•  545
    Prosthetic gestures: How the tool shapes the mind
    Behavioral and Brain Sciences 35 (4): 230-231. 2012.
    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
  •  430
    Creativity, cognition and material culture: An introduction
    with Chris Gosden and Karenleigh A. Overmann
    Pragmatics and Cognition 22 (1): 1-4. 2014.
    Introduction to the special issue in Pragmatics & Cognition focused on creativity, cognition, and material culture. With contributions from Maurice Bloch, Chris Gosden, Tim Ingold, John Kirsh, Carl Knappett & Sander van der Leeuw, Lambros Malafouris, Frédéric Vallée-Tourangeau, Kevin Warwick, and Tom Wynn and Frederick L. Coolidge.
  •  245
    4E cognition in the Lower Palaeolithic: An introduction
    with Thomas Wynn and Karenleigh Anne Overmann
    Adaptive Behavior 99-106. forthcoming.
    This essay introduces a special issue focused on 4E cognition (cognition as embodied, embedded, enactive, and extended) in the Lower Palaeolithic. In it, we review the typological and representational cognitive approaches that have dominated the past fifty years of paleoanthropology. These have assumed that all representations and computations take place only inside the head, which implies that the archaeological record can only be an “external” product or the behavioral trace of “internal” repr…Read more
  •  92
    Material Agency: Towards a Non-Anthropocentric Approach (edited book)
    with Carl Knappett
    Springer. 2007.
    This book is a groundbreaking attempt to address questions of non-human and material agency from a wide range of perspectives and disciplines: archaeology, ...
  •  61
    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 e…Read more
  •  58
    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 clea…Read more
  •  38
    Creative thinging
    Pragmatics and Cognition 22 (1): 140-158. 2014.
    Humans are organisms of a creative sort. We make new things that scaffold the ecology of our minds, shape the boundaries of our thinking and form new ways to engage and make sense of the world. That is, we are creative ‘thingers’. This paper adopts the perspective of Material Engagement Theory and introduces the notion ‘thinging’ to articulate and draw attention to the kind of cognitive life instantiated in acts of thinking and feeling with, through and about things. I will focus more specifical…Read more
  •  21
    Mindful art
    Behavioral and Brain Sciences 36 (2): 151-152. 2013.
    Bullot & Reber (B&R) begin asking if the study of the mind's inner life can provide a foundation for a science of art. Clearly there are many epistemological problems involved in the study of the cognitive and affective basis of art appreciation. I argue that context is key. I also propose that as long as the continues to be perceived as an intracranial phenomenon, little progress can be made. Mind and art are one
  • [Book Chapter]
    . 2004.