Section 4 in Chapter 4 and parts of Chapter 8 have been published beforehand. The section in Chapter 4 (Civilization and Culture) roughly corresponds to the article “What is the Difference between Culture and Civilization? Two Hundred Fifty Years of Confusion” published by the Comparative Civilizations Review in Spring 2012 (issue 66). Chapter 8 (Memetics: The Evolution of Signs) uses material that has been published as “Can Memes Play Games: Memetics and the Problem of Space” in the book Culture, Nature, Memes: Dynamic Cognitive Theories (edited by T. Botz-Bornstein, Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Press). Parts of Chapter 7, sub-Section 2.5.2. on Wittgenstein’s Organic Lebensform have appeared in the article ‘The Dream of Language: Wittgenstein’s Concept of Dream in the Context of “Style” and “Lebensform”’ in The Philosophical Forum 34:1, 2003. I thank the editors for having granted the permissions to reprint revised and extended versions of these pieces.