Cognitive fluidity and climate change: a critical social-theoretical approach to the current challenge

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dc.contributor.authorStrydom, Piet
dc.date.accessioned2019-02-25T12:33:18Z
dc.date.available2019-02-25T12:33:18Z
dc.date.issued2015-04-24
dc.date.updated2019-02-25T12:29:54Z
dc.description.abstractThis article seeks to enrich the social-theoretical and sociological approach to climate change by arguing in favour of a weak naturalistic ontology beyond the usually presupposed methodological sociologism or culturalism. Accordingly, attention is drawn to the elementary social forms that mediate between nature and the sociocultural form of life and thus figure as the central object of a critical sociological explanation of impediments retarding or preventing a transition to a sustainable global society. The argument is illustrated by a comparison of the current situation of climate change to a similar situation some 10,000 years ago which conditioned the transition from hunting-gathering to farming. The crucial factor in the prehistoric transition had been the newly acquired cognitive fluidity, which not only became the defining feature of the modern human mind, but is also foundational of the corresponding social form of life. The cognitively fluid mind made possible new generative practices and the imagination of counterfactuals possessing an incursive force that is capable of transforming existing practices and social structures. The ultimate question, then, is twofold: whether there is enough potential left in the cognitively fluid mind for its societal significance to be activated to the benefit of a transformation of the current recalcitrant social formation; and whether we today are able and willing to recognize such potential and corresponding realizable possibilities upon which to act.en
dc.description.statusPeer revieweden
dc.description.versionAccepted Versionen
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdfen
dc.identifier.citationStrydom, P. (2015) 'Cognitive fluidity and climate change: a critical social-theoretical approach to the current challenge', European Journal of Social Theory, 18(3), pp. 236-256. doi:10.1177/1368431015579961en
dc.identifier.doi10.1177/1368431015579961
dc.identifier.endpage256en
dc.identifier.issn1368-4310
dc.identifier.issn1461-7137
dc.identifier.issued3en
dc.identifier.journaltitleEuropean Journal of Social Theoryen
dc.identifier.startpage236en
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10468/7539
dc.identifier.volume18en
dc.language.isoenen
dc.publisherSAGE Publicationsen
dc.relation.urihttps://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1368431015579961
dc.rights© 2015, the Author. Reprinted by permission of SAGE Publications.en
dc.subjectAnthropoceneen
dc.subjectClimate changeen
dc.subjectCognitive sociologyen
dc.subjectCritical theoryen
dc.subjectFarmingen
dc.subjectGlobal warmingen
dc.subjectHuman minden
dc.subjectHunting-gatheringen
dc.subjectModernityen
dc.subjectSocial theoryen
dc.subjectWeak naturalismen
dc.titleCognitive fluidity and climate change: a critical social-theoretical approach to the current challengeen
dc.typeArticle (peer-reviewed)en
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