Cognition in Social Contexts: Interdisciplinary Perspectives
In recent decades, many new research fields have emerged at the intersection of the social and cognitive sciences, such as cognitive sociology (e.g., Zerubavel, 1997), cognitive anthropology D’Andrade, 1992), cultural psychology (e.g., Shweder, 1991), and social neuroscience (Cacioppo & Berntson, 2002), to name a few. While researchers in these fields have sought to leverage insights from both branches of science to investigate human cognition in various societal contexts—social, cultural, political, historical, technological, and economic, they face significant conceptual, ontological, epistemological, and methodological challenges when conducting their investigations (see Ignatow, 2014; Kaidesoja et al., 2019; Strydom, 2007; Turner, 2018 for instance).
This one-day workshop focuses on philosophical issues that arise at the intersection of the E-cognitive sciences (E—embodied, enactive, extended, embedded, ecological, evolutionary, etc.), and the social sciences. For instance, how do researchers at this intersection conceptualize and model the relationship between mind, brain, body, and society? What approaches do they adopt to reconcile and/or use dissimilar theories, concepts, and explanations from different research programs? How do researchers identify scientific objects, levels of analysis, and research methods for investigating the phenomena of their interest? In what ways does their interdisciplinary work contribute to the scientific understanding of human cognition and behavior? What are the implications of their work for traditional philosophical questions about the mind, self, agency, and society?