creators_name: Malafouris, Lambros
editors_name: DeMarrais, Elizabeth
editors_name: Gosden, Chris
editors_name: Renfrew, Colin
type: bookchapter
datestamp: 2006-05-25
lastmod: 2011-03-11 08:56:14
metadata_visibility: show
title: The Cognitive Basis of Material Engagement: Where Brain, Body and Culture Conflate
ispublished: pub
subjects: phil-mind
full_text_status: public
keywords: extended mind, embodied mind, distributed cognition, material engagement, cognitive archaeology, material culture, anthropology
abstract: In this paper I attempt to sketch a preliminary framework for understanding the cognitive basis of the engagement of the mind with the material world. I advance the hypothesis that contrary to some of our most deeply-entrenched assumptions the relationship between the world and human cognition is not one of abstract representation or some other form of action at a distance but one of ontological inseparability. That is, what we have traditionally construed as an active or passive but always clearly separated external stimulus for setting an internal cognitive mechanism into motion, may be after all a continuous part of the machinery itself; at least, ex hypothesi. 
date: 2004
date_type: published
publication: Rethinking materiality: the engagement of mind with the material world
publisher: Cambridge: McDonald Institute Monographs
pagerange: 53-61
refereed: TRUE
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citation:   Malafouris, Lambros  (2004) The Cognitive Basis of Material Engagement: Where Brain, Body and Culture Conflate.  [Book Chapter]     
document_url: http://cogprints.org/4629/2/05Malafouris_PM.pdf