Culture as a System : How We Know the Meaning and Significance of What We Do and Say

David B Kronenfeld

ISBN 10: 1138289183 / ISBN 13: 9781138289185

Published by Taylor & Francis Aug 2017, 2017

About this Item

Neuware - Kronenfeld proposes a cognitive approach to culture, wherein cognition refers to knowledge--but not just verbal or conscious knowledge. Cultural cognition is the shared pragmatic knowledge that includes our behavioral as well as conceptual knowledge--our knowledge of how to engage each other (whether via cooperation or competition) or how to avoid engagement, of how to make sense of what those around us say and do, of how to make things either alone or via organized cooperation, and of how to think about novel problems. It is essential reading for scholars of cognitive anthropology, linguistic anthropology, sociology of culture, philosophy, and computational cognitive science.

Seller Inventory # 9781138289185

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Culture as a System : How We Know the Meaning and Significance of What We Do and Say
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis Aug 2017
• Publication Date: 2017
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1138289183
• ISBN 13: 9781138289185
• Binding: Buch
• Condition: Neu
• Dimensions: 231W x 157H x 15D millimeters 231 millimeters width by 157 millimeters height by 15 millimeters depth
• Weight: 386 grams

About this title

Synopsis

A particular culture is associated with a particular community, and thus has a social dimension. But how does culture operate and how is it to be defined? Is it to be taken as the behavioral repertoire of members of that community, as the products of their behavior, or as the shared mental content that produces the behavior? Is it to be viewed as a coherent whole or only a collection of disparate parts? Culture is shared, but how totally? How is culture learned and maintained over time, and how does it change?

In Meaning and Significance in Human Engagement, Kronenfeld adopts a cognitive approach to culture to offer answers to these questions. Combining insights from cognitive psychology and linguistic anthropology with research on collective knowledge systems, he offers an understanding of culture as a phenomenon produced and shaped by a combination of conditions, constraints and logic.

Engagingly written, it is essential reading for scholars and graduate students of cognitive anthropology, linguistic anthropology, sociology of culture, philosophy, and computational cognitive science.

About the Author

David B. Kronenfeld is Emeritus Professor in the Department of Anthropology at University of California, Riverside, USA.