From: Scott Chase (osteopilus@yahoo.com)
Date: Sat 02 Apr 2005 - 00:19:53 GMT
--- Kate Distin <memes@distin.co.uk> wrote:
[KD] "The question thus arises of the source of social
facts, and another problem for Durkheim's thesis is
that it is only one generation deep. He claims that an
individual will inherit and be coerced by social facts
about a previous generation, but makes no attempt to
explain how those facts came into existence. Yet in
order to be inherited, they must be inherited from
somewhere." [KD]
My reply:
Yet I seem to remember how impressed I was when I
detected in Durkheim a subtle delineation between
historic origin and current utility. See my previous
(long ago) post on this on the list archives:
http://cfpm.org/~majordom/memetics/2000/16573.html
Anyone familar with Gould's harping on this topic wrt
exaptations and spandrels might read the quote of
Durkheim I proviided in that post and wonder about
where he was going with this too. If he was smart
enough to see that historic origin should be se apart
from current utility, then his views on socifacts are
quite sophisticated when we ask from where socifacts
have sprung. Current function might not give us a clue
as to what previous functions of a socifact may have
been or what antecedents provided the structure that
was co-opted into a new use. There could be the
possibility of functional shifts, such as been seen
with the evolution of the mammalian ear ossicles from
precursors that were used for jaw articulation in
ancestors. Durkheim's views might not have been this
sophisticated, but I'll give him some props (hiphop
lingo) nonetheless.
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