Biogenetic structuralism is a body of theory in anthropology. The perspective grounds discussions of learning, culture, personality and social action in neuroscience. The original book of that title (Laughlin and d'Aquili 1974) represented an interdisciplinary merger of anthropology, psychology and the neurosciences. It presented the view that the universal structures characteristic of human language and culture, cognition about time and space, affect certain psychopathologies, and the like were due to the genetically predisposed organization of the nervous system. It seemed to the authors preposterous that the invariant patterns of behavior, cognition and culture being discussed in various structuralist theories in anthropology, psychology and literary criticism could be lodged anywhere other than in the nervous system. After all, every thought, every image, every feeling and action is demonstrably mediated by the nervous system. Moreover, it seemed possible to develop a theoretical perspective that: was non-dualistic in modelling mind and body, was not reductionistic in the positivist sense (i.e., that the physical sciences can give a complete account of all things mental/cultural), and was informed by all reasonable sources of data about human consciousness and culture. In other words, no explanatory account of culture is complete without encompassing what we know about the structures in the nervous system mediating culture—for example, music, which is a cultural universal mediated by demonstrable neurophysiological structures (see Biomusicology).
This project had to be lodged within an evolutionary frame due to: (1) the evidence of dramatic encephalization found in the fossil record of extinct human ancestors, and the fact that cultural variation was conceived as the primary mode of human adaptation (see Evolutionary neuroscience). Biogenetic structuralism explores the different areas of the nervous system that seem to have evolved during the course of hominid encephalization and that produce the distinctly human quality of mentation, learning, communication, and social action characteristic of our species today (see Human Evolution).
Read more about Biogenetic Structuralism: Neurognosis and The Cognized Environment, Ritual and Symbolic Function, Recent Trends in Biogenetic Structural Theory