The Affordances of Things

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Part II

Materiality, Mind and History



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Chapter 4



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The Affordances of Things

Chapter 4

The Affordances of Things: a Post-Gibsonian Perspective

on the Relationality of Mind and Matter

that mind precedes matter, the former finding somekind of secondary ‘materialization’ in the latter(DeMarrais et al. 1996; DeMarrais this volume).

Pursuing this notion of materialization a littlefurther, it becomes apparent that a deep-seated sepa-ration of mind and matter is by no means unique toarchaeology. One dominant image of our currentsocial setting — ‘the information society’ — actuallyimplies a fundamental disengagement of mind frommatter. In her critique of what she dubs ‘post-humanism’, Hayles argues that:

A defining characteristic of the present culturalmoment is the belief that information can circulateunchanged among different material substrates(Hayles 1999, 1).

When this logic is applied to humans, the suggestionis that a person’s essence can be uploaded, stored,and then downloaded in some other dimension basi-cally unaltered. Human physicality begins to beviewed as derivative, a mortal presence that is en-tirely secondary to our virtual existence as informa-tional patterns. And yet, as Hayles is at pains topoint out, this posthumanist perspective (which isnot so very different to liberal humanism) fails toaccord any significance to the fact that informationmust always be instantiated in order to exist. Moresignificantly still, the information thus instantiatedis not unaffected by the medium in which it finds

itself; information cannot be transferred freely be-tween physical substrates, easily attached anddisattached, free at any moment to float off some-where else. The information is itself transformed byits medium.

This emphasis on the embodiment of informa-tion holds within it the kind of relational thinkingthat is central to the idea of ‘engagement’. A humanagent, one might imagine, requires information inorder to decide how to act next. But where does this

Carl Knappett

The aim of this paper is to offer further perspectivesand reflections on the idea of engagement as devel-oped by Renfrew (2001; this volume). Engagement is

a potentially key concept for archaeologists, not tomention students of material culture more broadly, because it takes a relational stance on cognition. Thatis to say, the relationship between mind and matteris understood as one of mutual codependency; nei-ther one nor the other is privileged, thereby avoid-ing both materialist and mentalist reductionism.

Approaches stressing the importance of rela-tionality in archaeological interpretation are not al-together new. One might cite the early work of Shanks & Tilley (1987), some of the later work of each of these authors (e.g. Tilley 1994; Shanks 1998),as well as Thomas (1998; 2001) and Hodder (2001).

This is just a selection. Yet crucially, none of these‘post-processual’ archaeologists develop their notionsof relationality in connection specifically with mindor cognition. Their sights are aimed more at the inter-dependency of subject and object, of body and thing;their inspiration the philosophical tradition of phe-nomenology, particularly Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty.

Part of the reason why this important set of approaches has continued to focus on body ratherthan on mind may be due to academic divisions;namely the emergence of mind and cognition as is-sues under the ‘opposing’ banner of processual ar-

chaeology (Renfrew 2001, 123–4). However, theprocessual, or ‘cognitive-processual’, approach tomind has not, on the whole, seen mind in fully relat-ional terms vis à vis materiality. Within this approachmind and matter are separate, with the former pri-mary and the latter secondary. This kind of hierar-chical schema continues to be present in recenttheoretical formulations that examine the relation-ship between mind and matter. The notion of ‘mate-rialization’, for example, holds within it the sense



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information reside, what form does it takes, andhow is it specified and processed? Some informationmay simply be stored within the agent’s mind, andmay be accessed regardless of bodily situation orenvironmental context. However, a great deal of in-

formation is not immediately accessible and ‘on-line’in this way; rather, it is situated and embodied, emer-gent in particular contexts of action. Information is,in this sense, ‘out there’ in the material world, and isimmediately accessible to a given agent in a certainsituation.

The contribution of psychology

Although one might have imagined that archaeolo-gists would have embraced this kind of positionlong ago, a relational approach to the interface of mind and matter, such that information is deemed

to be distributed between them, has not been forth-coming in archaeological theory. There have beenstrongly relational approaches, as discussed above,and explicit cognitive approaches, but they have rarelyoverlapped. This is why the notion of engagementmarks an important new development, and a chanceto confound the aging division between processualand post-processual archaeologies.

