Culture in Mind: Cognition, Culture, and the Problem of Meaning [Paperback]

Bradd Shore (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0195126629 | ISBN-13: 978-0195126624 | Publication Date: October 29, 1998

Despite the recognized importance of cultural diversity in understanding the modern world, the emerging science of cognitive psychology has relied far more on experimental psychology, neurobiology, and computer science than on cultural anthropology for its models of how we think. In this exciting new book, anthropologist Bradd Shore has created the first study linking multi-culturalism to cognitive psychology, exploring the complex relationship between culture in public institutions and in mental representations. In so doing, he answers in a completely new way the age old question of whether humans are basically the same psychologically, independent of cultures, or basically diverse because of cultural differences. The first half of the book emphasizes cultural models, from Australian Aboriginal rituals and Samoan comedy skits, to more familiar terrain, including a study of baseball as a cultural model for Americans. Along the way, the author sheds new and novel light on many familiar institutions, from educational curricula and shopping malls to modular furniture and cyberpunk fiction. These observations are then linked to theoretical developments in linguistics, semiotics, and neuroscience, creating a bold new approach to understanding the role of culture in everyday meaning making. The author argues that culture must be considered an intrinsic component of the human mind to a degree that most psychologists and even many anthropologists have not recognized. This new position of cultural models will make absorbing reading for psychologists, anthropologists, linguists, and philosophers, and to anyone interested in the issues of cultural diversity, multiculturalism, or cognitive science in general.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

For most of the 20th century, social scientists have assumed that all human beings essentially "think alike"-that seeming differences in the ways people conceive of the world are due to "superficial" cultural differences rather than to "actual" physical differences. This unquestioned tenet of anthropology arose in reaction to the Darwinian concepts of the previous century, where "different" was assumed to mean inferior to Western cognition. In this important book, Shore argues that the dichotomy between the cultural and the physical is false, since humans are necessarily culture-bearing creatures. In making this argument, he discusses diverse cultural models such as American baseball, Australian aborigine initiation, and the spatial arrangement of Samoan villages. While the ideas discussed here are important, the book is not easy reading and will be of interest mainly to anthropologists (psychologists, alas, should pay greater attention to cross-cultural differences, but do not). Academic and research libraries with anthropology collections will consider this a necessary purchase.
Mary Ann Hughes, Neill P.L., Pullman, Wash.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

"A book of remarkable power and breadth, Culture in Mind addresses questions at the core of anthropological theory, and gives us a set of concepts and models we can really work with. Clearly argued and captivatingly developed through subtle analyses of ethnographic materials, the book resolves the old paradoxes of shared culture and motivated personal knowledge to build an account of meaning and cognition that will revitalize cultural anthropology."--Fredrik Barth

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Product Details

• Paperback: 448 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (October 29, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195126629
• ISBN-13: 978-0195126624
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #953,312 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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