Abstract

The mechanisms of cultural transmission have long been debated between two dominant frameworks: Dual Inheritance Theory (DIT) and Cultural Attractor Theory (CAT). This paper articulates the Ontogenetic Synthesis, a comprehensive framework positing that these mechanisms operate sequentially within the human life history. Central to this synthesis is the Ontogenetic Principle of Cultural Dynamics (OPCD). Using a formal derivation based on linear response approximations, we demonstrate that DIT and CAT can be understood not as competing alternatives, but as limiting cases of a continuous ontogenetic parameterization governed by the maturation of agentic control.