Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dlnhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T08:17:51.947Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Prosthetic gestures: How the tool shapes the mind

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 June 2012

Lambros Malafouris
Lambros Malafouris
Affiliation:
Keble College, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3PG, United Kingdom. [email protected]://www.keble.ox.ac.uk/academics/about/dr-lambros-malafouris
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

I agree with Vaesen that it is a mistake to discard tool use as a hallmark of human cognition. I contend, nonetheless, that tools are not simply external markers of a distinctive human mental architecture. Rather, they actively and meaningfully participate in the process by which hominin brains and bodies make up their sapient minds.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 35 , Issue 4 , August 2012 , pp. 230 - 231
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bergson, H. (1911/1998) Creative Evolution (A. Mitchell, Trans.). Dover Publications.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, A. (2008) Supersizing the mind: Embodiment, action, and cognitive extension. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Darwin, C. (1871) The descent of man, and selection in relation to sex. John Murray.Google Scholar
Davidson, I. & McGrew, W. C. (2005) Stone tools and the uniqueness of human culture. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 11:793–817.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hansell, M. & Ruxton, G. D. (2008) Setting tool use within the context of animal construction behaviour. Trends in Ecology & Evolution 23(2):73–78. doi: 10.1016/j.tree.2007.10.006 Google Scholar
Iriki, A. & Sakura, O. (2008) The neuroscience of primate intellectual evolution: Natural selection and passive and intentional niche construction. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 363:2229–41.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Leroi-Gourhan, A. (1964/1993) Gesture and speech. MIT Press.Google Scholar
Malafouris, L. (2008) Beads for a plastic mind: The “blind man's stick” (BMS) hypothesis and the active nature of material culture. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 18:401–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Malafouris, L. (2010a) Knapping intentions and the marks of the mental. In: The cognitive life of things: Recasting the boundaries of the mind, ed. Malafouris, L. & Renfrew, C., pp. 13–22. McDonald Institute Monographs.Google Scholar
Malafouris, L. (2010b) The brain-artefact interface (BAI): A challenge for archaeology and cultural neuroscience. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience 5 (2–3):264–73 (10.1093/scan/nsp057).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Penn, D. C., Holyoak, K. & Povinelli, D. J. (2008) Darwin's mistake: Explaining the discontinuity between human and nonhuman minds. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 31(2):109–78.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Schiffer, M. B. & Miller, A. (1999) The material life of human beings: Artifacts, behavior, and communication. Routledge.Google Scholar
Seed, A. & Byrne, R. (2010) Animal tool-use. Current Biology 20:1032–39.Google Scholar
Stiegler, B. (1998) Technics and time, 1. The fault of epimetheus. Stanford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Suddendorf, T. (2008) Explaining human cognitive autapomorphies. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 31(2):147–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tomasello, M., Carpenter, M., Call, J., Behne, T. & Moll, H. (2005) Understanding and sharing intentions: The origins of cultural cognition. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 28(5):675–735.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tomasello, M. & Herrmann, E. (2010) Ape and human cognition: What's the difference? Current Directions in Psychological Science 19:3–8.Google Scholar
Wheeler, M. & Clark, A. (2008) Culture, embodiment and genes: Unravelling the triple helix. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 363:3563–75.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed