1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910809926503321

Autore

Malafouris Lambros

Titolo

How things shape the mind : a theory of material engagement / / Lambros Malafouris ; foreword by Colin Renfrew

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Cambridge, Massachusetts, : The MIT Press, [2013]

©2013

ISBN

0-262-31567-X

0-262-52892-4

0-262-31566-1

Edizione

[1st ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (xv, 304 pages :) : illustrations ;

Disciplina

612.8

Soggetti

Neuroanthropology

Material culture

Archaeology

Cognition and culture

Neuropsychology

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Intro -- Contents -- Foreword -- Acknowledgments -- 1 Introduction -- I Cognition and Material Culture -- 2 Rethinking the Archaeology of Mind -- 3 The Material-Engagement Approach: A Summary of the Argument -- II Outline of a Theory of Material Engagement -- 4 The Extended Mind -- 5 The Enactive Sign -- 6 Material Agency -- III Marking the Mental: Where Brain, Body, and Culture Conflate -- 7 Knapping Intentions and the Handmade Mind -- 8 Thoughtful Marks, Lines, and Signs -- 9 Becoming One with the Clay -- 10 Epilogue: How Do Things Shape the Mind? -- Notes -- References -- Index.

Sommario/riassunto

An account of the different ways in which things have become cognitive extensions of the human body, from prehistory to the present.An increasingly influential school of thought in cognitive science views the mind as embodied, extended, and distributed rather than brain-bound or "all in the head." This shift in perspective raises important questions about the relationship between cognition and material culture, posing major challenges for philosophy, cognitive science, archaeology, and



anthropology. In How Things Shape the Mind, Lambros Malafouris proposes a cross-disciplinary analytical framework for investigating the ways in which things have become cognitive extensions of the human body. Using a variety of examples and case studies, he considers how those ways might have changed from earliest prehistory to the present. Malafouris's Material Engagement Theory definitively adds materiality--the world of things, artifacts, and material signs--into the cognitive equation. His account not only questions conventional intuitions about the boundaries and location of the human mind but also suggests that we rethink classical archaeological assumptions about human cognitive evolution.