Papers by Alexander R Aston
Philosophical Psychology, 2024
This paper aims to place the general thesis for a species-unique “shared” or “we” intentionality,... more This paper aims to place the general thesis for a species-unique “shared” or “we” intentionality, against the theoretical background of the material engagement approach. We will argue that the human ability to enact and share intentions rests upon a relational and participatory foundation of situated activity where intentional transactions between humans as well as between humans and things (in the broadest sense of material environment) are inseparable from the situational affordances of their engagement. Based on that, the paper advocates for an ecological-enactive account of shared intentionality which understands material engagement as central to the evolution and development of human social cognition.
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Archaeological Review from Cambridge: Aesthetics, Sensory Skills & Archaeology, 2022
Aesthetics as commonly understood is bound up in Western notions of beauty, taste, discernment, w... more Aesthetics as commonly understood is bound up in Western notions of beauty, taste, discernment, worthiness, and superiority. One need only peruse 19 th-century writings on 'primitive art', or how cultural gatekeepers of refinement and respectability responded to every innovative musical trend of the 20 th century, to appreciate that aesthetics is enmeshed within notions of cultural supremacy and hierarchies of value. This paper argues that for archaeological analysis of aesthetic experience to generate productive insight into cultural dynamics, it must return to the term's conceptual foundations as the perception and feeling of things. The archaeology of aesthetics can benefit from the perspective of material engagement, which examines how recursive relationships between materials, perception, skill, and social interaction constitute subjective and intersubjective experiences of affective value. To demonstrate such an approach, this paper engages in a brief case study of Cycladic sculpting, examining the relationships between the properties of marble and the development of skill, attention, and social interaction. The paper concludes with a reflection upon how aesthetic experience is intrinsic to the semiotics of value and collective identity.
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This thesis applies the principles of Material Engagement Theory (MET), which examines material c... more This thesis applies the principles of Material Engagement Theory (MET), which examines material culture as a dynamic and integral component of human cognitive systems, to study the relationships between Cycladic marble sculpting, social cognition and social complexity. The work investigates how material culture shapes the development of intersubjectivity and generates social interactions at emergent scales. As a case study in emergent social complexity this thesis examines the development of Cycladic marble sculpting and the Early Bronze Age ritual centre of Keros. In this light, Cycladic sculpting traditions can be interpreted to have mediated the shifting burdens of social cognition during the Early Bronze Age, facilitating the emergence of novel social organisation as a response to the changing dynamics of the Aegean world. In attempting a cognitive archaeology of Keros and Cycladic sculpting, this thesis examines a broad array of scientific data as well as underutilised archaeol...
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Cambridge Archaeological Journal
This paper utilizes Material Engagement Theory (MET), which examines material culture as a dynami... more This paper utilizes Material Engagement Theory (MET), which examines material culture as a dynamic and integral component of human cognitive systems, in order to explore the relationship between Cycladic marble sculpting and the complex social organization evinced at the sites of Dhaskalio and Kavos on the island of Keros. The article shows how the development of Cycladic sculpting in conjunction with transforming settlement patterns suggests that the figurines emerged as part of a kinshipping dynamic. In this context, evidence from the cognitive sciences reveals how Cycladic figurines were profound attention-capturing technologies which shaped the development of intersubjectivity and collective activity. Cycladic marble provided a medium through which a semiotics of value could be generated, circulated and manipulated across the archipelago. The article argues that marble artefacts formed part of a distributed cognitive system which enabled the regional organization of long-range v...
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Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences
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World Archaeology
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World Archaeology, 2021
Following Gosden and Malafouris, this article explores why process archaeology provides a benefic... more Following Gosden and Malafouris, this article explores why process archaeology provides a beneficial framework for understanding the emergent, self-organising dynamics of human existence. To demonstrate the potential of process archaeology for reframing discourses about humanity’s nature, this article examines automotive culture from evolutionary, ecological, developmental, and socio-political perspectives. Automobiles provide a robust example of how forms emerge from and transform flows of energy-matter across multiple dynamic scales. The article concludes with a reflection on symbolism and how American automotive culture can be understood as a form of cult ritual. Archaeology’s obsession with ritual stems from a Cartesian assumption
that rituals are arbitrary manifestations of symbolic minds. Process archaeology understands ritual as a means of organising energetic flows of persons and things into stable forms that endure over time. This perspective supports exploring the emergence of symbolic relationships and cultural forms as a developmental entwining of cognitive and ecological processes.
