Author Meets Their Critics
Abstract Submissions Closed
RC54 The Body in the Social Sciences (host committee)
Language: English
Official presentation of the book Embodiment as Culture, A Comparative Essay in the Light of Cultural Difference by Bianca Maria Pirani and Thomas Smith , Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2015.
There are still many obstacles on the road to a person’s knowing his own body, especially to recognizing how movement is a key to memory. Many of these obstacles are cultural. Contrast the body censorship present in many Western societies with its relaxation in others, and this point b becomes obvious. Only a few scientists are studying these contrasts and related questions. One important key to answering them lies in research on motor neurons. This entails an important revision of beliefs that date back many years. Traditionally, biological determinism of behavior was contrasted with the view that humans can rise “above”their own biological nature and define themselves instead through their own ideas and his own social codes. But research on mirror neurons has suggested to some observers that our social codes are largely determined by our biology—or at least that biology has a large part in shaping our normative systems.