Material Engagement Theory and its philosophical ties to pragmatism

Abstract

Material Engagement Theory (MET) is currently driving a conceptual change in the archaeology of mind. Drawing upon the dictates of enactivism and active externalism, it specifically calls for a radical reconceptualization of mind and material culture. Unpersuaded by the common assumption that cognition is brain-bound, Malafouris argues in favour of a process ontology that situates thinking in action. In granting ontological primacy to material engagement, MET seeks to illuminate the emergence of human ways of thinking through the practical effects of the material world. Considering that this is a characteristic example of a pragmatic take on cognition, this contemporary theoretical platform appears to share a lot with pragmatism. As of late, scholars working at the intersection of philosophy, semiotics, and cognitive science have made important steps towards the rapprochement between pragmatism and externalism. Looking to contribute to this growing corpus of work, the present paper focuses on MET's relation to the pragmatism of Peirce, Dewey, and Mead. Having elsewhere recognized the overlap and complementarity between Malafouris' and Peirce's theories in particular, I developed a pragmatic and enactive theory of cognitive semiotics that is suitably geared to trace the nature, emergence, and evolution of material signs. Therefore, besides noting some obvious historical connections, I hereby aim to establish (at least part of) the theoretical backdrop upon which this composite theory is supposed to function, while also exploring new potential avenues. Given that this cognitive semiotic framework can be seen as a pragmatic extension of Malafouris' enactivist approach to archaeology, the current paper delves into MET's theoretical underpinnings, seeking to complement its working hypotheses and concepts with philosophical notions and ideas advanced long ago. This synthesis ultimately concludes with a call for the reconceptualization of 'representation' as a heuristic concept.

Cognitive Semiotics: An Overview

“…Peirce's concept of 'synechism' , "the tendency to regard everything as continuous" [81] has been discussed as anticipating 'wide cognition' approaches [77,82]. Clark and Chalmers' 'Parity Principle' in their 'Extended Mind' hypothesis claims that if a part of the world functions as a process which, were it done in the head, we would easily recognize as part of a cognitive process, then that part of the world is part of a cognitive routine [83,84].…”

Is Acheulean Handaxe Shape the Result of Imposed ‘Mental Templates’ or Emergent in Manufacture? Dissolving the Dichotomy through Exploring ‘Communities of Practice’ at Boxgrove, UK

“…Regular engagement with the material develops one's skills and their embodied understanding of sensorimotor contingency. Practical know-how, or 'savoir-faire' (Pelegrin 1990;1991), does not develop by using a 'mental template', but through repeated experience of a task and acquiring an external memory, or repository, of the sensory consequences of behaviours (Degenaar & O'Regan 2017;Friston 2009;Friston et al 2009;Iliopoulos 2019;O'Regan & Noë 2001). This repository, or 'body schema', is a non-conscious system that regulates the proprioceptive, or kinaesthetic, sense of the body's movement and is updated by the sensory inputs with which it is supplied (i.e.…”

The archaeology of the social brain revisited: rethinking mind and material culture from a material engagement perspective

“…MET represents a fairly young view, and its implications are not yet fully understood (Malafouris, 2016). However, there have already been several promising applications that showcase its utility in Palaeolithic archaeology and beyond: it has been used to problematise the notion of behavioural modernity (Roberts, 2016), understand the emergence of material signs (Froese, 2019; Iliopoulos, 2019) and examine the origins of numerical cognition (Overmann, 2016b) and conceptual thinking (Overmann et al, 2011; Overmann & Wynn, 2019a, 2019b). These are only a handful of examples beyond Malafouris’ own explorations (e.g.…”