Repositori URV

Identifier: TDX:750

Handle: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11797/TDX750

Authors:
Baravalle, Lorenzo

Abstract:
The main objective of this work is to show how can we explain culture within a general Darwinian, naturalistically acceptable framework. To do so, I first reconsider the two main theories that have been proposed with a similar goal: sociobiology and memetics. Concerning the first one, I preserve the idea that every cultural event depends in the long run on a pure biological conditioning. Regarding the latter, I accept that there is a sense of adaptation different from simple development of fitness. My second task is to explain why certain cultural phenomena, maladaptations, are not adaptive in the 'increase of fitness' sense, and present and apply an explanatory scheme that accounts for cultural phenomena in a new adaptative manner. In order to articulate these theses in a new proposal, I make use of some work by Boyd and Richerson and introduce the main distinction between first and second order adaptations.