Title
Memes, mind, and normativity
Document Type
Book chapter
Source Publication
Culture, nature, memes
Publication Date
1-1-2008
First Page
191
Last Page
201
Publisher
Newcastle
Abstract
Prominent memeticists like Daniel Dennett and Susan Blackmore have made claims far more radical than those included in Dawkins’ original proposal, which provoked increasingly heated debates and arguments over the theoretical significance as well as limits or flaws of the entire memetic enterprise. In this paper, I examine closely some of the critical points taken by Kate Distin in her penetrating engagement with those radical claims, which include such ideas as the thought that we are meme machines as much as gene machines, the thesis that there is no conscious self inside those machines, and the claim that a complex interplay of replicators and environment is all there is to life (Blackmore 1999: 241). It is hoped that a viable thesis concerning a deep-seated normativity emerges from my discussion.
Publisher Statement
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Additional Information
ISBN of the source publication: 9781847186638
Full-text Version
Publisher’s Version
Language
English
Recommended Citation
Zheng, Y. (2008). Memes, mind, and normativity. In Thorsten Botz-Bornstein (Ed.), Culture, nature, memes (pp. 191-201). Cambridge Scholars: Newcastle.
