| Cultural evolution has always been an important issue in the study of culture in the social sciences.With the penetration of evolutionary psychology,cognitive science and other emerging disciplines into the study of culture,evolutionary biologists have analysed the evolutionary mechanism of social culture from the direction of biological evolution,and developed a “conservation” cultural explanation path based on evolutionary biology,which ignores the natural properties of culture and the inherent law of development.This evolutionary explanation of culture ignores the natural properties of culture and its intrinsic laws of development,and has certain limitations.In contrast,scholars of cultural studies,represented by Dan Sperber,Nicolas Claidière,Scott Atran and Pascal Boyer,have extended the natural science approach to the study of culture in the social sciences,analysing the internal mechanisms of cultural evolution based on the dynamics of cultural transmission,and opening up a naturalistic path of “reconstructive” cultural explanation.The cultural attraction model is one of the main theories of this path.Based on this,this paper focuses on the naturalistic causal explanation of cultural evolution and the connotation of the cultural attraction model,arguing that the cultural attraction model is not only more advantageous in explaining cultural evolution,but also a strong support for the “reconstructive” path of cultural explanation.The model is an intervention and extension of the naturalistic stance in cultural studies,and has become a new tool for the study of cultural and other social phenomena,starting from the natural properties of culture.In this way,the Cultural Attraction Model incorporates the findings of the natural sciences and provides a naturalistic approach to the study of culture,unifying the study of culture in the social sciences within a naturalistic framework and promoting a deeper integration of the natural and social sciences.The main part of this article consists of three chapters: Chapter 1 sorts out the“preservation” and “reconstruction” interpretative paths around the issue of cultural evolution and the key points of contention between the two different interpretations,and analyses in detail the main dilemmas of the “preservation” interpretative path from different perspectives.The main dilemmas of the “preservation” path are analysed in detail from different perspectives.Chapter 2 focuses on the theoretical origins and development of the cultural attraction model,illustrates the influencing factors of the cultural attraction model and its role in cultural evolution through empirical explanation and model construction,further points out the advantages of the cultural attraction model in explaining cultural phenomena,and demonstrates the rationality of the “reconstructive” explanatory path of cultural evolution.Chapter 3responds to and defends the criticisms and challenges to the cultural attraction model,systematically analyses the development trend of interdisciplinary integration of the cultural attraction model,and finally explains the significance and value of this“reconstructive” explanatory path to the analysis of cultural evolution.The significance of this “reconstructive” explanatory path for the analysis of cultural evolution. |
