The Sacred Engagement: Outline of a hypothesis about the origin of human ‘religious intelligence’.

The question that motivates the central hypothesis advanced in this paper regarding the emergence of early religious thinking is the following: ‘why does religion need material\ud culture?’ What basic functional or symbolic need renders material culture an indispensable and universal component of religion and ritual activity? A common temptation, obvious in a number of recent archaeological and anthropological studies, is to seek an answer in the field of memory (Boyer 1993; 1996; 1998; 2001; McCauley and\ud Lawson 2002; Whitehouse 2000; 2004; Mithen 1998a). This paper argues that material culture does much more than simply offer a symbolic channel for the externalization,\ud communication, and thus successful cultural transmission, of religious ideas. Although the mnemonic significance of the ritual object is not denied, it is proposed that the\ud argument from memory, as traditionally premised, fails to provide a cognitively adequate account of the complex affective ties and multimodal interactions that characterise the distinctive phenomenology of religious experience. Moreover, and from a long-term\ud evolutionary perspective, it is argued that the commonly implied ontological priority of the religious idea, over its material expression, leaves us with no explanation about why,and how, religious concepts emerge in the context of human cognitive evolution. Drawing on the theoretical lines of the Material Engagement approach (Malafouris 2004;\ud Renfrew 2004) I want to advance a different hypothesis that places material culture at the heart of the human capacity for religious thinking (cf. Day 2004)

Before and Beyond Representation: Towards an enactive conception of the Palaeolithic image\ud

For most archaeologists the meaning of prehistoric art appears to be grounded upon, if not synonymous with, the notion of representation and symbolism. This paper explores the possibility that the depictions we see already 30,000 years before present, for instance, at the caves of Chauvet and Lascaux, before and beyond representing the world, they first bring forth a new process of acting within this world and at the same time of thinking about it. It is argued that the unique ability of those early depictions to disrupt or question the ways the world is experienced under normal conditions makes possible for the visual apparatus to interrogate itself and thus acquire a sense of perceptual awareness not previously available. \u

The Sacred Engagement: Outline of a hypothesis about the origin of human ‘religious intelligence’.

The question that motivates the central hypothesis advanced in this paper regarding the emergence of early religious thinking is the following: ‘why does religion need material\ud culture?’ What basic functional or symbolic need renders material culture an indispensable and universal component of religion and ritual activity? A common temptation, obvious in a number of recent archaeological and anthropological studies, is to seek an answer in the field of memory (Boyer 1993; 1996; 1998; 2001; McCauley and\ud Lawson 2002; Whitehouse 2000; 2004; Mithen 1998a). This paper argues that material culture does much more than simply offer a symbolic channel for the externalization,\ud communication, and thus successful cultural transmission, of religious ideas. Although the mnemonic significance of the ritual object is not denied, it is proposed that the\ud argument from memory, as traditionally premised, fails to provide a cognitively adequate account of the complex affective ties and multimodal interactions that characterise the distinctive phenomenology of religious experience. Moreover, and from a long-term\ud evolutionary perspective, it is argued that the commonly implied ontological priority of the religious idea, over its material expression, leaves us with no explanation about why,and how, religious concepts emerge in the context of human cognitive evolution. Drawing on the theoretical lines of the Material Engagement approach (Malafouris 2004;\ud Renfrew 2004) I want to advance a different hypothesis that places material culture at the heart of the human capacity for religious thinking (cf. Day 2004)

Is it ‘me’ or is it ‘mine’? The Mycenaean sword as a body-part.

This paper argues that material culture has the ability to change and shape our bodies by transforming and extending the boundaries of our body schema. To explore this argument I concentrate on the relationship between the Mycenaean body and the Mycenaean sword. Focusing on the early Mycenaean period I propose that the centre of consciousness and bodily awareness for the Mycenaean person, and for the warrior in particular, is not some ‘internal’ Cartesian ‘I’, but the tip of the sword. Through the tip of the sword the Mycenaean person is simultaneously reach out, makes sense of and apprehends the world. The sword as an enactive sign brings about a whole new semiotic field of embodied activity offering a new means of engaging the world and as such a novel understanding of what is to be a Mycenaean person and body

Introduction [to special issue (v.25:5, July 2010)of the CACAIE journal, devoted to some recent research applying CI in structural engineering and mechanics]

No abstract

At the Potter’s Wheel: An Argument for Material Agency

Consider a potter throwing a vessel on the wheel. Think of the complex ways brain, body, wheel and clay relate and interact with one another throughout the different stages of this activity and try to imagine some of the resources (physical, mental or biological) needed for the enaction of this creative process. Focus, for instance, on the first minutes of action when the potter attempts to centre the lump of clay on the wheel. The hands are grasping the clay. The fingers, bent slightly following the surface curvature, sense the clay and exchange vital tactile information necessary for a number of crucial decisions that are about to follow in the next few seconds. What is it that guides\ud the dextrous positioning of the potter’s hands and decides upon the precise amount of forward or downward pressure necessary for centring a lump of clay on the wheel? How do the potter’s fingers come to know the precise force of the\ud appropriate grip? What makes these questions even more fascinating is the ease by which the phenomena which they describe are accomplished. Yet underlying the effortless manner in which the potter’s hand reaches for and gradually\ud shapes the wet clay lies a whole set of conceptual challenges to some of our most deeply entrenched assumptions about what it means to be a human agent

Greece must put aside divisive rhetoric if a solution to the country’s crisis is to be found

The Greek debt crisis continues to dominate the agenda ahead of an EU summit to be held later today. Lambros Fatsis writes on the approach pursued by the Syriza-led government since it came to power in January. He argues that Syriza’s hostile approach during negotiations has been counter-productive and that the party’s rhetoric has simply reinforced a false distinction between northern Europe and Greece