliška Fulínová).- 2: Breaking Through the Boundaries of Time: Changing Modern Notions About the Age of Nature and Culture (Tomáš Hermann, Vojtěch Hladký & Lucie Strnadová).- 3: The Evolutionary Utopia and a Confusion of Discourses: Projecting Eugenic Para-Religious Visions onto Human Future (Tomáš Hermann, Michal V. Šimůnek & Jan Musil).- 4: On the Monistic and Dualistic Origins and the Development of Nature and Culture: Haeckel and Ehrenfels (Lenka Ovčáčková).- Part 2:Cultural Evolution and the Human Sciences: Archaeological and Anthropological Perspectives (Radek Kundt).- 5: Genes, Identity, and Material Culture: In Search of a Unifying Theory (Petr Květina & Václav Hrnčíř).- 6: Shifting Perceptions of the Greek Bronze Age: From Simple Valuative Judgements Like 'Civilised' or 'Barbaric' to a Comprehensive Implementation of the Archaeological Science (Tomáš Alušík).- 7: The Evolutionary and Cognitive Perspectives in Research of Cultural and Social Phenomena (Danijela Jerotijević & Radek Kundt).- 8: Appreciating Culture in Human Mating and Parenting Research: The Reproductive Functions of Religious Systems (Terezie Dvořáčková, Eva Kundtová Klocová & Radek Kundt).- Part 3: Culture from the Perspective of Evolutionary Behavioural Science (Jan Havlíček).- 9: Culture: Uniquely Human? (Jitka Lindová).- 10: Memetics: Rise, Fall, and Reconsideration (Jaroslav Flegr & Jan Toman).- 11: Cultural Attraction as One of the Pillars of Cultural Evolution (Pavlína Hillerová & Petr Tureček).- 12: Cultures as Species: Tree Thinking and the Phylogenetic Approach in Linguistics, Archaeology, and Anthropology (Pavel Duda).- 13: Human Cumulative Culture: Bridging Cognition and Population Dynamics (Jan Havlíček).- Part 4: Biosemiotic Reflections upon the Relationships Between Nature and Culture (Jana Švorcová).- 14: The Role of Sociomorphic Modelling in the Perception of Nature (Petr Hampl: Mirroring Nature).- 15: Stability-Based Sorting in Cultural Evolution: Macroevolutionary Phenomena as a Model for Explaining Cultural Dynamics (Jan Toman).- 16: The Past Lives on With Us: Epigenetics as a Link Between Cultural and Biological Evolution (Jana Švorcová & Karel Kleisner).- 17: Abiosphere and Biosphere: An Individual, a Community, a Culture (Anton Markoš).- 18: Reflections on Analogies Between Cultural and Biological Evolution: Contribution to the Discussion from the Perspective of Historical Sciences (Jan Horský).
