El miércoles, 30 de abril, a las 12.30, en la Sala de Juntas de Filosofía, tendrá lugar otra sesión del seminario TeC-FiloLab. Nos acompañará Glenda Satne, de la Universidad de Wollongong (Australia). Más abajo tenéis el título y un resumen de la charla, así como una breve nota sobre la trayectoria de Glenda.
Title: «How social normativity shapes our minds, and what we can do about it»
Abstract: One of the fundamental ways in which human beings relate to one another to develop and sustain their lives in common is by forming social groups. On this, sociologists, social psychologists, evolutionary biologists, and philosophers agree. Some views explain this phenomenon in terms of a human psychological tendency to ‘group identify’, while others emphasize that human minds are shaped by social norms. In this talk, I address the significance of this ‘group mind-ing’ phenomenon analyzing it from the point of view of social diversity, paying especial attention to its role in giving raise to ‘subtle’ forms of social injustice, including ignoring, disbelieving, and penalising those in the out-group. These are ‘subtle’ forms of injustice and discrimination, frequently unknown and unintended, compared to those more explicit and outspoken. Drawing on conceptual and empirical research, I argue that to better understand the phenomenon of ‘group-minding’ we need to focus on social normativity. This is not to emphasize exclusively either social norms or group identification, but the ways in which different dimensions of social normativity relate and interact with one another. Social normativity, on the view I develop, encompasses several forms of intersubjective engagement, from dispositions to socially conform, to sophisticated practices of rational exchange. I end by discussing the prospects of the view proposed for explaining and overcoming such pervasive forms of injustice.
Bio: I am an Associate Professor in Philosophy at the School of Liberal Arts. I specialise in Philosophy of mind and Social Ontology. My research focuses on E- approaches to the Mind and sociality. My areas of interest include: Collective Intentionality, Joint action, Social Cognition, the Second-Person, Normativity and the role played by culture in human evolution. I have written on many topics connected to these including: music improvisation, social learning, social bias, evolution and cooperation, social norms, and social attention. I am also interested in Metaphilosophy and Naturalism, and usually write on these topics too. I have written a book on Wittgenstein and I am currently writing one on social normativity.