Andrew Buskell
Dados Biográficos
| ID | 667354 |
|---|---|
| NOME | Andrew Buskell |
| PRENOMES | Andrew |
| SOBRENOME | Buskell |
| ASSINATURA | BUSKELL A |
| AFILIAÇÕES | University of Cambridge |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-6939-2848 |
| VERIFICADO | Sim |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 9 |
| TOTAL DE CITAÇÕES | 7 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 9 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMEIRO ANO DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2015 |
| ANO MAIS RECENTE DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2025 |
| ÍNDICE H | 2 |
Mere Recurrence and Cumulative Culture at the Margins
The consensus formulation of cumulative culture characterizes cumulative traditions as information transmitted by high-fidelity learning that generates incremental improvement over time. While this formulation is effective for studying paradigmatic cases (e.g. Holocene-era hominin toolkits), it is less so at capturing and explaining putative cases at the margins—for instance, some recurrent behaviors observed in social animal species. This paper …
Demographic Cultures and Demographic Skepticism
The social sciences often explain behavioral differences by appealing to membership in distinct cultural groups. This work uses the concepts of “cultures” and “cultural groups” like any other demographic category (e.g. “gender”, “socioeconomic status”). I call these joint conceptualizations of “cultures” and “cultural groups” demographic cultures . Such demographic cultures have long been subject to scrutiny. Here I isolate and respond to a set o…
How to Think with the Global South
This innovative collection of twenty-six essays aims to contribute to the project of, as the title of the introduction suggests, reimagining epistemology and the philosophy of science from a global perspective. Rather than attempting to construct a volume that augments the coverage provided on traditional topics, such as explanation, laws, and reductionism, or that delivers an integrated global epistemology, the book explores how to think with th…
How we got stuck
Kim Sterelny's book The Pleistocene social contract provides an exceptionally well‐informed and credible narrative explanation of the origins of inequality and hierarchy. In this essay review, we reflect on the role of rational choice theory in Sterelny's project, before turning to Sterelny's reasons for doubting the importance of cultural group selection. In the final section, we compare Sterelny's big picture with an alternative from David Weng…
Cumulative culture and complex cultural traditions
Cumulative cultural evolution is often claimed to be distinctive of human culture. Such claims are typically supported with examples of complex and historically late‐appearing technologies. Yet by taking these as paradigm cases, researchers unhelpfully lump together different ways that culture accumulates. This article has two aims: (a) to distinguish four types of cultural accumulation: adaptiveness, complexity, efficiency, and disparity and (b)…
Cognitive novelties, informational form, and structural-causal explanations
Recent work has established a framework for explaining the origin of cognitive novelties—qualitatively distinct cognitive traits—in human beings. This niche construction approach argues that humans engineer epistemic environments in ways that facilitate the ontogenetic and phylogenetic development of such novelties. I here argue that attention to the organized relations between content-carrying informational vehicles, or informational form , is k…
Synthesising arguments and the extended evolutionary synthesis
Looking for middle ground in cultural attraction theory
In their article, Thom Scott‐Phillips, Stefaan Blancke, and Christophe Heintz do a commendable job summarizing the position and misunderstandings of “cultural attraction theory” (CAT). However, they do not address a longstanding problem for the CAT framework; that while it has an encompassing theory and some well‐worked out case studies, it lacks tools for generating models or empirical hypotheses of intermediate generality. I suggest that what t…
How to be skilful
Mere Recurrence and Cumulative Culture at the Margins
The consensus formulation of cumulative culture characterizes cumulative traditions as information transmitted by high-fidelity learning that generates incremental improvement over time. While this formulation is effective for studying paradigmatic cases (e.g. Holocene-era hominin toolkits), it is less so at capturing and explaining putative cases at the margins—for instance, some recurrent behaviors observed in social animal species. This paper …
How to be skilful
How to Think with the Global South
This innovative collection of twenty-six essays aims to contribute to the project of, as the title of the introduction suggests, reimagining epistemology and the philosophy of science from a global perspective. Rather than attempting to construct a volume that augments the coverage provided on traditional topics, such as explanation, laws, and reductionism, or that delivers an integrated global epistemology, the book explores how to think with th…
How to be skilful
Looking for middle ground in cultural attraction theory
In their article, Thom Scott‐Phillips, Stefaan Blancke, and Christophe Heintz do a commendable job summarizing the position and misunderstandings of “cultural attraction theory” (CAT). However, they do not address a longstanding problem for the CAT framework; that while it has an encompassing theory and some well‐worked out case studies, it lacks tools for generating models or empirical hypotheses of intermediate generality. I suggest that what t…
Synthesising arguments and the extended evolutionary synthesis
Cognitive novelties, informational form, and structural-causal explanations
Recent work has established a framework for explaining the origin of cognitive novelties—qualitatively distinct cognitive traits—in human beings. This niche construction approach argues that humans engineer epistemic environments in ways that facilitate the ontogenetic and phylogenetic development of such novelties. I here argue that attention to the organized relations between content-carrying informational vehicles, or informational form , is k…
How we got stuck
Kim Sterelny's book The Pleistocene social contract provides an exceptionally well‐informed and credible narrative explanation of the origins of inequality and hierarchy. In this essay review, we reflect on the role of rational choice theory in Sterelny's project, before turning to Sterelny's reasons for doubting the importance of cultural group selection. In the final section, we compare Sterelny's big picture with an alternative from David Weng…
Cumulative culture and complex cultural traditions
Cumulative cultural evolution is often claimed to be distinctive of human culture. Such claims are typically supported with examples of complex and historically late‐appearing technologies. Yet by taking these as paradigm cases, researchers unhelpfully lump together different ways that culture accumulates. This article has two aims: (a) to distinguish four types of cultural accumulation: adaptiveness, complexity, efficiency, and disparity and (b)…
Demographic Cultures and Demographic Skepticism
The social sciences often explain behavioral differences by appealing to membership in distinct cultural groups. This work uses the concepts of “cultures” and “cultural groups” like any other demographic category (e.g. “gender”, “socioeconomic status”). I call these joint conceptualizations of “cultures” and “cultural groups” demographic cultures . Such demographic cultures have long been subject to scrutiny. Here I isolate and respond to a set o…
How to Think with the Global South
This innovative collection of twenty-six essays aims to contribute to the project of, as the title of the introduction suggests, reimagining epistemology and the philosophy of science from a global perspective. Rather than attempting to construct a volume that augments the coverage provided on traditional topics, such as explanation, laws, and reductionism, or that delivers an integrated global epistemology, the book explores how to think with th…
Mere Recurrence and Cumulative Culture at the Margins
The consensus formulation of cumulative culture characterizes cumulative traditions as information transmitted by high-fidelity learning that generates incremental improvement over time. While this formulation is effective for studying paradigmatic cases (e.g. Holocene-era hominin toolkits), it is less so at capturing and explaining putative cases at the margins—for instance, some recurrent behaviors observed in social animal species. This paper …
Epistemology (8 obras) · Philosophy (8 obras) · Sociology (7 obras) · Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation (5 obras) · Computer Science (3 obras) · Economics (3 obras) · Language and cultural evolution (3 obras) · Mathematics (3 obras) · Philosophy and History of Science (3 obras) · Philosophy of science (3 obras)