Material engagement

I reproduce a passage by Colin Renfrew on the theory of material engagement. He is writing from an archaeological perspective.

These observations come together to form an approach to the material record of prehistory that chooses to see past actions in terms of what we may term a process of ‘engagement’ operating between humans and the material world. This material engagement implies an emphasis upon informed and intelligent action, and also the recognition in such actions of the simultaneous application of cognitive as well as physical aspects of the human involvement with the world. Such actions have material consequences. This is an approach that endeavours to transcend the duality implied in those long-standing contrasts between mind and matter, soul and body, or cognition and the material world. The early production of stone tools, for instance hand-axes, offers an excellent example... The techniques of early lithic production might have been passed from one generation to the next without the use of language but by mimesis, through long processes of imitation and of practice, which is how many craft skills are passed on to this day. But these are skills that are not located entirely in the brain: we speak of a ‘skilled hand’, and it is in the hands and the body that the skills of the craft worker or, indeed, the sportsman seem to lie. For the experienced skier it is the long experience of the skis and of their contact with the snow, in different conditions, that counts. The skill of skiing, like that of surfing, does not lie in the brain; it cannot be learnt from a book. It is a product of engagement with the material world.

This approach, moreover, sees that human engagement with the world is not only knowledgeable but involves also the use of symbolic values with a social dimension that are specific to the society in question in its time and place...

Material engagement theory considers the processes by which human individuals and communities engage with the material world through actions that have simultaneously a material reality and a cognitive or intelligent component. It is concerned with what people actually do, in the course of actions that are meaningful and purposive. Their purposes as knowledgeable agents are the result of social motivations that arise in relation to their world-view. So they are at once both physical and mental...

The engagement process is seen as critical in shaping the paths of development and change within societies, and as a fundamental feature of the human condition. And while all evolutionary change, including that in other species, can be seen as one of engagement between the individual or community and the environment, it is the cognitive component that is particularly human and which introduces choice and decision (or ‘agency’) into what would otherwise be a process of natural selection.

Colin Renfrew, Prehistory: The Making of the Human Mind (2007), p120-3.
 

Defining the mind

I reproduce a passage by Colin Renfrew on how we should best understand and define the human mind, which I think is correct and sits comfortably within a progressive, materialist framework.

At this point it is necessary to point out that the notion of ‘mind’... can be a misleading one if we assume it to be the structural opposite of ‘matter’ or of ‘body’. There is often a tendency to assume a dualism of the kind developed by the seventeenth-century philosopher René Descartes where mind is contrasted with matter, and body with soul. An unduly mentalist approach tends to equate mind with brain, and to situate mind and its workings exclusively inside the human cranium. But the notion of mind encompasses intelligent action in the world, not merely cogitation within the brain...

The mind as embodied, extended and distributed

[An earlier discussion] makes the point that the brain exists in the body and that the mind is embodied. Weight has first to be perceived as a physical reality – in the hands and arms, not just in the brain within the skull – before it can be conceptualised and measured. The mind works through the body. To localise it exclusively within the brain is not strictly correct.

Moreover, we often think not only through the body, but beyond it. The blind man with the stick apprehends the world more effectively with the stick than without. The draughtsman thinks through the pencil. The potter at the wheel constructs the pot through a complex process that resides not only in the brain, but in the hands and the rest of the body and in those useful extensions of the body, the turntable and, indeed, the clay itself. In each of these cases, the experience of undertaking a purposive and intelligent action extends beyond the individual human body, and well beyond the individual brain. We can speak of an extended mind.

Furthermore, the intention, when we undertake a purposive action, is not always simply the product of a single individual. It can be shared. In a team game, like football, the action is the product of a number of people working together but not necessarily led by a single individual. The same principle that a new outcome can be the result of collective rather than individual action or intention arises in many instances of group behaviour. This can be seen in the archaeological record: it can be the case for a decorative style, which develops through the production of figured textiles, or of painted pottery or of woodcarvings by a number of craftspersons. Working together they arrive at a shared style, which is not simply the production of any one individual and then copied by others. Different people within the group make their own contributions, which are in some cases taken up and incorporated within the developing style. This may be regarded as a broadly cooperative endeavour with a range or distribution of individuals all cooperating. Here it may be possible to speak of a distributed mind.

This discussion makes clear that ‘mind’ is a rather complex topic. Rather than defining it more closely, it may be profitable to focus upon the human actions and activities in which our cognitive faculties (our minds) have an active role – processes of material engagement.

Colin Renfrew, Prehistory: The Making of the Human Mind (2007), p119.

The first signs of artistic endeavour?

Reproduced from the British Museum website.

Lower Palaeolithic,
about 800,000 years old.
From Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania.

This small handaxe from Bed IV in Olduvai Gorge is one of the most beautiful in the British Museum. It is made from quartz with attractive amethyst banding, a difficult material from which to make tools because it is extremely hard. The toolmaker would have had to hit with considerable force and accuracy to remove flakes and irregularities in the crystal structure could cause faulty removals. Such a high degree of difficulty makes the thin symmetrical shape of this piece a masterpiece of the toolmaker’s art.

After roughing out the basic form of this handaxe, the maker went on to refine its shape, straighten its edges and thin it down. This added little to its usefulness: a simple, sharp quartz flake would have worked as well. It suggests that the skill invested in producing such beautiful and sometimes very large handaxes may have had other purposes. Perhaps some pieces were status symbols or part of courtship rituals used to attract a mate. Certainly such artefacts go beyond simple needs and functional demands. They suggest that early humans could envisage a certain end product and use it as a form of symbolic communication. In this sense, handaxes may be said to represent the earliest indication of artistic endeavour.