Beyond Neural Connections

Using Strathern to Explore Knowledge-making at the Intersections of the Social and Neurosciences

Bibliographic Data

ID5338041
AuthorsSamantha Croy (0000-0002-8643-2896, The University of Melbourne, corresponding author), M Guillemin (0000-0002-9739-3175, The University of Melbourne)
Year2024
Volume51
Issue1
Pages58-82
Publication date2024-05-06
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueScience Technology & Human Values (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0162-2439 • E-ISSN: 1552-8251
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/01622439241248923
OpenAlexW4396704063
LanguageEN
References cited49

This article considers how Marilyn Strathern's work on Western knowledge conventions can usefully contribute to debates at the intersection of the social and neurosciences: first, to understanding the nature of work at this intersection; and second, to providing new avenues for interdisciplinary engagement. The neuroscience explosion in the 1990s and the early twenty-first century held out the promise of understanding increasingly complex phenomena in terms of the brain. As the neurosciences ventured into questions of human sociality, social scientists found it difficult to make meaningful contributions within the confines of conventional models of neuroscientific work. This highlighted the need for conceptual and methodological innovation. In this article, we illustrate how Strathern's concept of the merographic connection, which conceptualizes the link between overlapping parts belonging to separate wholes, is a useful frame for thinking about the shared objects of the social and neurosciences. We show how her consideration of analogy as an apparatus bringing different domains together assists in understanding work in this area. With social science experiments in working with neuroscientists ongoing, Strathern's work encourages precision about what is being brought into relationship in interdisciplinary encounters and prompts innovative thinking about what might productively be brought into association

Cognitive science · Epistemology · Social knowledge · Social science · Sociology · Embodied and Extended Cognition · Philosophy · Psychology

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