#685 Kim Sterelny - The Pleistocene Social Contract: Culture and Cooperation in Human Evolution
RECORDED ON JUNE 3rd 2022.
Dr. Kim Sterelny is professor of philosophy in the Research School of Social Sciences at Australian National University and Victoria University of Wellington. He is the winner of several international prizes in the philosophy of science, and was previously editor of Biology and Philosophy. He is also a member of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. He is currently the First Vice President of the Division for Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science and Technology of the International Union of History and Philosophy of Science and Technology (2020-2023). He is the author of several books, including The Pleistocene Social Contract: Culture and Cooperation in Human Evolution.
In this episode, we focus on The Pleistocene Social Contract. We talk about aspects of the evolution of human social life, like the suppression of dominance hierarchies, direct and indirect reciprocation, cooperation, intergroup violence, cultural learning, human life history, and interactions between residential groups and rates of cultural innovation. We also discuss how human societies scale up, and the transition to agricultural societies, with hierarchy and inequality. Finally, we ask if this knowledge can be applied to social dynamics in industrialized societies.
Time Links:
Intro
Suppressing dominance hierarchies
Direct and indirect reciprocation
Expanding the scale of cooperation
H. erectus, and cooperative hunting
Intergroup violence
Cultural learning
The relationship between cooperation and culture
Was there really a cognitive revolution 50.000 years ago?
Human life history
Interactions between residential groups and rates of innovation
Making reciprocation work: gossip, norms and ritual
Do we know how human societies scale up?
The transition to agriculture - hierarchy, and inequality
Social dynamics in industrialized societies
Follow Dr. Sterelny’s work!
Follow Dr. Sterelny’s work:
University page: https://bit.ly/3CMljN6
Works on PhilPeople: https://bit.ly/3shcoON
Amazon page: https://amzn.to/3iLXwVK
The Pleistocene Social Contract: https://amzn.to/32thGOo