Ontology of Culture and the Study

of Human Behavior¤
I LKKA P YYSIÄINEN ¤¤

ABSTRACT
It is here argued that ‘culture’ is a universal in the philosophical sense of the term: it
expresses a general property. It is not a singular term naming an abstract entity, but rather
a singular predicate the intension of which is ‘cultureness.’ Popper’s view of the ontology of
mathematics is used as an analogous example in the light of which the ontology of culture
is analyzed. Cultures do not have an independent existence (realism), they are not mere
names (Nominalism), and neither do they exist as Ž xed entities in the mind (conceptualism).
Cultures are abstractions made by the mind, which yet are not reducible to the mind. They
exist in the form of certain mental operations creating a new level of reality. ScientiŽ c study
of culture involves both explaining how cultural phenomena are constructed in minds and
how these constructions function in cognition and communication.
KEYWORDS
Culture, Cognition, Ontology.

Most scholars accept that humans are at once biological, psychological, and
cultural/social beings. The ontology and the practical import of these three
levels for the study of human thought and behavior is more controversial,
though. Especially the importance of the biological level for the explanation
of human thought and behavior has been called into question in the human
sciences. Somewhat amazingly, perhaps, also the psychological level has
been considered unimportant for the study of ‘culture,’ or ‘social facts,’
which supposedly form an ontologically independent level (e.g. Durkheim
1966; Geertz 1973). More recently, taking culture as an independent

¤ The writing of this paper was made possible by a two year research post at the Helsinki

Collegium for Advanced Studies.

¤¤
Ilkka Pyysiäinen, Researcher, Helsinki Collegium for Advances Studies, Dept. of
Comparative Religion, P.O. Box 59 (Unioninkatu 38 E), FIN-00014 University of Helsinki,
Finland. Email: ilkka.pyysiainen@helsinki.Ž

c Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2002

° Journal of Cognition and Culture 2.3
168 ILKKA PYYSIÄINEN

ontological level also has been judged as of no import for the scientiŽ c study
of human thought and behavior (Boyer 1994; Pyysiäinen 2001: 25-33).
To gain a better understanding of the mutual relationship of these
levels, their respective ontological statuses should Ž rst be speciŽ ed. This
necessitates both philosophical analysis and cognitive scientiŽ c considera-
tions. In what follows, I attempt to construct a proper ontology of culture
on such a basis. Only after such an analysis it will be possible to specify
the relative import of the cultural level for the study human thought and
action. I try to show that the ontology of culture can be understood in the
light of the philosophical problem of universals. I therefore use the phi-
losophy (and cognitive science) of mathematics as an analogous problem
Ž eld; solutions to problems in that Ž eld can help us specify what kinds of
solutions there can, in principle, be to the problem of the proper ontology
of culture. This, then, helps us develop a more solid philosophical basis
for the study of human thought and behavior. I do not, however, mean to
provide any mathematical proofs.
I Ž rst brie y present the anthropological concept of ‘culture,’ and show
why and how it should be approached as a universal (in the philosophical
sense). After that I brie y discuss the philosophical problem of universals
and the philosophy of mathematics, and also introduce Popper’s theory of
three ‘worlds.’ In the last section, I present a theory of the ontology of
culture, as well as what is the import of the concept of ‘culture’ for the
study of human thought and action.

1. ‘Culture’ as a Universal

‘Culture’ is a concept made famous by anthropologists. The word itself

is derived from the Latin verb colo/colere which has had a wide range
of meanings from ‘to till, cultivate’ (land) to ‘to worship,’ ‘to promote the
growth or advancement of, develop,’ etc. (see Pyysiäinen 2001: 26). In
anthropological usage, it has come to denote a speciŽ c and irreducible
level of organization of human behavior. It has been especially sharply
distinguished from the biological and psychological levels. What exactly,
then, is culture, has been answered in several ways, none of which is
completely satisfactory. As Sperber observes, anthropology is a strongly
interpretive science, lacking theoretical concepts of its own; anthropologists
do not share a common paradigm, various national research traditions
 ONTOLOGY OF CULTURE 169

