> On Oct 17, 2015, at 6:42 AM, Edwina Taborsky <[email protected]> wrote: > > Stephen J - yes, the spread of a belief/ behaviour by imitation has been > proposed by some researchers in human society - for a long time. It certainly > didn't start with Dawkins and his 'memes'. But criticism of this has been > quite strong; that is, such an approach, that defines cultures as created by > diffusion and copying from each other, 1) ignores the functionality of the > belief/behaviour and assumes that ALL people find ALL beliefs/behaviour > functional; 2) it ignores the concept that beliefs/behaviour are rational > adaptations to local economic and ecological realities; and 3) ignores the > commonality of the biology of humans, in that the common need for language, > the family unit, maintenance of long-term modes of behaviour - are biological > aspects of the species. ..and 4) ignores those societies which have common > modes of behaviour but have never been in touch with another similar group. > > In other words - the mimesis-diffusion explanation for human culture has been > heavily criticized long before Dawkin's reductionist memes.
This goes back to the heydays of structuralism - especially in psychology. There appeared to be two main schools. Some saw the structures as inherent to humans due to a kind of shared mind (often based upon the metaphor or outright embrace of the Platonic Nous). Others saw these more in terms of diffusion of ideas. The problem was that often those pointing to these structures downplayed differences, made narratives fit into categories by distorting them, etc. (Campbell of course got a lot of justifiable criticism along these lines) To me the big issue were common structures in the environment privileging certain interpretations making either diffusion or common mind unnecessary. (Much like certain structures evolve independently in nature due to the environment) With regards to Peirce, while he was alive when these ideas were developing, I think his system of thought was able to deal with them fare superior to what went on in the 20th century. Part of that was by having a semiotic more robust than how the received Saussure view approached things. (I’m aware of those who say Saussure had views more complicated than those usually portrayed - but as with Descartes there’s something useful in using the name as a shorthand for a set of views)
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