#556 Dan Sperber: Culture, Cultural Attraction Theory, Epistemic Vigilance, and Reason
RECORDED ON OCTOBER 22nd 2021.
Dr. Dan Sperber is a researcher at the Institut Jean Nicod, and a professor in cognitive science and philosophy at the Central European University in Budapest. He is Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy, Foreign honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and member of the Academia Europaea. He has been the first laureate of the Claude Lévi-Strauss Prize in 2009. He is the author of numerous articles in anthropology, linguistics, philosophy and psychology and of several books, including Meaning and Relevance (with Deirdre Wilson), Relevance: Communication and Cognition (with Deirdre Wilson), and The Enigma of Reason (with Hugo Mercier).
In this episode, we talk about cultural evolution, cultural attraction theory, epistemic vigilance, and reason. We start by talking about how human cognition is best understood in a social context, and how to think about the relationship between culture and biology. We then get into Dr. Sperber’s “epidemiology of representations”, and into cultural attraction theory, and how it related to Robert Boyd’s and Peter Richerson’s approach to cultural evolution. We discuss the limitations of memetics, and if we can say that cultural evolution is Darwinian. We talk about epistemic vigilance, and the argumentative theory of reasoning. Finally, Dr. Sperber tells us about his take on massive modularity of the human mind, and why reason is modular.
Time Links:
Intro
Studying human cognition in a social context
Culture and biology
Epidemiology of representations
Cultural attraction theory, and its relationship to Boyd’s and Richerson’s approach
Is cultural evolution, Darwinian?
The limitations of memetics
Epistemic vigilance
Are people gullible
Reason, and argumentation
Massive modularity of the human mind, and the modularity of reason
Follow Dr. Sperber’s work!
Follow Dr. Sperber’s work:
University page (CNRS): https://bit.ly/3Ax0lzG
Faculty page (CEU): https://bit.ly/3fjthDP
Website: https://bit.ly/3ariwvG
ResearchGate profile: https://bit.ly/3vkq7Fx
Amazon page: https://amzn.to/3hVEqwa