A Philosophy of Material Culture

Action, Function, and Mind

Beth Preston

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780415623087
• eBook ISBN: 9781135088705
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Computer Science
• Subtopic: Artificial Intelligence (AI) & Semantics
• Index: Computer Science

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.

Part I

Action

1 The Centralized Control Model

I was central.

I had control.

I lost my head.

—R.E.M., ‘Country Feedback,’ Out of Time (Warner Bros. 1991)

Perhaps the most obvious fact about material culture is that it is not only largely a result of human activity, but also is put to use in almost every activity. So, understanding material culture means understanding production and use. In contemporary Anglo-American philosophy, there is a specialized area of research called action theory that traces its descent back to Aristotle. Action theorists have not directed their attention specifically to material culture, but they hardly need to, since most human action involves production or use or both. Thus, an obvious way to get a philosophy of material culture off the ground would be to adopt the conceptual framework of action theory as the foundation for a more specific account of production and use. Randall Dipert (1993) did just that in his path-breaking action-theoretic account of artifacts. The burden of this chapter is to explain why, contrary to reasonable expectations, this is actually a bad move. It is a bad move because traditional action theory has two deep-seated problems that undermine its account of action, and thus make it unsuited as a foundation for understanding the specific activities of production and use.

First, action theory has traditionally focused on the actions of individual agents. A body of work on joint intentions and actions has emerged only recently. But items of material culture are not only typically produced collaboratively, they are also typically used collaboratively. No one makes a car by themselves; and while driving, we are constrained to collaborate with other users on public roads and sometimes with passengers in our vehicle. So, the first problem with traditional action theory is the lack of a well-developed account of collaborative action.

Second, action theory has concentrated on the analysis of intentional action, and in recent years has swung rather heavily toward planning as its fundamental analytical concept. Plans do have an important role to play in human action, but not all our activity is planned in the relevant sense. Instead, much of our everyday activity has an improvisational structure. For example, you cannot plan ahead for every action you will perform while driving from one place to another because you cannot know what other cars and pedestrians you will encounter—not to mention detours, downpours, or deer. So the second problem with action theory is the lack of an account of improvisation to complement its already well-developed account of planning.

These features are not due to recent innovation, but have roots in the history of action theory. Following Aristotle, action theory has consistently focused on developing a model of action I shall call the centralized control model.¹ The dominant features of this model are the previously described emphases on individual action and planning. The basic problem posed by action theory for a philosophy of material culture is a consequence of the one-sidedness of this model that overemphasizes these aspects of action while marginalizing others (collaboration), or leaving them out of account altogether (improvisation). It should be noted that this problem does not reflect a difficulty in applying action theory to material culture, but rather a difficulty inherent in action theory itself. In this chapter and throughout Part I, I will be talking about action theory in a quite general way, often without specific reference to either the production or the use of material culture. The goal is to end up with a more adequate theory of action, the application of which to the production and use of material culture should be straightforward.

It should be noted that there are other aspects of human activity neglected by action theory but which are of importance for a philosophy of material culture. One such aspect is habit, which is sometimes mentioned but rarely is the focus of discussion or investigation.² Another is skilled action. There is a growing body of literature on this topic, stemming from Hubert Dreyfus’s search for an alternative to the expert systems model in artificial intelligence (Dreyfus and Dreyfus 1988; Ennen 2003; McDowell 2007; Dreyfus 2007; Montero 2010; Sutton et al. 2011). But again, this literature is not a focus of discussion among the core constituency of action theory.³ In the long run, it will be essential for a philosophy of material culture to weigh in on these neglected aspects of human activity, as well. But in the short run, I believe it is more important to concentrate on collaboration and improvisation, because these phenomena are more fundamental. Our earliest engagement in activity as infants is in joint, improvisatory activity with caregivers— feeding, changing of diapers, play—long before skill acquisition, the laying down of habits, and other more sophisticated action structures develop. So if action theory is entangled in misunderstandings about collaboration and improvisation, it would be sensible to sort those out first.

It must also be noted that these failings of traditional, Anglo-American action theory are not necessarily shared by theories of action in other disciplines (e.g., sociology or anthropology) or in the Continental tradition in philosophy. So why not simply base a philosophy of material culture on some already more adequate understanding of action from elsewhere? First of all, the work of reorienting Anglo-American action theory must be done anyway. And the best way to do it, I think, is through an internal critique rather than through an external challenge. Although external challenges do sometimes eventually succeed—Hubert Dreyfus’s Heidegger-inspired critique of artificial intelligence is a good example—they are harder for the challenger to mount, and easier for the challengee to ignore. So I have elected to address Anglo-American action theory on its own terms. I will make reference along the way to theories of action in other traditions and disciplines that connect with my view, but will not discuss them in detail here.

