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Intentionality, Symbolic Pragmatics, and Material Culture: Revisiting Binford’s View of the Old Copper Complex

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

A. Martin Byers
A. Martin Byers*
Affiliation:
Department of Social and Cultural Sciences, Vanier College, 821 Blvd. Ste. Croix, Montreal, Quebec, CANADAH4L 3X9, and Department of Anthropology, 855 Sherbrooke Street West, McGill University Montreal, Quebec, CANADAH3A 2T7
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Abstract

I examine how a cognitive archaeology may best be advanced by focusing on Intentionality, the mental property that acts as the causal interface in the human-world interaction. I call this approach symbolic pragmatics. The argument is that, through style as the symbolic medium, material culture is endowed by its users with a form of derived Intentionality that is expressively imposed on it in the moment of usage. The central heuristic is the notion of the legal warrant as a pragmatic symbol that transforms behavioral interventions into the types of social activities (intended) they are. In the same way, material cultural style symbolically endows its users with pragmatic or action-constitutive powers that transform their material interventions into the social activities they (intend) are. I apply the warranting model to interpreting the Old Copper Culture Complex, arguing that its copper/stone duality manifests a structuring of the material activities of this society into two complementary water and land ecological spheres.

Résumé

Résumé

Examino cómo una arqueología cognitiva puede ser avanzada al enfocarse en la Intencionalidad, aquella propiedad mental que actúa como la interfuse causal en la interactión entre el ser humano y el mundo. Este enfoque aquí se denomina pragmatismo simbólico. Arguyo que, a través del estilo como medio simbólico, quienes usan la cultura material la imbuyen con una forma de Intencionalidad derivada, la cual se impone expresivamente al momenta de uso. Ea heurística central es la notión de una garantía legal como símbolo pragmático que transforma intervenciones conductuales en los tipos de actividades sociales (intencionales) que ellas son. Del mismo modo, el estilo de la cultura material simbolicamente otorga a sus usuarios poderes pragmáticos o poderes constitutivos-activos que transforman sus intervenciones materiales en las actividades sociales (intencionales) que ellas son. Aplico el modelo de garantía en la interpretatión del Complejo de la Cultura “Old Copper” arguyendo que su dualidad cobre/piedra manifiesta una estructuración de actividades materiales de esa sociedad en dos esferas ecológicas complementarias-agua y tierra.

Type
Articles
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 64 , Issue 2 , April 1999 , pp. 265 - 287
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1999

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