differing from each other considerably (Sperber 1996; Barrett 1988; also
Spiro 1968). (See Tooby & Cosmides 1995; Pyysiäinen 2001: 25-74.)
Culture has been seen as for example a system of practices by
which humans have solved problems of adaptation, as an ideational
system (cognitive, symbolic, or structural), and as the ideational part of
sociocultural systems (Keesing 1974). ‘Culture’ thus is supposed to refer to
a speciŽ c level of organization that cannot be reduced to the thought and
action of individuals (e.g. Geertz 1973). Kroeber and Kluckhohn (1963:
3) even claim that: “: : : in explanatory importance and in generality
of application it [culture] is comparable to such categories as gravity in
physics, disease in medicine, evolution in biology.”
In a recent attempt at a deŽ nition, Lincoln (2000) explains that ‘cul-
ture’ refers at once to groups of people and to some factor X that deŽ nes
these groups, while these groups also deŽ ne the X. The X includes com-
munication, artifacts, modes of behavior, and various kinds of preferences
coded in these things. Japanese culture, for instance, consists of every-
thing that the Japanese do and make, say and think, etc., in constituting
themselves as ‘Japanese.’ The deŽ nition thus is circular: Japanese culture is
whatever the Japanese do, and the Japanese are those who make Japanese
culture. It seems to me that such a way of understanding culture cannot
be operationalized for the purposes of empirical work in any sensible way.
I Ž nd much more promising such epidemiological theories of culture
as Sperber’s. According to him, cultures are made up of ‘contagious’ ideas
as well as of all human products whose existence makes the propagation
of ideas possible. Cultural representations are widely distributed, lasting
representations that have both a mental and a public aspect, in the sense
that a mental representation results from the interpretation of a public rep-
resentation which is itself the expression of a mental representation. Thus
socio-cultural phenomena are kinds of ecological patterns of psychological
phenomena: social facts are deŽ ned in terms of psychological facts, but are
not reduced to them. “Culture is the precipitate of cognition and commu-
nication in a human population” (Sperber 1996, quotation from p. 97. See
also Tooby & Cosmides 1995: 24).
In this perspective, cultures are selective abstractions from peoples ac-
tual mental representations, not ready-made schemes implanted in indi-
vidual people’s heads like copies of a computer program. People cannot
170 ILKKA PYYSIÄINEN

simply ‘share’ common ‘cultural models,’ because some important aspects

of cultural representations are not culturally transmitted at all. They derive
from intuitive ontologies, which thus constrain culture in an important way,
and consequently psychology is by no means irrelevant for anthropological
research (Boyer 1994, 1998.)
From the philosophical point of view, we may ask in what sense
cultural properties exist. My answer is based on the realization that
the concept of ‘culture’ is a universal in a philosophical sense of the
term. Philosophers mean by a universal a concept that expresses some
general property. Universals are the intensions of singular predicates
(‘whiteness/white,’ ‘human/humanity’ etc.). Whiteness is the intension of
the predicate ‘white;’ whiteness thus is a universal. (When anthropologists
speak of universals, they mean customs, concepts, beliefs, etc. that are
found in all cultures [see Brown 1991].) ‘Culture’ is a universal in the
sense that it is a singular predicate the intension of which is ‘cultureness;’
although many anthropologists tend see all cultures as unique kinds of
wholes, they still think that they all are cultures, i.e. share the property
of cultureness (whatever it is; but cf. Brown 1991). Thus ‘culture’ is a
universal.
The various instances of culture, such as American culture or youth
culture, on the other hand, often are understood to be singular terms:
they name a unique abstract entity. The ontology of quasi entities like
‘American culture’ is extremely vague, however. Various people include
various kinds of things in it and almost never seem to bother themselves
to think about the way American culture exists. People thus have clear
intuitions but little re ective knowledge about the ontology of culture. It
thus could be argued that culture-concepts do not single out any one entity;
they rather are universals just as the general concept of ‘culture’ is. They
are abstractions based on the mind’s capacity to understand abstractions.
I shall next explicate the nature of universals more closely, and then try to
apply this explication analogously to culture-concepts.

