Social Mindscapes by Eviatar Zerubavel

Social Mindscapes by Eviatar Zerubavel

Why do we eat sardines, but never goldfish; ducks, but never parrots? Why does adding cheese make a hamburger a cheeseburger whereas adding ketchup does not make it a ketchupburger? By the same token, how do we determine which things said at a meeting should be included in the minutes and which ought to be considered off the record and officially disregarded? In this wide-ranging book, Eviatar Zerubavel argues that cognitive science cannot answer these questions, since it addresses cognition on only two levels: the individual and the universal. To fill the gap between the romantic vision of the solitary thinker whose thoughts are the product of unique experience, and the cognitive-psychological view, which revolves around the search for the universal foundations of human cognition, Zerubavel charts an expansive social realm of mind, a domain that focuses on the conventional, normative aspects of the way we think. With anecdotes and revealing analogy, Zerubavel illuminates the social foundation of mental actions such as perceiving, attending, classifying, remembering, assigning meaning, and reckoning the time. What takes place inside our heads, he reminds us, is deeply affected by our social environments, which are typically groups that are larger than the individual yet considerably smaller than the human race. Thus, we develop a nonuniversal software for thinking as Americans or Chinese, lawyers or teachers, Catholics or Jews, Baby Boomers or Gen-Xers. Zerubavel explores the ways in which thought communities carve up and classify reality, assign meanings, and perceive things, defamiliarizing in the process many taken-for-granted assumptions.

Zerubavel, Eviatar: - Eviatar Zerubavel is Board of Governors and Distinguished Professor of Sociology at Rutgers University. His many books include Social Mindscapes: An Invitation to Cognitive Sociology, The Elephant in the Room: Silence and Denial in Everyday Life, and Ancestors and Relatives: Genealogy, Identity, and Community. He lives in East Brunswick, New Jersey.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780674813915
ISBN 10	067481391X
Title	Social Mindscapes
Author	Eviatar Zerubavel
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Harvard University Press
Year published	1998-01-15
Number of pages	172
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable