Kronenfeld proposes a cognitive approach to culture, wherein cognition refers to knowledge--but not just verbal or conscious knowledge. Cultural cognition is the shared pragmatic knowledge that includes our behavioral as well as conceptual knowledge--our knowledge of how to engage each other (whether via cooperation or competition) or how to avoid engagement, of how to make sense of what those around us say and do, of how to make things either alone or via organized cooperation, and of how to think about novel problems. It is essential reading for scholars of cognitive anthropology, linguistic anthropology, sociology of culture, philosophy, and computational cognitive science.

David B. Kronenfeld is Emeritus Professor in the Department of Anthropology at University of California, Riverside, USA.

1. Introduction 2. Semantics and Pragmatics 3. Linguistic Relativity 4. Culture as Shared Differentially Distributed Pragmatic Knowledge 5. Shared Cultural Knowledge as Defining Social Groups 6. Prototype-Extension 7. Shared Differentially Distributed Cognitive Structures 8. Cultural Models of Action 9. Flexibility and Variability 10. Practical Implications for Analysis 11. Conclusion