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

James Rupert Fletcher
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James Rupert Fletcher: The University of Manchester, UK

Sociological Research Online, 2025, vol. 30, issue 3, 829-838

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.

Keywords: affinities; cognitivism; domain-specificity; enactivism; localisation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:socres:v:30:y:2025:i:3:p:829-838

DOI: 10.1177/13607804241237768

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