NEUROSCIENCE AND THE FALLACIES OF FUNCTIONALISM.
Smail's On Deep History and the Brain is rightly critical of the functionalist fallacies that have plagued evolutionary theory, sociobiology, and evolutionary psychology. However, his attempt to improve on these efforts relies on functional explanations that themselves oversimplify the lessons of ne...
| Publicado en: | History & Theory Vol. 49; no. 3; pp. 412 - 426 |
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| Formato: | Book Review |
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Wiley-Blackwell
Oct2010
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=70117706&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 70117706 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00182656 HAT jtl: History & Theory issn: 00182656 maglogo: Y pubinfo: dt: Oct2010 vid: 49 iid: 3 pid: 480 pub: Wiley-Blackwell artinfo: ui: 70117706 10.1111/j.1468-2303.2010.00551.x ppf: 412 ppct: 14 formats: fmt: @attributes: type: P size: 991KB tig: atl: NEUROSCIENCE AND THE FALLACIES OF FUNCTIONALISM. aug: au: Reddy, William M. affil: Duke University su: On Deep History & the Brain (Book) Smail, Daniel Lord Neurosciences Nonfiction sug: subj: On Deep History & the Brain (Book) Smail, Daniel Lord Neurosciences Nonfiction ab: Smail's On Deep History and the Brain is rightly critical of the functionalist fallacies that have plagued evolutionary theory, sociobiology, and evolutionary psychology. However, his attempt to improve on these efforts relies on functional explanations that themselves oversimplify the lessons of neuroscience. In addition, like explanations in evolutionary psychology, they are highly speculative and cannot be confirmed or disproved by evidence. Neuroscience research is too diverse to yield a single picture of brain functioning. Some recent developments in neuroscience research, however, do suggest that cognitive processing provides a kind of 'operating system' that can support a great diversity of cultural material. These developments include evidence of 'top-down' processing in motor control, in visual processing, in speech recognition, and in 'emotion regulation.' The constraints that such a system may place on cultural learning and transmission are worth investigating. At the same time, historians are well advised to remain wary of the pitfalls of functionalism. pubtype: Review doctype: Book Review src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Copyright of History & Theory is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. item: History & Theory holder: Wiley-Blackwell dt: @attributes: year: 2010 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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