Anthropology and the cognitive challenge
By: Maurice Bloch
Series: New departures in anthropology
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2012
Place of publication: Cambridge
Language: eng
Number of pages: 234
ISBN-13: 9780521803557; 9780521006156
Subjects: Anthropology; Ethnopsychology; Cognition and culture; SOCIAL SCIENCE / Anthropology / Physical
Description: "In this provocative new study one of the world's most distinguished anthropologists proposes that an understanding of cognitive science enriches, rather than threatens, the work of social scientists. Maurice Bloch argues for a naturalist approach to social and cultural anthropology, introducing developments in cognitive sciences such as psychology and neurology and exploring the relevance of these developments for central anthropological concerns: the person or the self, cosmology, kinship, memory and globalisation. Opening with an exploration of the history of anthropology, Bloch shows why and how naturalist approaches were abandoned and argues that these once valid reasons are no longer relevant. Bloch then shows how such subjects as the self, memory and the conceptualisation of time benefit from being simultaneously approached with the tools of social and cognitive science. Anthropology and the Cognitive Challenge will stimulate fresh debate among scholars and students across a wide range of disciplines"--
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Machine generated contents note: 1. Why social scientists should not avoid cognitive issues; 2. Innateness and social scientists' fears; 3. How anthropology abandoned a naturalist epistemology; 4. The nature/culture wars; 5. Time and the anthropologists; 6. Reconciling social science and cognitive science notions of the 'self'; 7. What goes without saying; 8. Memory.