DEBATE ON SOCIAL THEORY: CULTURAL EVOLUTION: AN INTERACTIONIST PERSPECTIVE.

This article presents a commentary to a paper by Burns and Dietz which argued that macro-level structures and population phenomena are shaped by micro-level processes and in turn are the selective environment for micro-level processes. The novelty of this paper lies neither in their discussion of the issue nor in their particular approach to it, but how they link their approach to contemporary conceptions of evolution. In connection with their social rule system's approach, this linkage with evolution has the advantage of systematically raising a number of specific questions about evolutionary processes. As the authors make clear, their approach is indebted or at least related to the writings of linguists and linguistic philosophers like Chomsky and (the early) Wittgeinstein. Given the prominence of the linguistic tradition in Great Britain, sociologists there are perhaps more likely to be impressed with the presumed centrality of rules, even when the influence of rules is viewed as much modified by human agency. The authors' advocacy of agency and their anti-structural determinism is admirable, but only the specifics of their linkage between agency and structure are original.