83 D.D. Franks and J.H. Turner (eds.), Handbook of Neurosociology, Handbooks of Sociology and Social Research, DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-4473-8_7, © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2012 That character of everyday experience which has been most systematically ignored by philosophy is the extent to which it is saturated with the results of social inter- course and communication. Because this factor has been denied, meanings have either been denied all objective validity, or have been treated as miraculous extra- natural intrusions. If, however, language, for example, is recognized as the instru- ment of social cooperation and mutual participation, continuity is established between natural events (animal sounds, cries, etc.) and the origin and development of meanings. Mind is seen to be a function of social interactions, and to be a genu- ine character of natural events when these attain the stage of widest and most com- plex interaction with one another. Ability to respond to meanings and to employ them, instead of reacting merely to physical contacts, makes the difference between man and other animals; it is the agency for elevating man into the realm of what is usually called the ideal and spiritual. In other words, the social participation affected by communication, through language and other tools, is the naturalistic link which does away with the often alleged necessity of dividing the objects of experience into two worlds, one physical and one ideal. – John Dewey, Experience and Nature, 1929 (LW1: 6–7) Over-specialization and division of interests, occupations and goods create the need for a generalized medium of intercommunication, of mutual criticism through all- around translation from one separated region of experience into another. Thus phi- losophy as a critical organ becomes in effect a messenger, a liaison officer, making reciprocally intelligible voices speaking provincial tongues, and thereby enlarging as well as rectifying the meanings with which they are charged. – John Dewey, Experience and Nature, 1925 (LW1: 306) Neuroscience and the Humanities As the word itself indicates, neurosociology permeates the traditional boundary between natural sci- ence and social science. This permeation is not too surprising, given the biological fact that humans are social animals and that our bodily makeup, including but not limited to the neural, manifests this Chapter 7 Can the Two Cultures Reconcile? Reconstruction and Neuropragmatism Tibor Solymosi T. Solymosi (*) Department of Philosophy, University of Southern Illinois, Carbondale, IL 62901, USA e-mail: tibor@neuropragmatism.com 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32