2. What Are Universals?

The philosophical problem of universals, that was extensively discussed

by the Scholastics, emerged from Boethius’ (c. 480-524) considerations of
whether genera and species were subsistent entities or only concepts (see
 ONTOLOGY OF CULTURE 171

Pyysiäinen 1999). The moderate realism he endorsed was not accepted

by the early scholastics; instead, they thought that universals corresponded
to real extramental objects. ‘Humanity,’ for example, referred to the real
‘substance’ of human nature which all humans were supposed to share. In
the later Middle Ages, the Nominalists represented a radically different
view: they took general names to refer only to individual objects, the
multitude of which the human mind gathers together to form the basis
for universal concepts (Copleston 1985: II 137-155, 476-551; III 10-16,
41-152).
In current philosophy, three alternatives dominate the discussion of
universals: realism, nominalism, and conceptualism. 1) Realistically, uni-
versals identify abstract entities which exist in themselves and irrespective
of human conceptualization. Humanity, for example, exists as such, apart
from individual human beings. In strict Platonic realism, only genera and
species have real existence (which rather well corresponds to the basic levels
of categorization in folk biology, see Atran 1990, 1998). In moderate re-
alism (e.g. Russell), universals are considered ‘real’ but in a different sense
than thoughts or physical objects; they ‘have being,’ or ‘subsist,’ but do
not ‘exist.’ 2) According to Nominalism, only individuals exist; universals
are mere linguistic abstractions. 3) Conceptualism, for its part, says that
universals exist in human minds.
The problem of universals is important in for example the philosophy
of mathematics. First, realism means that numbers, sets, etc. are abstract
entities that have a real existence (Frege, Russell & Whitehead, Gödel).
This view corresponds to what is known as ‘logism,’ i.e. the view that
mathematics can be reduced to logic. Second, nominalism in mathematics
means the formalist view that mathematics is like a formal game, or
a ‘calculus,’ played with speciŽ ed characters, and having an axiomatic
foundation (e.g. Hilbert). Third, conceptualism corresponds to intuitionism,
according to which, integers are given (or even God-given, as Leopold
Kronecker claimed); all else is the work of the human mind (e.g. Brouwer).
(See, e.g., Wilder 1952, and Fig. 1. below.)
Popper (1972) has tried to solve the problem of universals by distin-
guishing between three ‘worlds.’ World-1 consists of physical and biological
objects, world-2 of consciousness and cognitive processes, and world-3 of
the contents of mind, i.e. concepts, images etc. A realist would see world-3
172 ILKKA PYYSIÄINEN

Figure 1. Ontology of universals & philosophy of mathematics (see Wilder

1952: 209-263).

as having an independent existence; a nominalist would deny its existence;

and a conceptualist would place it in world-2 but without a speciŽ able
connection with its processes (see Tooby & Cosmides 1995).
Popper (1972) accepts none of these alternatives. He argues that
although world-3 has a to an extent independent existence, it nevertheless
is produced by the human mind (world-2). It has emerged from the mind
but, after it has emerged, it no longer is reducible to it. With regard to
mathematics, this means that mathematical objects are products of the
mind. Yet we do not have to identify them with any speciŽ c ideas, types of
ideas, or material tokens in the brain. They are, like such cultural objects
as poems and symphonies, constructions of the mind not reducible to well-
speciŽ ed bounded mental units.
I shall here accept Popper’s solution and suppose that mathematical
objects are creations of the human mind. To the extent that this is so,
the philosophical problem of the ontology of mathematics turns into an
empirical question that cognitive neuroscience should be able to answer.
At least one such attempt has already been made (Butterworth 1999), and
the result is quite interesting.
Butterworth (1999) claims that there is in the human brain a genetically
speciŽ ed ‘Number Module’ on which human mathematical abilities are
based. It is located in the parietal lobe in the left hemisphere. This module
enables all healthy humans, including little babies, and even many animals,
 ONTOLOGY OF CULTURE 173

to count up to four (or, more precisely, to enumerate up to four objects).

