Svenja Matusall

The History of the Neurobiology of Thinking, Feeling, and Acting

In recent years, neurosciences have significantly contributed to discourses about human nature, stressing the importance of sociality. Sociality is rooted in each and every individual, has evolved during the course of evolution, is consequently a part of human nature and is located in the brain. The core of this new notion of human nature is the 'social brain', which is able not only to communicate with the environment but rather to directly interact with other brains via neuronal mind reading abilities. The social brain is not to be confused with its neural substrate, it is rather a conglomerate of discourses about the evolutionary history of the brain, a history of ideas that led to conceptualising the brain in its current form, the lens through which the actual material brain is investigated and the materiality that is found.

With social neuroscience, sociality shifts from the external organisation of society to the internal constitution of human beings: sociality becomes a (neuro)biological entity (requiring a certain social order as its natural habitat).

Building on ethnographic fieldwork, this project investigates how social neuroscience’s discourse may give rise to a new notion of sociality and which frame this may provide for becoming a person.