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Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 2020
This paper utilizes Material Engagement Theory (MET), which examines material culture as a dynami... more This paper utilizes Material Engagement Theory (MET), which examines material culture as a dynamic and integral component of human cognitive systems, in order to explore the relationship between Cycladic marble sculpting and the complex social organization evinced at the sites of Dhaskalio and Kavos on the island of Keros. The article shows how the development of Cycladic sculpting in conjunction with transforming settlement patterns suggests that the figurines emerged as part of a kinshipping dynamic. In this context, evidence from the cognitive sciences reveals how Cycladic figurines were profound attention-capturing technologies which shaped the development of intersubjectivity and collective activity. Cycladic marble provided a medium through which a semiotics of value could be generated, circulated and manipulated across the archipelago. The article argues that marble artefacts formed part of a distributed cognitive system which enabled the regional organization of long-range voyaging regimes centred on Dhaskalio-Kavos. The role of Cycladic sculpture in mediating maritime social interactions is clarified by examining the dynamics of social cognition and the organizational burdens of long-range voyaging culture. The relationship between marble, social interaction and longboat voyaging provides a strong explanation for the development and transformation of Keros as well as for broader chronological developments in the region. Cycladic sculpting traditions mediated the shifting burdens upon social cognition during the Early Bronze Age, facilitating the novel forms of social organization in the central Cyclades as a response to both the pressures and the opportunities of the Aegean world. Keros provides an exemplary case study of material culture's role in extending the boundaries of social cognition in ways that enable social complexity to emerge at new scales.
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Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 2018
Through the application of Material Engagement Theory (MET) to enactivist analyses of social cogn... more Through the application of Material Engagement Theory (MET) to enactivist analyses of social cognition, this paper seeks to examine the role of material culture in shaping the development of intersubjectivity and long-term scalar transformations in social interaction. The deep history of human sociality reveals a capacity for communities to self-organise at radically emergent scales across a variety of temporal and spatial ranges. This ability to generate and participate in heterogenous, multiscalar relationships and identities demonstrates the developmental plasticity of human intersubjectivity. Perhaps human sociality's most unique feature is this intersubjective plasticity, that is, the ability for diverse collectivities of individuals and groups to adopt and transition between numerous social identities and behaviours with profound rapidity and flexibility. However, the most influential models in the study of social cognition, the Social Intelligence Hypothesis and Theory of Mind, promote a view of intersubjectivity that is rooted in methodological individualism and primarily understood as a capacity for observation and prediction. This approach leads to significant issues when confronted with the diversity and plasticity of hominin social organisation, particularly in regards to the computational burdens and information processing bottlenecks such scalar changes imply for cognitivist models. This paper examines the metaphysical assumptions in computational models of the mind that result in representational apriorism and an epiphenomenal treatment of material culture that hinder our understanding of the evolution and development of social cognition. Specifically, this article critiques the logics of computation, information processing, representationalism, and content within Neo-Darwinian frameworks that obscure and distort the interrelationship of evolutionary, developmental, ecological and cultural processes. Through a synthesis of material engagement and enactivist approaches to social cognition, this article argues that it is possible to explain the emergent and multiscalar dynamics of hominin sociality in terms of ecologically distributed and developmentally plastic interactions between brains, bodies and material culture.
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Masters Thesis, 2014
This thesis addresses the longstanding intellectual framework that has divided mind from matter, ... more This thesis addresses the longstanding intellectual framework that has divided mind from matter, agency from environment and humanity from nature. In an attempt to break down these dichotomies this paper explores the Paris Commune of 1871 as a case study in cognitive ecology. The paper hopes to answer the question of how people transform their societies without supervision or command from a central authority. It argues that cities are selection driven adaptive landscapes, co-evolutionary structures that emerge to facilitate and sustain dense human habitation through the material organization of cognition. This study seeks to answer questions about the entanglement of environment, social organization and cognition. Specifically the ways in which ecological dynamics and selection mechanisms affect social structure; how individual agency translates into collective action; and the ways in which cultural materials feedback into cognitive processes and social activity. By investigating flows of energy, matter and information during the Siege and Commune of Paris from 1870 to 1871 the analysis attempts to show how human cognition intersects with its environment to form self-organizing, complex adaptive systems. The research utilizes a number of theoretical frameworks to explore the evidence; Material Engagement Theory, Extended Mind Theory, Entanglement Theory, Developmental Systems Theory, Panarchy, and Complexity Theory. This paper demonstrates that contractions in energy, matter and information flows created by the Prussian siege triggered selection mechanisms favoring specific social institutions while disempowering others. Further, it shows that cognitive niche construction facilitated social revolution in the city. Finally, it argues that cultural materials helped to distribute cognitive processes in ways that enabled collective revolutionary action. This includes one clear example of a positive feedback loop mediated through physical objects. In conclusion, this paper shows that the most important feature of urban environments is the ability to facilitate individual adaptations to ecologies dominated by the physical and cognitive presence of their own species. The products of human cognition, circulating as materials in socio-cognitive ecologies, function to entangle ideas and relationships into the physical environment and organize behavior. Thus, human societies do not fundamentally break from the natural world but express the developmental properties of human evolution.