That this is a quite speciŽ c, modular, ability becomes clear in various
cases of brain injury in which either the linguistic capacity is completely
shattered, but not the mathematical, or, conversely, the mathematical
ability is lost, while the ability to use language and to reason logically
is retained.
It is interesting that Butterworth’s model corresponds to intuitionism
in the sense that a major part of mathematics is understood as having
emerged from mathematical thinking operating on the basis of an innate
bias. Now this basis, however, is neither left unexplained nor explained
with reference to God. It is explained as due to human evolution working
according to the principle of natural selection by adaptation. Although
Butterworth does not discuss in any detail how the Number Module
actually has evolved, this is a problem that can be empirically explored.
First, we have to decide whether it really is an adaptation or only
parasitic on some adaptation. If it is an adaptation, we have to specify
its function. The only problem is that the way we use the Number
Module today cannot have an exhaustive evolutionary explanation. Higher
mathematics simply is a too recent phenomenon; in fact, it has been used
as the prime example of why the human mind cannot have evolved. As
all evolved powers of the human mind must have been present in the
Pleistocene hunter-gatherers’ mind, and as these hunter-gatherer’s did not
practice higher mathematics, the mind that can do higher mathematics
cannot have evolved (Bringsjord 2001: 229-234).
If the Number Module is an adaptation, and if we can show that higher
mathematics can be logically derived from the simple ability to recognize
numerosities up to four, the ability to do higher mathematics can be seen
as a cultural development and parasitic on the evolved ability to recognize
numerosities. I shall here only brie y comment the way higher mathematics
might be derived from the ability to recognize small numerosities.
Boole (1854) tried to show that the laws of logic were the same as those
of the algebra of 0 and 1 and that logic thus was a branch of mathematics.
Brown (1972) has then attempted to develop a new system of mathematical
logic based on the ideas of an unmarked state and a primary operation; his
system, however, is in essence the same as Boole’s algebra (Varela 1979;
see also Banaschewski 1977). Herbst (1993) has tried to show the opposite,
174 ILKKA PYYSIÄINEN

i.e. that there is a ‘co-genetic logic’ (the logic of distinctions) from which
both Boole’s and Brown’s systems can be derived, and that mathematics
thus is based on logic. The whole of Boolean algebra thus could be derived
from a simple basic distinction: the idea of distinction itself, i.e. distinction
between a state where no distinction has been made and a state after the
Ž rst distinction (see Pyysiäinen 1998: 160-164).
The idea of the Ž rst (in a logical sense) distinction might be under-
stood in the light of the fact that our cognition has a material basis.
Määttänen (1993: 102, 107, 113, 150, 157) argues that “our mathemat-
ical and grammatical intuition is based on the mind-independent rigidity
of some external objects.” This does not mean that our perception of solid
objects affects our conceptual system (as in Johnson 1987), but rather that
the schematic nature of our (mathematical) thought comes directly from
causal interaction with the physical reality. The logical syntax that partly
determines the connections between whatever signs we use is, in its turn,
determined by the physical laws of solid objects. The ‘laws of thought’
(logical and mathematical) are based on the subcognitive structure of our
interaction with spatial reality. Correct systems of inference and of cal-
culating are based on the reality of material objects. This ‘spatial model’
of cognition has the same structure as Boolean algebra. It is ‘biologically
Ž xed’ and our everyday experience reinforces it. There is, for example, em-
pirical evidence to support the conclusion that automatization in number
processing is achieved gradually as numerical skills progress (Girelli, Lu-
cangeli & Butterworth 2000; Brannon 2002). Mathematical intuition thus
could be based on an evolved Number Module and the rehearsing of the
mathematical skills made possible by it. Thus, if Määttänen is correct, then
also the Number Module can be explained as based on physical interaction
with external reality.

