another during the process of cultural transmission.It is interesting to
note that the example chosen by Dawkins to illustrate this notion is an
air from the song “Auld Lang Syne.”This brings us right back to the area
of music:we know that protoforms of cultural transmission are present
among animal species that proceed,at least partly,by learning,particu-
larly in the case of vocalizations (see Whaling and Payne,this volume).
This helps us see more clearly the questions that have to be addressed
and the research avenues that are available.At what point does cultural
evolution appear? How does it establish itself? What relationship does
it have with genetic evolution? Or,if you wish,when is Lamarck added
onto Darwin? The study of the origins of music,language,and related
phenomena can help us find answers to these questions.Music and Language Are Not Natural Kinds
When one is interested in the origins of music,numerous data are at
one’s disposal.On one hand is all information dealing with the behavior
and acoustic productions of a diverse array of animal species,and on the
other,all that we know about human music.This latter knowledge
includes several distinct areas:analysis of the structure and elements of
music,but also the ontogeny of musical behavior and its instantiation in
the human nervous system.On first view,the natural point of departure
would seem to be the structure of human music such as we conceive of
it.But we immediately see the danger of this approach:if we define music
according to structures of the European tradition,we commit a grave
methodological error,because nothing guarantees that this conception
has any kind of universal validity.By proceeding in this way,we suppose
that music possesses some kind of stable essence,that it constitutes a
natural kind.Logicians use this term to describe families of entities pos-
sessing properties bound by natural law:we know of natural kinds in the
form of categories of minerals,plants,or animals,and we know that
different human cultures classify natural realities that surround them
in a completely analogous fashion.Is the same thing true for cultural
artifacts?
It is significant to consider that anthropologists,who insist on the emi-
nently variable nature of cultural phenomena,do not go to the point of
placing into question the unity of human music.We really believe we
know what music is,even though ethnomusicologists themselves have
taught us that in many cultures no word exists that corresponds to what
we know of as music,and that we are obliged to put under the vague
term of “music”very different types of practices.It seems to be the case
that,in a general manner,cultural artifacts do not constitute natural168 Jean Molino