I will begin this chapter with a brief history of what might be called production theory. Aristotle, Karl Marx, and Randall Dipert all single out the production of items of material culture for particular attention. And all of them understand production in terms of the centralized control model predominating in action theory. So examining these accounts of production will serve the dual purpose of explicating the development of the centralized control model and simultaneously providing representative historical examples of the application of action theory to material culture. The second half of this chapter will then begin the critique of the centralized control model by examining the role of collaboration and improvisation in everyday action.

Aristotle

For Aristotle, production consists in impressing a form on matter. We produce neither the form nor the matter, but only the union of the two (Metaphysics 1033a20–1034b5). This requires thinking about how to bring the desired form into union with suitable matter:

Every craft is concerned with coming to be; and the exercise of the craft is the study of how something that admits of being and not being comes to be, something whose origin is in the producer and not in the product. For a craft is not concerned with things that are or come to be by necessity; or with things that are by nature, since these have their origin in themselves. (Nicomachean Ethics 1140a10–15)

[F]rom art proceed the things of which the form is in the soul … The healthy subject, then, is produced as the result of the following train of thought; since this is health, if the subject is to be healthy this must first be present, e.g., a uniform state of body, and if this is to be present, there must be heat; and the physician goes on thinking thus until he brings the matter to a final step which he himself can take. Then the process from this point onward, i.e. the process towards health, is called a ‘making’. Therefore it follows that in a sense health comes from health and house from house, that with matter from that without matter; for the medical art and the building art are the form of health and of the house; and I call the essence substance without matter. Of productions and movements one part is called thinking and the other making—that which proceeds from the starting-point and the form is thinking, and that which proceeds from the final step of the thinking is making. (Metaphysics 1032b1–20)

The first thing to notice here is that the process starts with a specification of the thing to be produced (the form in the mind of the producer), and the ensuing deliberation or thinking concerns the specification of the steps by which this form may be realized in matter. So, at the end of the thinking process, the producer has in her mind a mental design for the product, complete with step-by-step instructions for constructing it. Second, Aristotle suggests that this mental design is finished prior to the production proper, the actual construction. So, for Aristotle, there are two clearly demarcated phases in the overall production process—an antecedent design phase and a subsequent construction phase. Moreover, since all of the thinking is relegated to the design phase, the construction phase must be a matter of unintelligent execution of the step-by-step instructions. Thus, for Aristotle, the real interest of production lies in the mental process of design, not the actual construction process.

Aristotle also has something important to say about the thinking that goes into the design phase. Art (techne), he says, is a state (hexis) involving (meta) true reason; lack of art (atechnia) is a state involving false reason (Nicomachean Ethics 1140a5–25). Hexis can also be translated as ‘habit.’ So, for Aristotle, the thinking involved in production is habitual, and need not be explicitly articulated on every occasion. This may also suggest that the specification of the steps in construction does not have to be complete, but may call up action sequences as integral units. For example, in thinking about building a house, the designer does not have to specify step-by-step instructions for using a hammer or putting up drywall. The builder can be relied upon to have the right habits of thinking required to accomplish such things. Thus, Aristotle’s view is not simplistically rationalistic. A deliberatively generated design may contain elements that are not themselves deliberatively generated on that occasion.

It is also important to note something Aristotle does not discuss—the typically collaborative nature of production. As the passages quoted above from the Metaphysics and the Nicomachean Ethics show, Aristotle routinely speaks of the producer, usually a skilled artisan or expert, such as a potter or a physician, working alone. Aristotle’s account of production is at least implicitly individualistic. This might be an expository device, but it is not without philosophical consequences. In real life, as opposed to philosophical reconstruction, people typically collaborate in producing material culture, and they do so in a number of importantly different ways. For example, the designer is often not the same individual as the constructor of an item. Similarly, either the construction phase or the design phase or both may involve teams of collaborators working together. And the problem is that Aristotle makes no attempt to show how, if at all, his individualistic account of production and action applies to such collaborative activities.

