A Philosophy of Material Culture: Action, Function, and Mind (Routledge Studies in Contemporary Philosophy)

"This book focuses on material culture as a subject of philosophical inquiry and promotes the philosophical study of material culture by articulating some of the central and difficult issues raised by this topic and providing innovative solutions to them, most notably an account of improvised action and a non-intentionalist account of function in material culture. Preston argues that material culture essentially involves activities of production and use; she therefore adopts an action-theoretic foundation for a philosophy of material culture. Part 1 illustrates this foundation through a critique, revision, and extension of existing philosophical theories of action. Part 2 investigates a salient feature of material culture itself--its functionality. A basic account of function in material culture is constructed by revising and extending existing theories of biological function to fit the cultural case. Here the adjustments are for the most part necessitated by special features of function in material culture. These two parts of the project are held together by a trio of overarching themes: the relationship between individual and society, the problem of centralized control, and creativity."--Publisher's website Front Cover 1 A Philosophy of Material Culture 5 Copyright Page 6 Contents 8 Acknowledgements 10 Introduction 12 Memoirs of a Material Girl 12 Terms and Conditions 15 Overview 18 Part I: Action 23 1. The Centralized Control Model 24 Aristotle 26 Marx 30 Dipert 36 The Centralized Control Model 39 Centralization and Collaboration 41 Control and Improvisation 48 2. Taking Improvisation Seriously 53 Sounds Like a Plan 54 Planner Takes All 56 To Improvise or Not to Improvise 61 Doing Things on Purpose 70 3. Coming to Terms with Collaboration 77 ‘We Have to Improvise’ 78 Collaborating with the Enemy 81 Sorting Out the Social 83 Corralling Crusoe 88 4. How to Improvise 99 Why Songwriting? 100 Strategies for Coordinating Action 103 The Appropriate-and-Extend Strategy 105 The Proliferate-and-Select Strategy 112 Turn-Taking Strategies 129 Practices, Habits, and the Like 133 Part II: Function 140 5. Proper Function and System Function 141 Prelude: The Phenomenology of Function 143 Biological Function: Two Theories 147 What Price Unification? 152 Proper Function and System Function in Material Culture 160 6. The Use and Abuse of Intention 169 Intentionalist Approaches to Function in Material Culture 170 Novel Prototypes 172 Phantom Functions 185 7. Reproduction and Innovation 196 Growing and Making 197 Aristotle 198 Ingold’s Challenge 200 Proper Functions and Purposes 205 System Functions and Innovation 215 Conclusion 230 Appendix 234 Notes 239 References 245 Index 255