Comments on: Andy Clark & Michael Wheeler: Embodied cognition and cultural evolution

By: Thinking through Claude Lévi-Strauss « Neuroanthropology

Thinking through Claude Lévi-Strauss « Neuroanthropology — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 00:50:36 +0000

[...] This is perhaps one of the first and simplest distinctions between structuralism, together with some forms of cognitive anthropology, and neuroanthropology. The belief that, underlying human expression is a simpler structure of thought, one that can be described as an oppositional framework of categories, is, in my opinion, not consistent with current neurosciences. Structuralist analysis assumes that, underlying surface complexity in myth, ritual, and even conscious thought, there must be a simpler generative matrix (this is also one of my issues with Pierre Bourdieu, and the reason that I think his thought is overly structuralist). Increasingly, neurosciences are leading us to the opposite conclusion, that conscious thought and overt expression are the thin surface of much more complex processes, a staggeringly Byzantine thinking organ embedded within a baroque organism upon which it depends for sensation, experience, subsistence, and even motivation to exist. Even the theorists of mental modularity, with which I disagree on many things, come into direct conflict with the stupendous simplification of mental processes required by structuralist analysis (for more, see Andy Clark & Michael Wheeler: Embodied cognition and cultural evolution). [...]

By: Flavia

Flavia — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 20:26:27 +0000

Your discussion presents new perspectives on themes that are in the center of a vivid debate in Brazil: gene-culture interaction, and the different approaches of embodiment and evolutionary psychology. By the way, as I’m brazilian, I understand very well your discussion on “plantar bananeira”, and your comparison between capoeiristas and gymnasts… and for me it’s an excellent example for the debate!
We have here in this debate psyquiatrists, psychologists and sociologists who prefer French authors, and others who go with the amglo-saxon ones. There are huge differences between them, as you know, and I don’t understand quite well why Brazilian anthropologists do not seem interested in participating in the debate; they were so present here in the 80′s…but then the discussion was over the applicability of Psychoanalysis on the psychiatric/psychologic therapies for the urban working-class. This discussion now seems over, for absence of contenders…

By: Balance between cultures: equilibrium training « Neuroanthropology

Balance between cultures: equilibrium training « Neuroanthropology — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 09:47:47 +0000

[...] Andy Clark & Michael Wheeler: Embodied cognition and cultural evolution [...]