Finally, the most unusual feature of Aristotle’s account of production from a contemporary point of view is his insistence that production is not a subspecies of action, but rather a distinct species of activity in its own right:

What admits of being otherwise includes what is produced and what is done in action. Production and action are different; about them we rely also on [our] popular discussions. Hence the state involving reason and concerned with action is different from the state involving reason and concerned with production. Nor is one included in the other; for action is not production, and production is not action. (Nicomachean Ethics 1140a1–10)

Nevertheless, production and action are clearly the same in one respect—both involve a process of deliberation concerning what means we may employ to attain our ends with regard to things we can change (cf. Nicomachean Ethics 1112b25–1113a5, 1140a10–15). Where production and action differ is with regard to the relationship between the end and the process of attaining it:

For production has its end beyond it; but action does not, since its end is doing well itself. (Nicomachean Ethics 1140b5–10)

Thus, the end of production is something external to, and independent of, the production process, whereas the end of action is internal to it. This distinction is also connected to a parallel distinction between motion (kinesis) and energic activities (energeia) (Metaphysics 1048b15–35). Examples of motions are knitting a sweater or going on a diet. The goal you wish to achieve is achieved only when the process terminates. For example, you do not lose weight for the sake of losing weight, but for the sake of being thin in the end. In contrast, examples of energic activities are seeing or flute playing. Here the goal you wish to achieve is in effect already achieved the minute you start the activity. Flute playing or seeing are, thus, activities you can engage in for their own sake and not for the sake of some result that will occur only at the end of the activity. Energic activities may, of course, simultaneously be practical activities with further ends. For example, seeing usually has further ends, such as finding your keys, and flute playing might also be for the sake of earning a fee. But Aristotle’s point here is that activities such as seeing or playing the flute can be done simply for the sake of doing them, whereas it would make no sense to say that you were losing weight just for the sake of losing it and not for some further end.⁴

In proposing these distinctions, Aristotle is not just pursuing a descriptive project, but an evaluative one. His purpose is not only to understand what different kinds of activities people engage in, but also to rank activities with regard to their worthiness and contribution to the good life. As he explains at the beginning of the Nicomachean Ethics (1094a1–1094b10), the principle of this ranking is the extent to which we engage in an activity for its own sake. And by this criterion, production is clearly inferior to action, because the process of producing is undertaken only for the sake of the product, which is, therefore, superior to the process (Nicomachean Ethics 1094a5–10). So we cannot achieve human excellence by producing, because productive activity only aims at the excellence of the product, not at the excellence of the activity itself. But actions, to the extent that they are undertaken for their own sake, aim at their own excellence and are thus constitutive of human excellence. Perhaps Aristotle’s most telling pronouncement on the inferiority of production is his remark that productive activity must be missing entirely from the divine life of the gods (Nicomachean Ethics 1178b20)—certainly a sharp contrast with the Judeo-Christian view of production as a prerogative of the divine that humans usurp at their peril.

Aristotle’s distinction between production and action has disappeared without a trace from contemporary Anglo-American action theory. Action theorists assume without discussion that production is simply a subspecies of action. For instance, Myles Brand (1970, 3) lists building a bridge as a paradigm case of action right alongside raising your arm and buying a loaf of bread. I think the reason for the disappearance of the distinction is that the basis on which Aristotle proposes it, the status of the end with regard to the process, does not have any valence for contemporary Anglo-American action theorists. Descriptively, their concern is exclusively with the nature of the process by which intentional activity is generated; as we noted above, Aristotle takes this process to be the same in the case of both production and action. Moreover, although contemporary action theorists are often concerned with specific moral issues, such as the assignment of moral blame, this is not the same sort of concern Aristotle had for the overall character of a person’s life that motivated his thinking about the difference between action and production.

In the Continental tradition of political theory, on the contrary, heroic attempts have been made to counteract any such assimilation of production to action, and to reestablish the Aristotelian distinction, complete with its original evaluative force, on a new basis. Such a project lies at the heart of Jürgen Habermas’s longstanding critique of Marx’s production paradigm, and his own theory of communicative action (Grumley 1992). It also underwrites Hannah Arendt’s (1958) influential analysis of the vita activa, in which she argues for a rigorous three-fold distinction between labor, work (fabrication), and action. This rehabilitation of Aristotle’s distinction between production and action by Continental political theorists reflects their retention of broadly Aristotelian concerns about the good life, transposed to the contemporary political context.

This raises the question of what role, if any, Aristotle’s production-action distinction should play in a philosophy of material culture. It is a significant part of the history of philosophical thinking about material culture, so it should not simply be passed over in silence. On the other hand, accepting it at face value as part of the basic conceptual framework for the analysis of material culture would be a much bigger mistake. This is because the phenomena of material culture cut across Aristotle’s distinction in a number of ways. First, a theory of material culture must consider not just the creation of items of material culture, but also their use. And clearly the use of material culture occurs in both productions and actions in Aristotle’s sense. Second, and more importantly, Aristotle’s distinction categorizes activities in an abstract way that is not aimed at capturing anything about their role in creating material culture. Thus, many activities we would not regard as creating material culture fall on the production side of the distinction—losing weigh...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Part I: Action
• Part II: Function
• Conclusion
• Appendix
• Notes
• References
• Index