Phil/Psych 447, Phil 673, 2010

Seminar in Cognitive Science: Mind and Society

Week 9: Social change

Discussion Questions

1. What are some important cases where literature (especiallly novels, plays, poems) have contributed to social change?
2. What are the social, psychological, neural, and molecular mechanisms by which literature contributes to social change?
3. How do ideologies foster or inhibit social change?
4. How well do cognitive-affective maps capture Jost's "elective affinities"?
5. What are the social and psychological causes of ideologies in individuals and groups?
6. What are the social and psychological mechanisms by which ideologies justify systems?
7. What are the normative standards that should be used to evaluate the desirability of social change?
8. What are the interactions between social (top-down) and psychological (bottom-up) processes that encourage the formation and maintenance of ideologies?
9. How do new technologies foster or inhibit social change?

Phil/Psych 447

Paul Thagard

Computational Epistemology Laboratory.

This page updated Nov. 15, 2010