Social Organization and Cognition

Abstract

This article provides a review of the relationship between social organization and cognition. The view that cognition is the foundation of social organization (Chomsky, Lévi-Strauss) has serious shortcomings, including limits to cognition itself, extracognitive limits to rationality, and structural constraints such as power and authority. The alternative view is that cognition is influenced by social organization at both the micro-(Mead, Piaget, Bernstein) and the macrolevels (Marx, Durkheim). Although the microlevel (constraint vs. cooperation, position- vs. person-oriented interaction) can be fruitfully related to cognition, the macrolevel (modes of production, division of labor) cannot. Further, the theoretical links between the macro- and the microlevels of social organization are not strong. We need to reconstruct our theories on a more abstract level, to cover adequately the three-sided interface between macro- and microlevels of social organization and cognition.