Theorizing Cultural Models

Abstract

This chapter reconsiders the post-Parsonian theory of culture by examining the cognitive anthropology school. Here, the internal dimension of culture is understood as most basically cognitively constituted in neurological systems, organized in networks of structurally durable beliefs and schemas, often widely shared by varieties of types of populations, and motivationally directive of action and practices. The chapter focuses on driving home a few limited but crucial points in a larger argument—namely, that culture can be coherent, consensual, reasonable, internalized, and teleological in its orientation to guiding life practices. This is not an argument for a return to Parsonianism, since the chapter's approach is different from that in important ways. Instead, this chapter hopes to advance into a post-post-Parsonian era that corrects the numerous over-reactions and mistakes of the dominant approach of recent decades.