Culture & Cognition

Introduction.- The Circularity Problem and Social Constructionist Views.- The Circularity Problem and Naturalistic Views.- Massive Modularity and Psychological Essentialism.- Explanatory Approaches: Cultural and Cognitive Environments and the Evolutionary Past.- Massive Modularity and Adaptations.- Representations, Motivation and Affect.- Mind, Situation and Representation.- Culture, Embodiment and Extended Mind.- Varieties of Theory of Mind, Affordances, Indication and Culture.- Adaptations, Culture and External Theory of Mind.- Cultural Evolution, Cultural Transmission and Cultural Patterns.- Circularity Revisited: Mind and Culture in Interaction.- References.

BRADLEY FRANKS is a senior lecturer in psychology at the London School of Economics. He has published widely in the areas of cognition, culture, evolutionary theory and philosophy of mind.

'In this breathtakingly wide-ranging survey of recent efforts to understand the relationship between mind and culture, Franks seeks a novel rapprochement between social constructionism and nativism by grounding both in an overarching evolutionary framework... This book should stimulate much debate among social scientists.' Harvey Whitehouse, Professor of Social Anthropology, University of Oxford ''Is the mind a product of culture or is culture a product of the mind? Clearly, both must be true, but the circularity of this observation has long impaired our understanding of the true relationship between the mind and culture. Using new insights from evolutionary theory, Bradley Frank shows how to break out of this circularity. The result is a book that should be read by a wide range of anthropologists, psychologists, and philosophers.'' Lee Cronk, Professor of Anthropology, Rutgers University'As the author himself admits in his conclusion, the Circularity Problem is hardly solved here. But the sophistication of his evolutionary approach, the sheer depth and complexity of his argument, makes this book a welcome addition to an enduring issue in the human sciences.' - Michael Bloomfield, Creative Intelligence International, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute