I describe how close attention to the process of sculpting clay from the perspective of Material Engagement Theory can create a detailed description of a mutable sense of agency and of self. First, I show that sculpting is associated with a loss of sense of agency and self. Second, that to sense agency as a systemic phenomenon creates anxiety. Third, that meaning in an art encounter develops in association with an anterospective viewpoint. Fourth, that within the logic of the extended (...) mind, emergent meaning becomes openly available for further exploration. Fifth, that artistic creativity is not an opaque process. It proceeds in a similar manner to other forms of human, sense-making activities. Finally, that playing seriously with clay can be used in an investigative manner—as a tool for material conceptualisation. (shrink)

Improvising involves participants adopting attitudes and dispositions that make them welcoming towards what happens, even when it is unforeseen. How is the discourse on improvisation and a disposition to improvise in the community connected to the concept of inquiry? What type of reasoning can be developed? This paper aims to reflect on two different perspectives. On the one hand, we consider the feasibility of improvising inquiry in the community, promoting inquiry as an activity that can be developed extemporaneously when teacher (...) and students form a community with an “improvising” habitus. On the other hand, we underscore the intrinsic improvisational dimension of inquiry that takes shape in philosophical dialogue in the community. To develop these two educational and formative perspectives, participants students and particularly teachers must first acquire a “readiness” for improvisation which is a sort of complex attitude. Some results of previous research on improvisation are presented to explain and emphasize the features of this complex disposition. Teachers who improvise suddenly open a window on events happening in the community, serving as an example for the class which is invited to do the same. Teachers thus become improviser-facilitators within the community, embracing the feature of a new jazz-pedagogy at the same time. (shrink)

Experimental archaeology is often understood both as testing hypotheses about processes shaping the archaeological record and as generating tacit knowledge. Considering lithic technologies, I examine the relationship between these conceptions. Experimental archaeology is usefully understood via “maker’s knowledge”: archaeological experiments generate embodied know-how enabling archaeological hypotheses to be grasped and challenged, and further, well-positioning archaeologists to generate integrated interpretations. Finally, experimental archaeology involves “material speculation”: the constraints and affordances of archaeologists and their materials shape productive exploration of the capacities of (...) objects and human skill in ways relevant to archaeological questions. (shrink)

Lo digital descansa en la computación. La programación utiliza algoritmos. Los algoritmos son el conjunto de reglas que resuelven problemas en un número finito de pasos. En este sentido, el mundo digital está regido por cantidades, números, reglas fijas. El grado de libertad parece muy limitado. Por el contrario, la actividad artística y la creatividad descansan en la apertura, la libertad y en experiencias cualitativas. Estas experiencias no solo son vitales para la expresión artística, sino para la vida cotidiana. Los (...) mundos-vitales tecnológicos tal como se representan en tecnologías actuales (por ejemplo, en las casas inteligentes o en la conducción automática) o en la ciencia ficción no parecen dar cabida a estas estructuras abiertas. La filosofía de la tecnología está dividida: muchos sostienen que la tecnología determina en gran medida la cognición humana (como Mark B. N. Hansen, Bernard Stiegle) y, consiguientemente, subordina la cognición humana a las organizaciones maquinales. Otros adoptan una aproximación diferente y reflexionan sobre el potencial creativo de las nuevas tecnologías (Erin Mannig, Jaime del Val). Este artículo discute teorías que abordan la relación humano-máquina en tanto que estructuras complejas que van más allá de la visión distópica del ser humano siendo trascendido o incorporado por la tecnología. Estas aproximaciones son centrales para discutir el futuro del ser humano y la conformación político-cultural de los mundos vitales. Para entender cómo las relaciones humano-máquina pueden considerarse como procesos abiertos y creativos, presento narrativas de cognición corporalizada, ejemplos artísticos de estrategias de performance con sistemas algorítmicos, y finalmente engarzo estos aspectos en un panorama más amplio sobre la conceptualización de la tecnología y la vida humana como un continuo, en vez de una sostenida oposición o un estar determinado por el otro. (shrink)

One of the most important questions in the young field of numerical cognition studies is how humans bridge the gap between the quantity-related content produced by our evolutionarily ancient brains and the precise numerical content associated with numeration systems like Indo-Arabic numerals. This gap problem is the main focus of this paper. The aim here is to evaluate the extent to which cultural factors can help explain how we come to think about numbers beyond the subitizing range. To do this, (...) I summarize Clark’s notion of a difference maker in explaining complex causation that criss-crosses between mind and world and apply it to Menary’s Open MIND. MIND Group, Frankfurt, 2015a) discussion of mathematical cognition as a case of enculturation. I argue that while Menary’s views on enculturation can help explain what makes the difference between numerate and anumerate cultures, it cannot help specify what makes the difference between numerate and anumerate individuals. I argue that features of enculturation do not provide an account of innovation capable of explaining how individuals manage to improve and modify the practices of their cultural niche. This is because Menary’s construal of the role of enculturation in the development of mathematical cognition focuses mostly on the inheritance and transmission of practices, not on their origins, which involve individual-level understanding, rather than population-level practices and pressures. The upshot is that culture provides the necessary background conditions against which individuals can innovate. This role is crucial in the development of numerical abilities—crucial, but explanatorily limited. (shrink)