Developing scaffolds in evolution, culture, and cognition / edited by Linnda R. Caporael, James R. Griesemer, and William C. Wimsatt.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Caporael, Linnda R., editor.

Griesemer, James R., editor.

Wimsatt, William C., editor.

George Clapp Vaillant Book Fund.

Series:

Vienna series in theoretical biology

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Social evolution.

Evolution (Biology)--Social aspects.

Evolution (Biology).

Human evolution--Philosophy.

Human evolution.

Cultural fusion.

Cognition and culture.

Biological Evolution.

Adaptation, Biological.

Adaptation, Psychological.

Cognition--physiology.

Cultural Evolution.

Medical Subjects:

Biological Evolution.

Adaptation, Biological.

Adaptation, Psychological.

Cognition--physiology.

Cultural Evolution.

Physical Description:

xiv, 426 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Massachusetts : The MIT Press, [2014]

Summary:

"Scaffolding" is a concept that is becoming widely used across disciplines. This book investigates common threads in diverse applications of scaffolding, including theoretical biology, cognitive science, social theory, science and technology studies, and human development. Despite its widespread use, the concept of scaffolding is often given short shrift; the contributors to this volume, from a range of disciplines, offer a more fully developed analysis of scaffolding that highlights the role of temporal and temporary resources in development, broadly conceived, across concepts of culture, cognition, and evolution. The book emphasizes reproduction, repeated assembly, and entrenchment of heterogeneous relations, parts, and processes as a complement to neo-Darwinism in the developmentalist tradition of conceptualizing evolutionary change. After describing an integration of theoretical perspectives that can accommodate different levels of analysis and connect various methodologies, the book discusses multilevel organization; differences (and reciprocality) between individuals and institutions as units of analysis; and perspectives on development that span brains, careers, corporations, and cultural cycles. Book jacket.

Contents:

Reproduction and the scaffolded development of hybrids / James R. Griesemer

Evolution, groups, and scaffolded minds / Linnda R. Caporael

Entrenchment and scaffolding : an architecture for a theory of cultural change / William C. Wimsatt

Excitable media in medias res : how physics scaffolds metazoan development and evolution / Stuart A. Newman

Communication and the evolution of cognition / James A. Evans

Models as scaffolds for understanding / Jeffrey C. Schank, Christopher J. May, and Sanjay S. Joshi

Stress in mind : a stress response hypothesis of cognitive evolution / Pamela Lyon

Onwards and upwards with the extended mind : from individual to collective epistemic action / Georg Theiner

Scaffolding on core cognition / Christophe Heintz

Symbols as scaffolding / Colin Allen

Technological scaffoldings for the evolution of culture and cognition / Sergio F. Martínez

Some problems of analyzing cultural evolution / Elihu M. Gerson

Scaffolding in economics, management, and the design of technologies / Johann Peter Murmann

The reproduction of the social : a developmental system approach / Iddo Tavory, Simona Ginsburg, and Eva Jablonka

Biocultural co-construction of brain plasticity across the life span : from cognitive training to neurotransmitters / Shu-Chen Li

Footholds and handholds : scaffolding cognition and career / Barbara Horberg Wimsatt

Developing scaffolds : an epilogue / James R. Griesemer, Linnda R. Caporael, and William C. Wimsatt.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the George Clapp Vaillant Book Fund.

ISBN:

0262019558

9780262019552

OCLC:

827724455

Publisher Number:

99956552243