44 Beth Preston
producing E, and thereby causally contributed to the reproduction of Ts in O’s lineage. (Buller 1998:
507)
Like the strong etiological theory, the weak theory appeals to the history of reproduction
of a trait. But it grounds that history in contributions to fi tness, not in the stricter condition
of selection over alternative variations because of superior fi tness. “Fitness” has been used
in a number of different senses in biology and philosophy of biology (Endler 1986: 33–50).
In addition, critics say it lacks explanatory power because organisms that survive and
reproduce are by defi nition more fi t (Sober 1984: ch. 2). So it will not do to explicate
fi tness as merely a propensity to survive and reproduce; the grounds of such a propensity
must be spelled out. Buller (1998: 509) appeals to a widely accepted conception of
“fi tness” with four components: viability, fertility, fecundity, and ability to fi nd mates. Are
there analogues of these biological phenomena in material culture?
Viability is the fundamental component of the fi tness of individual biological organisms
because they have to survive to sexual maturity (or to an appropriate size, in the case of
asexual reproduction) in order to achieve fertility, fecundity, and the procurement of mates.
But here a problem is apparent, for individual artifacts do not have a life cycle in this
sense. It is true that many of them have a life cycle of sorts—they are made, last for a
while, and then break or wear out. It is also true that some artifacts go through a matura-
tion process of sorts. Cheese, whiskey, and fi rewood, for instance, have to spend a period
of time in controlled storage before they are suitable for consumption; and some artifacts,
such as shoes and clarinet reeds, must be broken in to work well. But these processes in
material culture are not true analogues of growing to sexual maturity in biology because
they are not connected with reproduction but with performance of other functions. You
have to wait for your whiskey to mature for it to be drinkable, but not in order to make
another batch; and you do not have to break in one clarinet reed before you can make
another. The only possible exceptions are the rare cases where you need a “starter” and
you get it by saving some of the current batch, as with yogurt or bread. But these excep-
tions occur because the artifacts in question incorporate biological organisms, and they
have to mature to reproductive size or age. And there is a further disanalogy. If no indi-
viduals of a type of organism survive to reproductive maturity, that is the end of the
lineage. Not so for artifacts. You can eat up all the brownies in existence, and so long as
someone remembers how to make them or has the recipe, more brownies can be repro-
duced. In short, reproduction in material culture is not absolutely dependent on the survival
or maturation of individual items of the same type in the way that reproduction in biology
is. The exception is when the techniques and/or technology required to make a type of
artifact have been lost, and then reproduction may depend on reverse engineering of sur-
viving exemplars.
What about the other three components? The ability to fi nd mates is not applicable,
because reproduction among artifacts is not sexual. But then this component is not