Brains, Persons, and Society *** ABSTRACTS    Cervelli, Persone e Società ***ABSTRACTS

Dan Sperber

Reconceptualising the Social: Ontological Reduction without Theoretical Reduction

I defend a naturalistic programme in the study of social and cultural phenomena based on a reconceptualisation of the domain in terms of causal chains of mental and environmental events. I contrast differences of ontological levels between disciplines, as between neurology and psychology, with differences of scale, as between pathology and epidemiology. I argue that properly reconceptualised social sciences stand to psychology as epidemiology stands to pathology an explore some philosophical and empirical consequences of this analogy.