The cultural embedding of social cognition: towards a more integrative cognitive science

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Title: The cultural embedding of social cognition: towards a more integrative cognitive science
Directors: Sara FRANCESCHELLI and HE Jing
Discipline: Philosophy
Status: Ongoing Project
Starting date: 2022

Directors

Summary

 

For a long time, cognitive philosophy has converged with more ancient approaches in philosophy on the idea that social cognition so understood involves either processes of theorizing about other people’s mental states or processes of simulating them, or also maybe a mixture of both. This alternative is in fact based on the widespread agreement that mental states are internal, first-person and private ones. And that since one cannot access directly the mental states of others, such as their thoughts and feelings, one must observe their behavior, interpret their speech, and employ specific processes to determine what those mental states are.
The present project defends the idea that the alternative errs in fact also and importantly by neglecting the contextually embedded nature of social cognition and by vastly underestimating as a result the considerable influence that culture actually plays in social cognition. Indeed, the way we interact with others is permeated with a rich array of culturally shared and maintained beliefs and norms. 
The overarching goal of the present project can be understood as that of developing a more complex and integrative theoretical framework in which culture is given both its due place and its full and authentic nature. And, more specifically, one that sheds light on the deep correlation that mental and neurobiological factors entertain with cultural ones in social cognition by underlining on the one hand the cultural dimension of how we relate to others, and by explaining neurobiologically on the other hand these cultural traits of social cognition. But one that also achieves this goal by going beyond the traditional opposition between explaining in terms of neurobiological and psychological factors or explaining in terms of social factors, specifically cultural ones, and that therefore escapes both neural reductionism and cultural reductionism.
 
To this end research will be conducted along the following two main axes:
Axis 1: The project will attempt to reconceptualize the notion of culture so as to adequately capture the cultural dimension of social cognition understood as a culturally bi-directed interaction between self and others.
 
Axis 2: The project will undergo a critical examination of a series of neurocognitive works that, for a variety of reasons, enjoy particular relevance when trying to understand the main basic principles of the shaping of culture by social cognition.
 
These scientific objectives will be realized through both individual, although highly interactive, research work of the main members of the project team and collective research work involving additional invited researchers, and taking the form of the organization of 4 inter-related workshops over a 2 year period of time (1 per semester). These workshops will be held alternatively at ECNU and at ENS de Lyon.
 
 

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