In seeking to develop the idea of engagementfurther, however, we need to turn immediately toother disciplines, and in particular to various branches within psychology (see Cowgill this vol-ume). There are indeed a few different strands within

psychology exploring the relationality of mind andmatter (in ways compatible with Renfrew’s theoryof material engagement). The three strands in ques-tion are ecological psychology, cultural psychology,and situated cognition.

ecological psychology

situatedcognition

culturalpsychology

Ecological psychology

As this diagram indicates, it is ecological psychol-ogy that lies at the root of this process. In particular,

it is James Gibson’s work (1979) on visual perceptionthat is fundamental. Gibson, in contemplating theways in which humans perceive objects in their en-vironment, was not happy with the orthodox view— that humans are only able to understand the func-

tion or meaning of an object indirectly, through in-ternal representations. That is to say, once thephysical structure of an object (e.g. four legs, flatsurface, etc.) is perceived, the object is subsequentlyfitted into a pre-existing category within the humanmind (‘chair’). Only then, once the category ‘chair’has been accessed, is the human agent able to re-trieve the potential function of the object (‘for sittingon’). Thus the human perception of function was,according to scientific orthodoxy, believed to be in-direct, and mediated by cultural representations (atwo-stage process of perception and conceptu-alization). In seeking an alternative to this received

wisdom, the psychologist James Gibson developedthe notion of ‘direct perception’. For Gibson, thepotential of an object for sitting on, to continue thechair example, could be directly observed withoutfirst categorizing the object as ‘a chair’. This sug-gested that information might reside in the environ-ment itself rather than merely as internal mentalrepresentations. His idea was that an agent mightacquire information directly from the environmentas a means of assessing what a situation might afford.The potentialities held by an object for a particularset of actions were termed by Gibson its ‘affordances’.The concepts of direct perception and affordance are

closely intertwined in Gibson’s ecological psychology.There is certainly much to be said for Gibson’s

approach. It is fundamentally dynamic in nature,working on the plausible assumption that humanperception is geared towards tracking possibilitiesfor action in the world. In addition to this ‘ecologi-cal’ slant, it does serve as an important counterpoiseto the dominant Cartesian-derived view that humanaction inevitably involves reflection and consciousevaluation. What Gibson succeeds in demonstratingis the reactive/executive nature of human percep-tion and cognition in certain material circumstances.There surely are a number of artefacts in given situa-tions that serve to prompt sequences of actions al-most ‘unthinkingly’. And yet to say this is the be-alland the end-all of human perception is rather ex-treme, and Gibson has been much criticized for this.One example used by Gibson himself that illustratesthe limitations of his perspective is the post-box.Gibson argued that the physical characteristics of the post-box announce its function in a direct andunmediated way. But what of other similar-sized



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receptacles with letter-sized slots, such as litterbins?Do not these also afford the posting of letters, inpurely physical terms? The reason why a humanagent posts mail in a post-box and not in a litterbin isthat the agent possesses cultural information rel-

evant to the situation and object in question (Noble1991, 207–8; Palmer 1999, 409). This knowledge of the post-box’s function is not accessible from itsphysical form alone, but derives from numerous as-sociations and internal categorizations. That is tosay, its function is, in part, and contra Gibson, indi-rectly perceived.

This does not mean that Gibson’s theory isinvalid, but that it is too radical and one-sided (and,one might argue, at the time it needed to be, to haveany chance of being heard in the face of the domi-nant representationalist approach). What is required,then, is a modification of Gibson’s perspective, and

such a move is well underway — in psychology thepotential of Gibson’s theory continued to be exploredthrough the 1980s and early 1990s, with scholarssuch as Reed (1988a,b; 1991), Michaels & Carello(1981), Noble (1991; 1993), Heft (1989) and Costall(1981; 1995). It was only during the late 1990s, how-ever, that Gibson’s admittedly rather radical pro-posal came to be more seriously considered withinthe mainstream psychology of visual perception (e.g.Bruce et al. 1996; Gordon 1997; Palmer 1999). Somescholars in related fields have also identified theneed for a compromise solution uniting indirect anddirect perception — notably within ‘situated cogni-

tion’, to which we now briefly turn.

