Self and Society
The Self
I believe the self is, at least in part, a cleverly disguised deception that allows the social world in and allows us to be “overtaken” by the social world without our even noticing.
– Matthew D. Lieberman, Social: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Connect
(Crown Publishers, 2013).
Social Cognition
“Naomi [who denounces ‘climate alarmism’] said her political activism was sparked a few years ago when she began asking questions in school about Germany’s liberal immigration policies. She said the backlash from teachers and other students hardened her skepticism about mainstream German thinking.”
Desmond Butler and Juliet Eilperin (Washington Post)
Yes, our cognition is bound up in our social existence, as Ludwik Fleck noted in 1935.
Ludwik Fleck on Cognition
Cognition is the most socially-conditioned activity of man, and knowledge is the paramount social creation [Gebilde].
– Ludwik Fleck, Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact, trans. Fred Bradley and Thaddeus J. Trenn (The University of Chicago Press, 1979), Kindle ed., chap. 2, sec. 4.