Evolutionary Psychology, Complex Systems, and Social Theory

Stephen Turner’s work on practice theory makes important progress toward constructing a consistent narrative incorporating contemporary social theory, cognitive science, and neuroscience. The purpose in this article is not primarily to criticize this work, but rather to build on it by discussing results from related disciplines that may further enrich social theory. My article is structured as follows. From evolutionary psychology, we know the importance of comparative studies in understanding human behavior, and therefore I will argue that social theory can benefit from the study of complex adaptive biological systems, such as social insect colonies. Next I will argue that practices and other social phenomena can be understood as emergent phenomena in complex systems, and therefore that complex systems theory can illuminate the ways in which social structures emerge and evolve. In particular it helps us to understand how practices can seem like “collective objects” in spite of existing only in individuals. Turner has argued for the relevance of connectionist cognitive science to social theory, and I will explore some of the consequent implications of connectionism for social theory. From there I will turn to cognitive neuroscience, which has much to offer social theory, but I will argue that there remains an enormous “explanatory gap” between the information we get from brain imaging and our theories of information representation and processing in neural networks. Theoretical as well as empirical research will be needed to close this gap. Finally, I will discuss some of the ethical implications of our gradually improving understanding of evolutionary psychology, neuroscience, and complex adaptive systems theory.