Situated cognition

‘Situated cognition’ refers to a movement within cog-nitive psychology that seeks to counter the Cartesianrepresentationalist view of cognition (that lies at theheart of AI), arguing instead that cognition is anembodied, situated and distributed process (Clark 1998). Although cognition, perception and action arefrequently separated, even hierarchically, this schooltends to treat the relations between them much morefluidly. Hence ‘situated cognition’ also implies situ-ated perception and situated action. Gibsonian eco-logical psychology has certainly fed into this branchof cognitive science (see diagram above), as explic-itly recognized by Kirsh (1995). Some of the moreradical proponents of this perspective come close toGibson’s views on direct perception (e.g. Brooks 1991;van Gelder & Port 1995), while others have devel-oped a more balanced approach incorporating ele-ments of both direct and indirect perception (Clark

1996; 1997; Kirsh 1995; Norman 1998; Hutchins 1995;Suchman 1987). A fundamental idea throughout,however, is that the connections between mind andmatter must be viewed in relational terms. For moreon situated cognition, see the contribution of Mala-

fouris in this volume.

Cultural psychology

A similarly relational perspective is also apparentwithin cultural psychology, notably in the work of such scholars as Michael Cole (1996), James Wertsch(1998a,b), Dorothy Holland (Holland et al. 1998) andMichael Tomasello (1999). An element common toall of these is the profound influence exerted by theSoviet psychologist Lev Vygotsky (1978). One keypoint, as far as materiality is concerned, is that hu-mans use cultural artefacts when engaging in action,

and that these artefacts serve as ‘mediational means’.Artefacts not only mediate between a human andhis/her environment, but between humans. An arte-fact may act as a common source of what Tomasellocalls ‘joint attention’ (1999, 62), a kind of ‘pivot’around which activities may form. In a similar vein,Wertsch describes such processes in terms of ‘medi-ated action’. It is also interesting to note that Wertschexpressly links his perspective to the situated cogni-tion approach described above (particularly D. Nor-man). Moreover, both Wertsch and Norman owe aconsiderable debt to ecological psychology (see dia-gram above), not least in their use of the Gibsonian

idea of affordances. It is not only Wertsch among thecultural psychologists who adopts the affordancesconcept — the same also holds true for Tomasello(1999) and Holland et al. (1998). Cole hardly men-tions the affordances in his 1996 book, but he didcollaborate with Holland in writing a paper in whichmuch more attention is devoted to the concept (Hol-land & Cole 1995).

All three of the strands outlined above — eco-logical psychology, situated cognition and culturalpsychology — have in common the idea that cogni-tion and materiality are far more intimately con-nected than is often acknowledged. The compatibility between these three strands is further underlined inthat the idea of affordances is used in each of them.Now we shall give fuller consideration to this potentconcept.

Affordances

The concept of affordances forms a central plank of this paper because it can help us understand the



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codependency of mind and matter. Taken directlyfrom Gibson, the idea has some limitations; fortu-nately, though, the concept has been attracting in-creased attention in a range of disciplines, and as aresult has been subjected to some important modifi-

cations and revisions. What such work allows us todo is home in on three key aspects of affordances:their relationality, transparency and sociality. Animportant step to be taken subsequently is an assess-ment of the relationship between affordances andmeanings. Much of the discussion will be aimed atmaterial culture generally, albeit with an eye on ap-plicability to archaeological contexts.

Relationality

The affordance of an object is neither solely an inde-pendent property of the object itself, nor is it exclu-

sively an intentional state within the mind of theperson engaging with it, but a relational propertyshared between object and agent. The situation inwhich object and agent engage is a dynamic one —and the information specifying where the situationcan lead is not entirely within the agent’s head, butis in some way also held within the object (itself within an environment). This idea that it is a situa-tion that has affordances, as far as an agent possess-ing a given action repertoire is concerned, has beenusefully developed in cognitive science by Kirsh(1995). Rather than being constant, an artefact’saffordances may change according to the situation

