Critical Theory of Cognition
The application of Critical Theory to the study of cognition—examining how cognitive processes are understood, how cognitive science is shaped by culture, and how cognition is always situated in social contexts. Critical Theory of Cognition asks: How do cultural assumptions shape models of mind? Why is individual cognition privileged over distributed, embodied, or social cognition? How do cognitive categories (rational/irrational, normal/pathological) reflect power relations? Drawing on situated cognition, embodied cognition, and critical neuroscience, it insists that thinking never happens in a vacuum—it's always shaped by history, culture, and power. Understanding cognition requires understanding the contexts that make thinking possible.
"They study cognition in labs with undergraduates. Critical Theory of Cognition asks: whose cognition? In what context? Thinking in a lab differs from thinking in life. Models of mind often assume a universal thinker—but thinkers are always situated, always embodied, always cultural. Critical cognition insists on asking: what's left out when we study thinking this way? And whose thinking counts as 'cognitive'?"
Critical Theory of Cognition by Abzugal Nammugal Enkigal March 4, 2026
