| Summary: | In this paper I put forward a thesis regarding the anatomy of 'cultural evolution', in particular the way the 'cultural' transmission of behavioral patterns came to piggyback, through us humans, on the transmission effected by genetic evolution. I claim that what grounds and supports this new kind of transmission is a complex behavioral 'meta-pattern' that makes it possible to grasp a pattern as something that 'ought to be', i.e. that transforms the pattern into what we can call a rule. (Here I draw especially on the philosophical insights of Wilfrid Sellars.) In this way I interlink empirical research done in evolution theory with some more speculative philosophical theories, thus shedding new light on the former and adding an empirical footing to the latter.
|
|---|