in which they are found. The notion of relationalityis absolutely key to understanding the affordancesconcept, and has been highlighted by others (e.g.Ingold, Noble, Heft, Palmer). Let us for a momentreturn to the chair example used earlier. It may ap-pear as if the chair’s affordance for sitting inhereswithin it, independently of the actions of humanagents. Yet the chair does not afford sitting to allhumans — the very young or the very old, for exam-ple, may be excluded, as they may not be capable of sitting on objects of certain heights (perhaps too lowfor the very old, too high for the very young). Thusthe chair only affords sitting to those capable of cer-tain actions. Moreover, while a human agent mayhave the capacity for sitting, the nature of the situa-tion may not allow it; indeed, other affordances of the chair may emerge in some circumstances, suchas its capacity for propping open a door. While ac-knowledging the importance of the mutual relation-ship between object, agent and context in establishingan affordance, one must also admit that the chair’saffordances are not boundless — its intrinsic physi-

cal properties do set some limits. There is a difficulttension between the independent and relational prop-erties of objects (Heft 1989).

Transparency

Coming back to the principle of situated action es-poused by Kirsh, a second key aspect, besidesrelationality, is the transparency of affordances. ForGibson’s theory of direct perception to hold true, theaffordance of an artefact should be transparent in itsphysical form alone. This is perhaps valid for certainobjects in certain situations — the affordances of water bubbling from a spring in the desert to a thirstyhuman are transparent. The affordance of a chair forsitting may also be transparent (to certain agents ingiven situations). But what an object affords may bemore or less transparent in different situations in-

volving different agents. An object designed for usein a specific situation, assuming a certain amount of knowledge on behalf of the prospective user, may‘announce’ quite clearly what it affords. But with achange in circumstances, its function may be far fromtransparent. Alternatively, some artefacts may bedesigned such that their affordances are almost al-ways transparent, regardless of circumstance (hand-axe, paper cup?). To use the post-box example citedabove, its use is only transparent to those with therequisite cultural knowledge — the post-box’saffordances are not knowable from its shape andsize alone.

Sociality

A third important element of affordances is that in agiven situation they will invariably entail a socialcomponent. This is an aspect that Gibson barelyelaborated, and his formulation of affordances cancertainly be criticized for being asocial. This is not tosay that a social dimension is intrinsically incompat-ible with his theory, and some scholars have at-tempted to ‘socialize’ affordances (Reed 1988a; Costall1995; 1997; Williams & Costall 2000). Yet the socialdimension of affordances has barely registered as anarea of interest in those disciplines more inclined toengage with issues of sociality, such as sociology oranthropology. One notable exception to this is thework of anthropologist Tim Ingold (2000). In tryingto weave together the habitually-separated traditionsof biology, anthropology and psychology, Ingold seesGibson’s vein of ‘ecological’ thinking within psy-chology as absolutely key (2000, 3–4). But whileIngold draws directly on Gibson, there is another



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strand of anthropology in which ecological psychol-ogy has recently had an effect, albeit via a rathercircuitous route. This strand forms part of the Frenchsocio-anthropology tradition that concerns itself withmaterial culture, and has done so for many years

since the pioneering work of Marcel Mauss (1950/1936) and subsequently Leroi-Gourhan. One couldhardly call this tradition a stranger to psychology, but in recent years it has been receiving its psycho-logical input from an unexpected source. The revivalof the connections between anthropology and psy-chology is represented in the work of scholars suchas Warnier (1999a,b), Kaufmann (1997), Julien (1999),Semprini (1995), Löfgren (1996), Conein & Jacopin(1993), and de Fornel (1993). What is noteworthyhere is the evident influence of the situated cogni-tion perspective (described earlier), especially thework of Norman. It is perhaps no accident that within

situated cognition there is a definite anthropologicalorientation, not least in the work of Suchman andHutchins (and that of Norman, for example, is broadly sociological). Yet of the French scholars men-tioned above, it is only de Fornel who goes back directly to the work of Gibson. Moreover, none seemsto reference Ingold, despite the obvious and poten-tially fruitful parallels between their work and his.

So what is meant, exactly, by the ‘sociality’ of affordances? Quite simply, that any given situationwill very often involve more than one human agent;two or more agents may be engaged in a joint activ-ity and so may each see the shared affordances that

an object offers each of them. Alternatively, two ormore agents may find themselves in the same con-text but in different situations, seeking different out-comes. In this case a single object may be perceivedto have different affordances according to the per-spective of each agent. The object’s affordances maythus be negotiated and contested. An excellent ex-ample is provided by de Fornel (1993), showing howaffordances come to be shared in a social situation.

