PHIL 5192/6192: Culture and Evolution
T 2-5PM CTIHB
459
This
syllabus will be updated. The
current syllabus can always be found at:
http://tinyurl.com/4r9dcr4
Instructor: Dr. Ron Mallon
585-5810
www.hum.utah.edu/~rmallon
Office 417 CTIHB
Hours: By appt.
Texts: Reserve
Readings as assigned
Richerson,
P.J. and R. Boyd. (2005) Not By Genes
Alone. University of Chicago
Press. Chicago.
Course Description:
In this course, we
consider the connection between evolution and culture, considering a range of
research programs that connect them.
Course Requirements:
The course
requirements are simple. They
consist in:
Presentation: 10%
(Required
for Graduate
Students Only)
First paper: 30% DUE
FEBRUARY 15th SAMPLE TOPICS
Second paper: 30% DUE
MARCH 29th SAMPLE TOPICS
Third paper: 30% DUE
APRIL 29th SAMPLE TOPICS
Policies:
ADA
The
University of Utah seeks to provide equal access to its programs, services and
activities for people with disabilities. If you will need accommodations in the
class, reasonable prior notice needs to be given to the Center for Disability
Services, 162 Union Building, 581-5020 (V/TDD). CDS will work with you and the
instructor to make arrangements for accommodations.
(www.hr.utah.edu/oeo/ada/guide/faculty/)
Conduct
All students are expected to
maintain professional behavior in the classroom setting, according to the
Student Code, spelled out in the Student Handbook. Students have specific
rights in the classroom as detailed in Article III of the Code. The Code also
specifies proscribed conduct (Article XI) that involves cheating on tests,
plagiarism, and/or collusion, as well as fraud, theft, etc. Students should
read the Code carefully and know they are responsible for the content.
According to Faculty Rules and Regulations, it is the faculty responsibility to
enforce responsible classroom behaviors, beginning with verbal warnings and
progressing to dismissal from class and a failing grade. Students have the
right to appeal such action to the Student Behavior Committee.
ÒFacultyÉmust strive in the
classroom to maintain a climate conducive to thinking and learning.Ó PPM
8-12.3, B.
ÒStudents have a right to
support and assistance from the University in maintaining a climate conducive
to thinking and learning.Ó PPM 8-10, II. A.
Plagiarism
"Plagiarism" means the intentional unacknowledged use or incorporation of any other person's work in, or as a basis for, one's own work offered for academic consideration or credit for public presentation. Plagiarism is punishable by a penalty not to exceed a failing grade in the class. It is my own policy, repeatedly and consistently applied in the past, to award a failing grade for the class for any substantial instance of plagiarism.
http://www.regulations.utah.edu/academics/6-400.html
"Your professor may
elect to use a plagiarism detection service in this course, in which case you
will be required to submit your paper to such a service as part of your
assignment.Ó
Attendance
Attendance is not mandatory, but you
are responsible for the material presented in class. I am not responsible
for representing material to you that you have missed, and I will not do
so. If you are absent, take responsibility for getting notes from a
classmate.
Late policy
Late work will be accepted and penalized
penalized. If you have a planned absence or a conflict with another
class, make arrangements with me in advance to avoid penalty. If you have
an unexpected emergency (e.g. the death of a loved one or a medical problem),
plan to present me with documentation of it. Unexcused late work will be
penalized at the rate of 1 letter grade per week, up to a maximum of two full
letter grades.
Initial Schedule:
(This schedule
will be modified continuously throughout the semester to accommodate our discussion,
errors, and other needs. The most
current schedule will always be posted at http://tinyurl.com/4r9dcr4 ).
Domain Specificity and Cultural Explanation
Tuesday, January 11: Introduction
Tuesday, January 18:
Readings:
Tooby,
John and Leda Cosmides (1992). The Psychological Foundations of Culture. The
Adapted Mind. J. Barkow, L. Cosmides and J. Tooby. New York, Oxford
University Press: 19-136.
Griffiths,
Paul E. (1997). ÒThe
psychoevolutionary approach to the emotions,Ó Chp. 3 of What Emotions Really
Are. Chicago, The University of Chicago Press.
Geertz,
Clifford (1973). Thick description: Toward an interpretive theory of culture. The
Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays. C. Geertz. New York, Basic
Books. 3-32.
Lutz,
Catherine (1988). ÒThe Cultural Construction of EmotionsÓ Chp. 1 of Unnatural
Emotions: Everyday Sentiments on a Micronesian Atoll and Their Challenge to
Western Thoery. Chicago, The University of Chicago Press.
Recommended:
Mallon,
Ron and Stephen P. Stich (2000). "The Odd Couple: The Compatibility of
Social Construction and Evolutionary Psychology." Philosophy of Science
67: 133-154.
Tuesday, January 25:
Cosmides,
Leda (1989). "The logic of social exchange: Has natural selection shaped
how humans reason? Studies with
the Wason selection task." Cognition 31: 187-276.
Buller,
David J. (with Valerie Hardcastle) (2005). ÒModularity ÓChp. 4 of D. Buller, Adapting
minds : evolutionary psychology and the persistent quest for human nature.
Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press. Pp. 127-200
Fodor,
Jerry (2000). "Why we are so good at catching cheaters." Cognition
75(1): 29-32.
