How Things Shape the Mind ─ A Theory of Material Engagement

An increasingly influential school of thought in cognitive science views the mind asembodied, extended, and distributed, rather than brain-bound, "all in the head." Thisshift in perspective raises important questions about the relationship between cognition andmaterial culture, posing major challenges for philosophy, cognitive science, archaeology, andanthropology. In How Things Shape the Mind, Lambros Malafouris proposes across-disciplinary analytical framework for investigating the different ways in which things havebecome cognitive extensions of the human body. Using a variety of examples and case studies, heconsiders how those ways might have changed from earliest prehistory to the present. Malafouris'sMaterial Engagement Theory adds materiality -- the world of things, artifacts, and material signs --into the cognitive equation definitively. His account not only questions conventional intuitionsabout the boundaries and location of the human mind but also suggests that we rethink classicalarchaeological assumptions about human cognitive evolution.

Arguing that theunderstanding of human cognition is essentially interlocked with the study of the technicalmediations that constitute the central nodes of a materially extended and distributed human mind,Malafouris offers a series of archaeological and anthropological case studies -- from Stone Agetools to the modern potter's wheel -- to test his theory. How do things shape the mind? Consideringthe implications of the seemingly uniquely human predisposition to reconfigure our bodies and oursenses by using tools and material culture, Malafouris adds a fresh perspective on a foundationalissue in the study of human cognition.

Lambros Malafouris is Creativity Research Fellow and Research Fellow and Tutor in Archaeology, Anthropology, and Human Evolution at Keble College, University of Oxford.