3. Culture-concepts as Universals

In the light of the discussion above, the ontology of culture(s) can be

understood in four different ways:
1) Realism: all cultures exist as abstract entities;
2) Nominalism: all cultures are mere names for collections of individual
thoughts and behaviors;
3) Conceptualism or intuitionism: cultures exist in minds;
 ONTOLOGY OF CULTURE 175

4) ‘ModiŽ ed conceptualism,’ or ‘naturalist intuitionism:’ cultures (world-

3) have a to an extent independent existence; yet they are produced by the
human mind (world-2), without being reducible to it. ‘American culture’ is
a different kind of object than the cognitive processes of someone thinking
about American culture. Cultural objects are products of the mind, but we
need not identify them with any speciŽ c ideas, types of ideas, or material
tokens in the brain. They are constructions of the mind not reducible to
well-speciŽ ed bounded mental units. In other words, culture-concepts are
based on the human mind’s ability to form abstractions and generaliza-
tions; they are created by the mind and they exist in the form of mental
processes, i.e. they are not Ž xed and stable. ‘American culture,’ for ex-
ample, is what any particular person on any particular moment thinks it
is. It does not passively exist in the mind (as it would be according to a
conceptualist) but the mind rather actively sustains the idea. In this sense,
world-2 is necessary for world-3 and the way it creates world-3 can be em-
pirically studied. Just as Butterworth has studied the Numer Module, so for
example Skuse & James (1997), and Brown (2001), have tried to show that
there is a social mind module in the brain, responsible for reasoning about
social relationships. In this way, world-3 is not insulated from world-2, and
the study of culture necessitates the study of cognitive processes.
I thus endorse the fourth alternative, which is an adaptation of Popper’s
view on universals. I have termed it as ‘modiŽ ed conceptualism’ (or,
‘naturalist intuitionism’). Cultures do not exists as real abstract entities;
neither are they mere names. They also do not exist as Ž xed and given
wholes in the mind. Cultures are abstract wholes like sets or collections in
mathematics and logic; they are produced by the mind’s ability to create
and understand abstractions. Culture-concepts are not Ž xed givens but in a
state of constant  ux. They are abstractions that have a quasiphysical form
because all our thinking is based on our experience of the physical reality.
The mind emerges from matter and thus retains ‘an image of matter’
in itself. When it creates a new level of reality, it gives this new level
a quasiphysical form. For this reason, we speak of cultures using spatial
metaphors (see above on Johnson and Määttänen).
From this perspective, culture-concepts, such as ‘American culture’
or ‘youth culture,’ are universals. They are the intensions of singular
predicates. ‘America’ for instance is a singular term, but ‘American’ is
176 ILKKA PYYSIÄINEN

a singular predicate: all that is American has the general property of

‘Americanness.’ ‘American culture’ thus refers to human behaviors and
their outcomes that have the property of being American. Our minds
abstract from all individual instances of American culture a quasi entity
called ‘American culture.’ It would not be possible to understand all
instances of American culture as instances of American culture if our minds
were not capable of abstracting Americanness across all these instances.
This presupposes that Americanness is an abstract entity. It, however, is
not a Ž xed entity passively existing in the mind (still less outside of the
mind), but rather something the mind actively constructs. This construction
can be scientiŽ cally studied employing methods and theories from cognitive
science and the neurosciences. Employing culture-concepts is an instance
of categorization and classiŽ cation in which we subsume particulars under
general concepts; such category formation and categorical inference have
been explained by the prototype theory (Rosch 1975, 1978; Rosch &
Mervis 1975), the theory theory (Rips 1995; Gopnik & Wellman 1996),
essentialism (Gelman & Hirschfeld 1999; Ahn et al. 2001), and content-
speciŽ c cognitive psychology (Saariluoma 1997, 2002).
On the one hand, cultures are products of individual minds and
their ability to generalize, on the other hand, individual minds work in
cultural contexts which provide speciŽ c inputs for the mind. Whichever
way conceive of this relationship, culture here means the same as a set
of ideas, practices, dispositions, and material objects that characterizes a
certain group of people. These things, however, have meaningful existence
only in so far as they are represented and understood by individual minds.
The general concept of ‘culture,’ for its part, is a second-order abstraction:
it is abstracted from all cases of culture in the sense that ‘cultureness’ is the
property of all cultures.

