ABSTRACT
This is part of a larger project to reintegrate development into evolutionary theory, through models of generative developmental structure and their fitness consequences. It suggests handles on some problems in the biological and human sciences not solvable with or easily accessible to a genetic approach. I seek to generate an adequate model of cultural evolution-which must include or interface closely with a theory of cognitive development in the broadest sense, intersecting all cognitive, conative, and affective skills, and the domains of their employment, both throughout the life cycle, and in broader social, cultural, and institutional contexts. This approach also suggests a new and different approach to the phenomena that have motivated the innate-acquired distinction. Part I gives an orientation to generative entrenchment and to why it is so important to a theory of evolving systems. In Part II, I focus on the classical “innate-acquired” distinction and provide a new and richer account in terms of generative entrenchment of the phenomena invoked in its support. The new analysis is compared with traditional accounts of “innateness” as “genetic” or “canalized.” I conclude that the old “innateacquired” distinction should be retired, but its conceptual niche is not dispensible, and is fruitfully filled by the new concept.