Cosmides,
Leda and John Tooby (2007). Can a general deontic logic capture the facts of
human moral reasoning? How the mind interprets social exchange rules and
detects cheaters. (with commentary) Moral Psychology, Volume 1: The
Evolution of Morality: Adaptations and Innateness. W. Sinnott-Armstrong.
Cambridge, MA, MIT Press: 53-164.
Tuesday, February 1
Fodor,
Jerry A. (1983). ÒCentral Systems,Ó from The Modularity of Mind.
Cambridge, Massachusetts, MIT Press. A Bradford Book, pp. 101-119.
Dan Sperber,
(1994) "The modularity of thought and the epidemiology of
representations," from Lawrence A. Hirschfeld and Susan A. Gelman (Eds)., Mapping the Mind.
Cambridge University Press. New York. pp. 39-67.
Fodor,
Jerry A. (2000). ÒHow many modules would you say there are?Ó Chp. 4 of The
mind doesn't work that way : the scope and limits of computational psychology.
Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press.
The Evolution of
Culture: Two Programs
Tuesday, February 8
Henrich,
Joseph and Richard McElreath (2003). "The Evolution of Cultural
Evolution." Evolutionary Anthropology 12: 123–135.
Sperber,
Dan (1996). ÒSelection and Attraction in Cultural EvolutionÓ Chp. 5,
Explaining culture : a naturalistic approach. Cambridge, Mass., Blackwell.
pp. 98-118
Recommended:
Campbell,
D.T. (1960). "Blind Variation and Selective Retention in Creative Thought
as in Other Knowledge Processes." Psychological Review 67: 380-400.
Evolutionary Psychology and
Cultural Selection (And Behavioral Ecology)
Tuesday, February 15: PAPER 1 DUE TODAY!
Boyer,
Pascal (2008). "Religion: Bound to Believe? ." Nature 455:
1038-1039.
Boyer,
Pascal and Brian Bergstrom (2008). "Evolutionary Perspectives on
Religion." Annual Review of Anthropology 37: 111-130.
Nichols,
Shaun (2002). "On the Genealogy of Norms: A Case for the Role of Emotion in Cultural Evolution." Philosophy
of Science 69: 234-255.
Evolutionary Psychology and
Population Models
Tuesday, February 22:
Chps. 2-3: Richerson, P.J. and R. Boyd. (2005) Not By Genes Alone. University of Chicago Press. Chicago.
Tuesday, March 1:
Chps. 4-5: Richerson, P.J. and R. Boyd. (2005) Not By Genes Alone. University of Chicago Press. Chicago.
Friday March 4:
Last day to withdraw from classes.
Niche Construction
Tuesday, March 8
Laland,
K.N., F.J. Odling-Smee, et al. (2000). "Niche construction, biological
evolution and cultural change." Behavioral & Brain Sciences 23:
131–146.
Laland, Kevin N. and Kim
Sterelny (2006). " Seven Reasons (Not) To Neglect Niche
Construction." Evolution 60(9): 1751–1762.
Naturalized Social
Construction:
Tuesday, March 15
Mallon,
Ron (2007). "A Field Guide to Social Construction." Philosophy
Compass 2(1): 93-108.
Mallon, Ron (2003). Social Construction, Social Roles and
Stability. Socializing Metaphysics. F. Schmitt. Lanham, MD, Rowman and
Littlefield: 327-353.
No longer
required.
Mallon, Ronald
(ms) Making Up Oneself: Social Construction and Performance
Human Evolution
Tuesday, March 29 PAPER 2 DUE TODAY!!
Kim Sterelny, The
Evolved Apprentice
Tuesday, April 5
Kim Sterelny, The
Evolve Apprentice
Tuesday, April 12
Kim
Sterelny, the Evolved Apprentice
Cultural Diversity
and Cognitive Diversity: A Lingustic-Developmental Perspective
Tuesday, April 19
Nisbett,
Richard E. and Ara Norenzayan (2002). Culture and Cognition. Stevens'
Handbook of Experimental Psychology, Volume Two: Memory and Cognitive
Processes, 3rd Edition. D. Medin and H. Pashler. New York, John Wilely
& Sons: 561-597.
Reines,
Maria Francesca and Jesse
Prinz (2010). "Reviving Whorf: The Return of Linguistic Relativity.
Philosophy Compass 4 (6):1022-1032." Philosophy Compass 4(6):
1022-1032.
Masuda, T., R.
Gonzalez, et al. (2008). "Culture and Aesthetic Preference: Comparing the
Attention to Context of East Asians and Americans." Personality and
Social Psychology Bulletin 34(9): 1260-175.
Cultural Diversity
and Cognitive Diversity: An Evolutionary Perspective
Tuesday, April 26:
Cochran,
Gregory, Jason Hardy, et al. (2006). "Natural History of Ashkenazi
Intelligence." Journal of Biosocial Science 38: 659-693.
Hawks,
John, Eric T. Wang, et al. (2007). "Recent acceleration of human adaptive
evolution." PNAS 104
(52): 20753-20758.
Friday April 29th: PAPER 3 DUE TODAY!
THIS CLASS HAS NO FINAL EXAM