4. Conclusion

First, before we are able to decide how the concept of ’culture’ should
be employed in research, its ontology must be explicated. Here I have
suggested that cultures are abstractions created by the human mind; they
are understood through spatial image schemata as bounded entities but
this should be understood only in the sense that cultures are in some sense
 ONTOLOGY OF CULTURE 177

identiŽ able, not in the sense that they exist as some kinds of Platonic ideas.
They are actively constructed by the mind.
My second conclusion thus is that culture-concepts are universals, not
names of entities. Third, culture-concepts are useful in macro-level analyses
but cannot be employed as causal factors in explaining individual thought
and behavior. Cultures are abstract summaries of what many individuals
do and think; these summaries, however, do not exist in the minds of
various individuals in the form of copies of one and the same ‘program.’
Fourth, every scientiŽ c discipline has to specify the ontological level at
which it analyses things: culture, psychology, biology, chemistry, or physics.
Whether any given level is more real than others, is not an empirical
question but a question of how we want to use the concept of ‘real.’ I
would suggest that any of these levels is real in so far as it can be applied
in scientiŽ c analysis of phenomena in its range. None of these levels is
directly given to us but are the outcomes of human conceptualization.
The levels are not completely independent from each other, however;
analyses on one level may be of interest for analyses on another level.
Therefore, the principle of conceptual integration (Cosmides, Tooby &
Barkow 1995) is important. Various disciplines are not closed systems
but rather aspectual contributions to the general scientiŽ c project of
understanding and explaining human thought and behavior. If any two
disciplines present contradictory claims, the contradiction should not be
tolerated but rather should be analyzed and resolved. Psychology and
anthropology should no longer be seen as mutually exclusive Ž elds but
rather attempts at explaining behavior from slightly different angles (see
GreenŽ eld 2000; Hirschfeld 2000).
There has to be differing levels of analysis because reality presents
itself to us as organized in parts and wholes. Psychology, for example,
represents a higher level than biology, and biology higher than chemistry.
The altitude of a level of analysis is inversely proportional to the size of the
domain of events in question: psychology is a higher level than biology but
it deals with only some of the phenomena within the realm of biology. The
altitude of a level of analysis also is directly proportional to the complexity
of the systems it deals with. The higher the level of analysis, the more
complex are the phenomena studied. (McCauley 1986: 189-190.)
178 ILKKA PYYSIÄINEN

The study of culture deals with objects in world-3; they are, however,
produced by processes and mechanisms of the world-2 which, in turn,
is dependent on world-1. As reality has a physical basis, the mind can
only work by taking this into account. From this follows the classiŽ catory
nature of cognition: we understand reality in the form of mutually exclusive
categories. This is the basis on which the Number Module and the
principles of logic have evolved; it also is the basis for our intuition of
cultures as entity-like abstract structures, as kinds of sets or categories. In
creating them, our brains produce a new level of reality; our understanding
of reality would be severely limited if we would not be able to speak
of things at the cultural level. Therefore, talk about culture cannot be
replaced by talk about cognitive processes. The import of the concept
of ‘culture’ for the study of human behavior thus is in the fact that it
allows us to study human thought and behavior on the macrolevel; culture-
concepts are heuristic concepts by which we identify common features
and generalities in the thought and behavior of groups and even larger
populations.
This in no way means excluding the cognitive psychological level from
the scientiŽ c analysis of cultural phenomena. Macrolevel descriptions are
constructions of minds, both the minds of the subjects studied and the
mind of the scholar. Ironically, this has been well expressed by the famous
antipsychologist, Geertz (1973: 9): the anthropologist’s data consist of “our
own constructions of other people’s constructions of what their compatriots
are up to.” Such constructions are, of course, the outcome of cognitive
processes. We should therefore work ‘bottom up’ and to explore how
cultures are constructed, without assuming that these constructions are
homogenously present in the minds of the members of a culture.
To sum up: realism with regard to culture is problematic because it
leaves the relationship between the individual and cultural levels unex-
plained. Nominalism is not a viable option, because it is based on a purely
intuitive understanding of what counts as an ‘individual.’ All individual en-
tities can always be broken down to smaller elements. Also conceptualism
is problematic, because it places culture in the mind without an analysis
of the relationship between worlds 2 and 3. Analyzing and exploring this
relationship leads to modiŽ ed conceptualism as the only viable alternative.
It not only can serve as the philosophical basis of the study of culture, but
 ONTOLOGY OF CULTURE 179

also offers possibilities for neuroscientiŽ c work on the way the human mind
forms and processes cultural knowledge.

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