De Fornel’s case study involves an analysis of the interaction sequences in routine police investiga-tions. Objects are frequently submitted for examina-tion and offered as evidence. An important part of the process is to place the object in question (e.g. aknife) before the accused for identification or recog-nition. Before doing so, however, the investigatingpolice officers evaluate the objects that have beenseized from the persons accused, categorize them,and decide what they imply for their (ex-) owners.This occurs within an interaction context of multipleagents, such that the affordances of the objects areexplored and shared. One particular case discussed

by de Fornel concerns a group of punks who have been taken in for questioning. The members of thegroup are asked to empty their pockets and bagsonto a table in the middle of the room. Amongsttheir possessions are a considerable number of knives.

Once on the table, the group’s possessions arerecategorized and out of their reach. An inspectorenters the room and the police officers present thesituation to him. While some of the officers intro-duce the punks, one officer is stood at the table andpicks up one of the confiscated knives, showing quiteclearly its blade in such a way that it is brought,almost implicitly, to the inspector’s attention. It isthrough such a sequence of interactions that the po-lice officers and the inspector come to share the sameunderstandings of both the object and the wholesituation. Consequently the police officers go throughan extensive shared manipulation of the knives; han-

dling them, understanding their particular afford-ances. They discover that one of the knives is burntat the blade, prompting them to accuse its owner of using it for hashish. Another blade is broken — theowner claims to have done it opening a tin — theofficers suggest he broke it trying to force open a cardoor. The police officers arrive at a shared under-standing of the affordances of the artefacts through joint practical activity. The punks watch this per-formance but are excluded from participation. Theknives are far from being passive objects, but play avery active role in establishing the situation and theroles of the different protagonists therein.

Direct and indirect: execution and evaluation

Apart from demonstrating the means by whichaffordances come to be shared in social interactions,de Fornel succeeds in showing the mediated andindirect aspects of perception, albeit within aGibsonian framework. Although in some circum-stances human agents merely execute tasks by react-ing to objects, de Fornel underlines that often theaffordances of artefacts are actively evaluated withinsocial situations. This dual status of the human agent,as both active and reactive, is commented upon byConein & Jacopin (1993). They argue that in Gibson’stheory of direct perception humans are effectivelyreduced to the role of reactive agents, merely react-ing to those affordances that enable the execution of an action. What the theory of direct perception lacksis the ability to cast human agents as active, with thecapacity to evaluate as well as react. In this regard,Conein & Jacopin are keen on the concept of situatedaction (they cite Donald Norman as their prime ex-



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ample) — it allows for both an active agent at thelevel of evaluation and a reactive one at the level of execution.

This differentiation noted by Conein & Jacopin between active evaluation and reactive execution is

akin to that made by Kirsh & Maglio (1994) betweenepistemic action and pragmatic action respectively.Take the example of a jigsaw puzzle. A pragmaticaction is one of execution, such as fitting a piece intoits correct position. An epistemic action is an act of evaluation preceding or following execution: thismight be the grouping together of all pieces with astraight edge and a patch of blue sky. In traditionalcognitive science, it would be argued that the proc-ess of execution is external and physical, while theprocess of evaluation is internal and mental. WhatKirsh & Maglio argue, as do Clark, Hutchins, andothers behind the situated/distributed cognition per-

spective, is that both processes (execution and evalu-ation) involve the external manipulation of physicalobjects. Cognition is both an internal and an externalprocess. Perception in the course of situated action is both direct and indirect, unmediated and mediated.And we essentially find ourselves at a point that can be described as post-Gibsonian, in which theaffordances of objects are understood simultaneouslydirectly and indirectly, through both execution andevaluation, and in terms of embodiment as well asrepresentations.

