Beyond Local Domains: Connective Ontology in (Post-)Cognitive Sociology.

Cognitive science has been dominated by cognitivism, which treats cognition as information-processing in the brain. Recent post-cognitivist approaches instead locate cognition in active socio-material environments. However, most cognitive sociology still assumes a cognitivist ontology, seeing social factors as external influences on the brain. This paper argues that cognitive sociology should engage with post-cognitivist science, using connective ontology from the sociology of personal life to conceptualize cognition as dynamically emergent ecological energies. This offers routes toward genuine social ontologies of cognition as a sociological matter, moving beyond cognitivism.

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Abstract

Ontology in cognitive science has long been dominated by cognitivism, developing computer science metaphors to position cognition as intrinsic mind-brain information-processing. Contemporary cognitivism hypothesises localised domain-specificity, disaggregating cognition into discrete subtypes, each of which exists in a dedicated brain region. Latterly, peripheral cognitive science scholarships have contested these ideas, cultivating post-cognitivist dispositions with radical ontologies, relocating cognition in active socio-material ecologies. Nonetheless, much cognitive sociology retains cognitivist ontology, treating sociological phenomena as extrinsic constraints that influence the mind-brain's foundational cognition. I argue that cognitive sociology could fruitfully engage with post-cognitivist science. As an example, I use connective ontology, from the sociology of personal life, to conceptualise cognition as dynamically emergent and vitally animated ecological connective energies. Doing so, I show that post-cognitivism offers routes towards genuine social ontologies of cognition as a sociological matter, moving beyond cognitivism.