Abstract

The authors argue that the diffusion of the neuroscientific approach within the social and cultural sciences represents the contemporary version of a recurrent tendency to naturalize the mind and the processes of knowledge. Conversely, the article argue that the tendency to naturalize the social world is a basic function of human mind, which, mainly when dealing with ordinary daily life, needs to consider the contexts and the rules in which it works as naturally self-evident. For human beings, such natural evidence is ensured not by the biological facts, but by the shared assumptions which stand at the very foundation of the social world.