I mentioned the jigsaw puzzle as one exampleof the complexity of the perceptual/cognitive proc-

ess. And yet understanding the affordance of a jig-saw piece is relatively straightforward, in that it isonly likely to be encountered in a very limited set of contexts, and the actions pursuant in such contextsdemarcate the jigsaw piece’s affordance relativelyclearly. The same can also be said of other examplesstudied by Kirsh and his collaborators, notably thegames of Scrabble and Tetris (Maglio et al. 1999;Kirsh & Maglio 1994). In more ‘real’ situations, thepossibilities for action are usually much more fluid,and the interactions between human agents less rule- bound. As a corollary, the affordances of objects aremore prone to ambivalent interpretation. Not onlyKirsh (1995) but also Conein & Jacopin (1993) tacklethe question of the use of kitchen space and the waysin which the affordances of a situation are impli-cated by the arrangement of artefacts in space. Spa-tial layout can help generate a plan of action — it canprompt evaluation as well as execution. Donald Nor-man (1998) has focused on doors and how theirmateriality succeeds or fails in announcing whetherthey should be pushed or pulled (amongst other

possible actions). One might also cite the work of Edwin Hutchins (1995) on navigation systems, andthat of Latour on door-stoppers, speed-bumps andkeys (e.g. Latour 2000). In all of the above examplesa logical distinction can be drawn between physical

and cognitive affordances, although the two mayvery well co-occur in practice (Kirsh 1995). With theformer, the environment is physically shaped in sucha way that action is directly affected; in the case of the latter, information is available in the environ-ment but free of actual physical constraints. A speed- bump physically forces a driver to slow down in away that a signpost does not. Leaving the car-keyson a table next to the front door of the house is ameans of planting information in the environment(‘do not forget car-keys’), but it does not provide anydirect physical constraints (it’s still possible to walk out of the front door and forget them).

Affordances and meanings

The affordances of objects cannot always be ascer-tained directly through information available in theimmediate environment. Often an object will haveassociations that may not be physically apparent butwhich the agent recalls — a similarity with otherobjects previously encountered, or a recollection thatthis object had on earlier occasion been juxtaposedwith other kinds of artefacts in a different setting.Such knowledge is not available in the environment, but comes to the agent upon reflection, and may

very well affect the perceived affordances of the object at hand. In other words, the object has a mean-ingfulness that can only be indirectly perceived,mediated through the agent’s existing social repre-sentations about the world.

A simple example may underline this point.Let us take an everyday artefact, a coffee cup. It hascertain physical characteristics which afford drink-ing (to agents with the appropriate action reper-toires). For example, it is readily manipulable in thehand, given its size, shape, weight and texture. It hasa suitably wide and regular lip. Although it is easilyheld, when the vessel is full of hot coffee its wallsconduct heat and become too hot to touch for anylength of time. For this reason the coffee cup is fur-nished with a handle. The vertical form of the han-dle and its placement close to the rim are featuresthat afford tipping; moreover, the handle is oftenshaped in such a way that more than one finger canfit through its hole, thereby increasing graspability.Other artefacts may also exist which seem, physi-cally at least, to afford very similar actions. A tea-



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cup, a beer mug and a polystyrene cup can all fulfilthe same functions as a coffee cup, even though inactuality they are rarely used in the same way. Thisis in part because the cultural associations of thesedifferent objects are not the same. And these associa-

tions cannot be directly apprehended from the situa-tion at hand. They may be a matter of physicalsimilarity with other artefact types which render themmore or less suitable for certain kinds of activity(perhaps different materials and shapes used bygroups of differing social status). Or it may be thatthe coffee cup tends to find itself contiguous withcertain kinds of object in particular spatial configu-rations, and that such associations affect its mean-ingfulness (even in those instances when the coffeecup does not find itself in such circumstances). Theremay also be symbolic commentaries and narrativesconnected to a certain artefact that affect the way in

which it is perceived (perception mediated throughrepresentations).

Artworks and artefacts

But can this same perspective be applied to all kindsof objects? Does the same hold true for artworks , orare these subject to different dynamics? Artefactsand artworks have certainly often been cast as twovery distinct ontological categories. It is assumedthat these two categories are perceived in quite dif-ferent ways. On the one hand, the everyday artefactis engaged with sensorily, as the human protagonist

embodies it in the course of action. A functional,practical understanding of the object is developed,obviating any need for conscious thought on thepart of the agent. The artwork, on the other hand,signifies rather than acts. The agent engages withthis kind of object visually rather than sensorily.Moreover, a different kind of knowledge is in play,one that requires a grasp of the relevant symboliccodes allowing for the interpretation of the mean-ings encoded in the artwork. The ‘reading’ of theartwork demands a linguistic form of knowledgethat has little relationship to the embodied, practicalknowledge associated with the everyday artefact.Whereas the agent’s conscious evaluation of the art-work is mediated through an internalized set of cul-tural representations, the agent’s engagement withthe artefact emerges in practice through a kind of direct, unmediated process.

