Biosocieties

Table of Contents - 2007 - Volume 2, Issue 02  

Articles

Integrating Social Science with Neuroscience: Potentials and Problems

John Crombya1

a1 Department of Human Sciences, Loughborough University, Loughborough LE11 3TU, UK E-mail: J.Cromby@lboro.ac.uk

Abstract

New opportunities for systematic collaboration between neuroscience and social science have opened up in recent years, and some of the potentials and the problems that accompany them are explored with reference to Damasio’s work. Systematic collaboration and integration might yield benefits for metatheoretical, theoretical and substantive inquiry, but will be impeded by language, conceptual and methodological problems. Strategies to facilitate collaboration are discussed, and it is concluded that methodological problems will be most difficult to resolve.

Keywords

  • affective;
  • embodiment;
  • emotion;
  • habitus;
  • interdisciplinary;
  • somatic marker

John Cromby has worked as a psychologist in clinical settings (mental health, learning disabilities, drug addiction) and in various interdisciplinary academic departments. He is interested in the way that experience is jointly constituted at the intersection of the body and the social realm, and is exploring aspects of this intersection by deploying resources including social theory, phenomenology and neuroscience, with respect to such phenomena as emotion, depression, paranoia, chronic fatigue syndrome and visual impairment.