Evolution,activity and assembled mediation: A neo-Balwinian response to the universalism of evolutionary psychology

Abstract

In this article, we suggest an alternative to the psycho-evolutionist positions that attempt to establish cultural universals to surmount the paradoxes of social constructionism. We review the proposals put forward by Franks (2014) on the biological factors that determine the human species’ basic sociality and the political consequences that can be drawn from them. We subject this conception to a critical review on two fronts. On one front, we turn to Baldwin’s organic selection as a possible alternative to the neo-Lamarckian and universalist principles that inspire Frank’s proposal. On the other front, we advance the idea of assembled mediation as a way of dismantling the reductionism, continuism and ontological hierarchy that underlie the explanation of human activity propounded by evolutionary psychology. Moving onwards from that basis, our proposal assumes that attempting to analyse the complexity of cultural phenomena always entails two-way journeys between the scientific explanation and the politico-ideological project.