Message-Id: <199706101113.HAA13510@brickbat8.mindspring.com>
Date: Tue, 10 Jun 1997 07:17:06 -0500
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
From: bbenzon@mindspring.com (Bill Benzon)
Subject: Re: Aristotle was a Memetician
>Rhetoric and Memetics have a lot in common, and the comment made that
>Aristotle (one of the first rhetoricians) DID use the concept of memes in
>his theory, not just implicitly but also explicity.
>
Which is, alas, why I harbor doubts about memetics. I was trained as a
literary theorist and moved to cognitive science because I wanted something
with more intellectual rigor. Now I find an aweful lot of whats done in
the name of memetics looking like good old literary criticism & rhetoric.
There is terminological aspiration to science, but memetic analyses seem
like lit crit under different terms. Why do astrology when astronomy is
available?
William L. Benzon 201.217.1010
708 Jersey Ave. Apt. 2A bbenzon@mindspring.com
Jersey City, NJ 07302 USA http://www.newsavanna.com/wlb/
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