This kind of polarization of artworks and arte-facts is exacerbated by the simplistic distinction fre-quently drawn between linguistic knowledge andpractical knowledge (Hodder 1993), or the thinking

mind and the doing mind (see Schlanger 1994 forcritique). It is as if humans interact with objects us-ing two enormously different logics simultaneously,the one linguistic, codified and symbolic, the otherembodied, uncodified and pragmatic. Yet such a deep

cognitive division seems highly improbable, giventhe often-seamless interactions between the humanmind and the material world. To return to the themeof information, it would certainly appear that thereare different sources of knowledge informing agentsas to how they might proceed in any given situation.Some information is indeed present in the materialenvironment in such a form that humans can re-spond to it directly and unreflectively; but at thesame time information is also internally derived fromcultural representations or schemata within the hu-man mind (Strauss & Quinn 1997). Yet even thoughthe sources of information may vary, is it necessarily

the case that ‘external’ and ‘internal’ informationobey different logics, ‘practical’ and ‘linguistic’ re-spectively? How exactly do internal and externalknowledge, and direct and indirect processes (e.g.execution and evaluation), articulate with one an-other? Is this where the phenomenon of ‘tuning’ (seeNorman 1998), or what Gell calls ‘structural iso-morphy’ (1998) comes into the picture? Gell uses thisterm to describe the links between ‘the cognitiveprocesses we know (from inside) as “consciousness”and the spatio-temporal structures of distributed objects in the artefactual realm’ (1998, 222). If this kindof rapprochement between ‘internal’ and ‘external’

domains proves ultimately to be sustainable, then itpromises to remove not only the deep division be-tween linguistic and practical knowledge, but alsothe profoundly unhelpful polarization of artworksand artefacts.

Answers to this and other similar questions needto be found if we are to make any progress in under-standing the engagement of mind with the materialworld. And fortunately steps have recently beentaken in this direction, showing the feasibility of combining phenomenology and semiotics, and eco-logical psychology and representationalism, in thevarious domains of art history (Sonesson 1989; Bryson1990) sociology (Gottdiener 1995), anthropology(Csordas 1994; Parmentier 1997), cognitive anthro-pology (Strauss & Quinn 1997) and cognitive science(Clark 1997; Petitot et al. 2000). This baton has also been taken up within archaeology, albeit only to alimited degree as yet (e.g. Preucel & Bauer 2001).

To conclude, one might well ask why the con-cept of affordances has by and large failed to attractmuch attention within archaeology. Traditional aca-



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demic boundaries are partly to blame. The idea wasfirst put forward in psychology, a discipline withwhich archaeology and anthropology have hardlyenjoyed strong contacts. Moreover, for many years itoccupied a rather radical position within that disci-

pline. To compound matters further, its principalprotagonist, J.J. Gibson, died quite soon after thepublication of his most substantial work (1979). Nev-ertheless, with the important modification that it hassince undergone, and with the increasing permeabil-ity of the boundaries between certain academic tra-ditions, the affordances concept has an importantrole to play in encouraging us to adopt the kind of relational stance that is central to the idea of engage-ment. If as archaeologists we can accept that humansthink through material culture, and that mind andmatter achieve a significant degree of codependency,then perhaps we give ourselves the chance of escap-

ing the paradox of being frustrated mentalists con-demned to materialism.

Acknowledgements

I am most grateful to the organizers, Colin Renfrew, ChrisGosden and Elizabeth De Marrais, for inviting me to con-tribute to the symposium. My thanks also go to LambrosMalafouris for frequent stimulating discussion of materiality and cognition. The research for this paper wascompleted while holding a Junior Research Fellowship atChrist’s College, Cambridge. Christ’s also funded a twomonth stint at the Maison d’Archéologie et Ethnologie(Université de Paris I et X and CNRS), at the invitation of

Sander van der Leeuw; this was extremely useful to me inhelping to develop some of the ideas expressed in thispaper. Any errors or oversights remain of course my own.

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