How Things Shape the Mind: A Theory of Material Engagement

Lambros Malafouris and Colin Renfrew

ISBN 10: 0262019191 / ISBN 13: 9780262019194

Published by Mit Pr, 2013

UK stocked, available immediately. Hardcover, published by The MIT Press in 2013. First edition. A lovely bright copy with unmarked contents, in a similar unclipped dustjacket. Seller Inventory # sk2bym560

Synopsis:

An increasingly influential school of thought in cognitive science views the mind as embodied, extended, and distributed rather than brain-bound or "all in the head." This shift in perspective raises important questions about the relationship between cognition and material culture, posing major challenges for philosophy, cognitive science, archaeology, and anthropology. In How Things Shape the Mind, Lambros Malafouris proposes a cross-disciplinary analytical framework for investigating the ways in which things have become cognitive extensions of the human body. Using a variety of examples and case studies, he considers how those ways might have changed from earliest prehistory to the present. Malafouris's Material Engagement Theory definitively adds materiality -- the world of things, artifacts, and material signs -- into the cognitive equation. His account not only questions conventional intuitions about the boundaries and location of the human mind but also suggests that we rethink classical archaeological assumptions about human cognitive evolution.

About the Author:

Lambros Malafouris is Johnson Research Fellow in Creativity, Cognition, and Material Culture at Keble College and the Institute of Archaeology, University of Oxford.

Bibliographic Details

Title: How Things Shape the Mind: A Theory of ...
Publisher: Mit Pr
Publication Date: 2013
Binding: As New
Dust Jacket Condition: Dust Jacket Included
Edition: 1st Edition