About the Book
This is the second volume of a projected three-volume set on the subject of innateness. The volume is highly interdisciplinary, and addresses such question as: To what extent are mature cognitive capacities a reflection of particular cultures and to what extent are they a product of innate elements? How do innate elements interact with culture to achieve mature cognitive capacities? How do minds generate and shape cultures? How are cultures processed by minds? The
volume will be of great importance to anyone interested in the interplay between culture and the innate mind.
Table of Contents:
Preface
List of Contributors
1: TOM SIMPSON, University of York, STEPHEN STICH, Rutgers University, PETER CARRUTHERS, University of Maryland, and STEPHEN LAURENCE, University of Sheffield: Introduction: Culture and the Innate Mind
PART ONE: LEARNING, CULTURE, AND EVOLUTION
2: ROBERT BOYD, University of California at Los Angeles; PETER RICHERSON, University of California at Davis: Culture, Adaptation, and Innateness
3: PAUL ROZIN, University of Pennsylvania: About 17 (+/- 2) Potential Principles about Links Between the Innate Mind and Culture: Preadaptation, Predispositions, Preferences, Pathways, and Domains
4: DANIEL FESSLER, University of California at Los Angeles: Steps Towards an Evolutionary Psychology of a Culture-Dependent Species
5: DAVID SLOAN WILSON, Binghampton: Human Groups as Adaptive Units: Toward a Permanent Consensus
6: PAUL GRIFFITHS, University of Queensland: The Baldwin Effect and Genetic Assimilation: Contrasting Explanatory Foci and Gene Concepts in Two Approaches to an Evolutionary Process
7: DAVID PAPINEAU, King's College London: The Baldwin Effect and Genetic Assimilation: Reply to Griffiths
8: MARCUS GIAQUINTO, University College London: Mental Number Lines
PART TWO: MODULARITY AND COGNITIVE ARCHITECTURE
9: MICHAEL SIEGAL, University of Sheffield and LUCA SURIAN, University of Trieste: Modularity in Language and Theory of Mind: What is the Evidence?
10: DAN SPERBER, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris and LAWRENCE HIRSCHFELD, University of Michigan: Culture and Modularity
11: PETER TODD, Indiana University at Bloomington and ANNERIEKE HEUVELINK, Vrije University, Amsterdam: Shaping Social Environments with Simple Recognition Heuristics
12: PETER CARRUTHERS, University of Maryland: Simple Heuristics Meet Massive Modularity
13: H CLARK BARRETT, University of California at Los Angeles: Modularity and Design Reincarnation
14: KIM STERELNY, Victoria University in Wellington and Australian National University: Cognitive Load and Human Decision, or, Three Ways of Rolling the Rock Uphill
PART THREE: MORALITY, NORMS, AND RELIGION
15: SUSAN DWYER, University of Maryland Baltimore County: How Good is the Linguistic Analogy?
16: RICHARD JOYCE, Australian National University: Is Human Morality Innate?
17: CHANDRA SEKHA SRIPADA, University of Michigan and STEPHEN STICH, Rutgers University: A Framework for the Psychology of Norms
18: SCOTT ATRAN, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris, and University of Michigan: Religions Innate Origins and Evolutionary Background
References
About the Author :
Peter Carruthers is Professor and Chair in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Maryland.
Stephen Laurence is Professor in the Department of Philosophy and Director of the Hang Seng Center for Cognitive Studies at University of Sheffield.
Stephen Stich is Board of Governors Professor in the Department of Philosophy and Center for Cognitive Science, Rutgers University.
Review :
"If you are impressed by our species' cross-cultural variation, but mystified by how it emerges, then read this book. If you are unimpressed by our cross-cultural variation, but moved by our universality, then read this book. You will learn that of all the species that have existed on earth, we are truly bizarre, at once both clones of each other and yet remarkably different."--Marc Hauser, Harvard College Professor of Psychology and Organismic and Evolutionary
Biology, and author of Wild Minds and Moral Minds.
"Carruthers, Laurence, and Stich have done it again! The second book in their Innate Mind series is as much a must have as the first. Most of the big names in evolutionary psychology and cultural evolution are represented here, talking sensibly and informatively about how culture informs and shapes the innate mind, and vice versa. Both meta-level and object-level issues are dealt with. How should the relation between culture and the genetically shaped
mind be conceived? Is the innate mind modular? How does our manifest and massive enculturation influence the evolution of our minds, and how do the minds we have inherited from our hominid ancestors shape our
mental, social, moral, and religious practices? This book is not a survey; it is a collection of cutting-edge research papers, which should stimulate professionals and students alike."--Fiona Cowie, author of What's Within
"This is a fantastic volume. It beautifully answers the tired complaint that we need to get beyond the simple nature/nurture dichotomy. This collection of essays represents a striking advance in our understanding of both nativism and culture. It also provides the basis for a bright future in charting how innate and cultural components interact. Together with the other Innate Mind volumes assembled by this team, this volume represents a real landmark in
the development of nativism."--Shaun Nichols, University of Arizona, and author of Sentimental Rules and co-author of Mindreading.
"If you are impressed by our species' cross-cultural variation, but mystified by how it emerges, then read this book. If you are unimpressed by our cross-cultural variation, but moved by our universality, then read this book. You will learn that of all the species that have existed on earth, we are truly bizarre, at once both clones of each other and yet remarkably different."--Marc Hauser, Harvard College Professor of Psychology and Organismic and Evolutionary
Biology, and author of Wild Minds and Moral Minds.
"Carruthers, Laurence, and Stich have done it again! The second book in their Innate Mind series is as much a must have as the first. Most of the big names in evolutionary psychology and cultural evolution are represented here, talking sensibly and informatively about how culture informs and shapes the innate mind, and vice versa. Both meta-level and object-level issues are dealt with. How should the relation between culture and the genetically shaped
mind be conceived? Is the innate mind modular? How does our manifest and massive enculturation influence the evolution of our minds, and how do the minds we have inherited from our hominid ancestors shape our
mental, social, moral, and religious practices? This book is not a survey; it is a collection of cutting-edge research papers, which should stimulate professionals and students alike."--Fiona Cowie, author of What's Within
"This is a fantastic volume. It beautifully answers the tired complaint that we need to get beyond the simple nature/nurture dichotomy. This collection of essays represents a striking advance in our understanding of both nativism and culture. It also provides the basis for a bright future in charting how innate and cultural components interact. Together with the other Innate Mind volumes assembled by this team, this volume represents a real landmark in
the development of nativism."--Shaun Nichols, University of Arizona, and author of Sentimental Rules and co-author of Mindreading.
