The Social Brain: Sociological Foundations

Description

The Social Brain: Sociological Foundations introduces the concept of the social brain, including a detailed conceptual model of the social brain networked in the world. The idea that our brains are social has its roots in nineteenth-century social thought and primate research initiated in the 1950s. It was introduced into the neuroscience literature in 1990 as a challenge to the traditional view of the isolated bio-medical brain, a view that still dominates the scientific, media, and public imaginations. Sal Restivo’s foundational thesis is that humans arrive on the evolutionary stage always, already, and everywhere social. We have social selves, social brains, and social genes. He argues the “I” is a grammatical illusion reflecting the myth of individualism. The unique feature of this book is the amount of space devoted to constructing the sociological scaffolding needed to understand what the author means by the social self, the social mind, and the social brain. The approach leads to new ways of thinking about socialization, consciousness, and creativity as networked phenomena. The result is a novel way of integrating the social self, the biological self, and the neurological self and erasing the classical boundaries between brain, mind, and body. Dedication Contents Acknowledgments Preface: Caveat Emptor Introduction 1. The Sociological Imagination 2. Sociology Comes into View 3. Evolution Invents the Social 4. Individual and Society 5. The Social Body in Society and Politics 6. Genius Incorporated 7. Improvisation Incorporated 8. From the Matrix to Reality 9. Robots, AI, Brains, and Bodies in the Information Age 10. The Sociology of Consciousness 11. The Social Life of the Brain 12. The Social Brain in Health and Illness 13. Final Considerations Bibliography Index About the Author