IMITATION AND CULTURE: WHAT GIVES?

Year 2024, Volume: 3 Issue: 1, 128 - 154, 04.06.2024

Translator: Gökhan Bakır

Abstract

What is the relationship between imitation and culture? This article charts how definitions of imitation have changed in the last century, distinguishes three senses of “culture” used by contemporary evolutionists (Culture1–Culture3), and summarises current disagreement about the relationship between imitation and culture. The disagreement arises from ambiguities in the distinction between imitation and emulation, and confusion between two explanatory projects—the anthropocentric project and the cultural selection project. I argue that imitation gives cultural evolution an inheritance mechanism for communicative and gestural skills (but not technological skills), and cultural selection yields the cognitive mechanisms that make imitation possible.

Keywords

anthropocentrism, cultural selection, culture, cumulative cultural evolution, emulation, imitation

TAKLİT VE KÜLTÜR: NELER OLUYOR?

Abstract

Taklit ve kültür arasındaki ilişki nedir? Bu makale; taklit tanımlarının geçen yüzyılda nasıl değiştiğini özetlemekte, çağdaş evrimciler tarafından kullanılan üç “kültür” anlamını (Kültür¹, Kültür² ve Kültür³) birbirinden ayırmakta ve taklit-kültür ilişkisi hakkındaki mevcut anlaşmazlıkları özetlemektedir. Anlaşmazlık, taklit ve öykünme arasındaki ayrımdaki belirsizliklerden ve iki açıklayıcı proje (insan merkezli proje ve kültürel seçilim projesi) arasındaki karışıklıktan kaynaklanmaktadır. Ben taklidin kültürel evrime iletişimsel ve jestsel beceriler için (ancak teknolojik beceriler için değil) bir miras mekanizması sağladığını ve kültürel seçilimin taklidi mümkün kılan bilişsel mekanizmaları ortaya çıkardığını savunuyorum.

Keywords

insanmerkezcilik, kültürel seçilim, kültür, kümülatif kültürel evrim, öykünme, taklit

Thanks

Beni her zaman destekleyen ve cesaretlendiren değerli hocam Prof. Dr. Mehmet AÇA'ya teşekkür ederim.

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