A Theoretical Model of Sociocultural Evolution

Abstract

If there are at present no complete theories of sociocultural evolution, i.e., theories that capture at least principally all important features of these complex processes, then one has to proceed in a way that has often been criticised as “eclectic”. This means, to be sure, that one picks from different theories the concepts, and if necessary the results, one needs for one’s own task. I have to admit that I never fully understood why some social theorists scorn an eclectic procedure; apparently they believe that each theoretical social scientist has to develop a theory of his own or must avow to some particular theoretical school. But science does not make progress by valuing theoretical paradigms for their own sake. When the great behavioural scientist Bateson once noted that all new ideas are de facto recombinations of ideas already known, then scientific progress is also possible only if everything is taken into account that may be learned from different theories already developed. The fact mentioned in the last subchapter that the main theories of sociocultural evolution are all incomplete in some way or other must not make one blind to the insights they all give in their different ways. When I sketch the theoretical foundations of my own model of sociocultural evolution in the following subchapter I try therefore to keep in mind this eclectic way of proceeding.