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Book Chapters by Alexander R Aston
Cognition Beyond the Brain, 2017
By investigating flows of energy, matter and information during the Siege and Commune of Paris fr... more By investigating flows of energy, matter and information during the Siege and Commune of Paris from 1870 to 1871 this analysis attempts to show how human cognition intersects with its environment to form self-organizing, complex adaptive systems. While traditional explanations of the Commune have generally revolved around Marxists analysis, it is possible to analyse the events of 1871 as transformations in the urban and cognitive ecology of the city. Specifically, utilizing the perspectives of Material Engagement Theory and distributed cognition, this paper explores the ways in which cultural materials feedback into cognitive processes to shape social activity. Changes in Paris’ urban ecology produced selection mechanisms which facilitated Parisians organising around different institutional settings. Radical clubs, vigilance committees and worker’s cooperatives were able to provide stability in a rapidly degrading urban environment, and thus a point of departure for new forms of social organisation to emerge. To facilitate this process, Parisians modified their environments, both within and outside of these institutional settings, in ways that altered the flow of information through the city and provided new ways of engaging in a revolutionary context. Parisians utilised material artefacts such as rifles, flags and bodily decorations in order to distribute cognition, enabling collective revolutionary action. This paper shows that the most important feature of urban environments is the ability to facilitate individual and collective adaptation to ecologies dominated by the physical and cognitive presence of their own species. In this view cities are understood as selection driven adaptive landscapes, co-evolutionary structures that emerge to facilitate and sustain dense human habitation through the material organization of cognition. The transformations in Paris’ urban ecology led to Parisians reconfiguring their cognitive environments, precipitating the development of radical social institutions. Artefacts, circulating in human ecologies, function to entangle human cognition and behaviour into coherent environmental relationships. Thus, human societies do not fundamentally break from the natural world but are part of a developmental continuum with evolutionary and ecological dynamics.
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Conference Papers by Alexander R Aston
This paper is not about Quantum, Dada and Jazz per se, but rather a meditation on those radical b... more This paper is not about Quantum, Dada and Jazz per se, but rather a meditation on those radical bursts of human creativity that occur during historically destructive moments. Ultimately, my thesis is quite simple. Barring the possibility of extinction, humans are on the precipice of the most radical social reorganisations in the history of the species. In navigating this process of transformation, if we wish to create a world worth living in, it is necessary to understand the interactions between energy, ecosystems, cognitive development and social organisation. Without a grasp on the interdependence of these relationships there is no hope for shaping our world in a healthier manner. What is historically unquestionable is that periods of radical upheaval result in drastic reconfigurations of belief, meaning and knowledge. In the contemporary world, metaphysical and theoretical assumptions about the division of mind and matter, culture and nature, humans and environment all stem from a philosophical and scientific heritage that has divided form and flow. If we are to create something better out of the ongoing destruction of the current system we must radically rethink our understanding of energy, matter and the interdependence of the humanity and the Earth.
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Conference Presentations by Alexander R Aston
The evolution of human empathy clearly lies in the pair bonding, parenting, and social grooming b... more The evolution of human empathy clearly lies in the pair bonding, parenting, and social grooming behaviours of our hominin ancestors. These intersubjective capacities have undoubtedly played a key role in the development of human sociality and cooperative group sizes. The identification of specific neural networks and regions of the brain involved in affective and cognitive empathy, as well as mirror neuron systems involved in the perception of others, all attest to deep evolutionary commitments to empathic capacities in socialisation and cooperation. However, the radical expansion in the heterogeneity and scale of human social groups in the two hundred millennia since the stabilisation of the human genome show the human empathy is also highly plastic and capable incorporating relationships far beyond the interpersonal. This plasticity is attested to by a variety of studies on contemplative practices as well as early childhood social-emotional education that have revealed significant neuroplastic effects in areas of the brain involving empathy. This paper argues that from this evolutionary and developmental scaffolding, humans have used ritual and narrative practices to reconfigures and extend the boundaries of empathy. Specifically, the paper will look at the ways in which humans have used material culture to shape group attention and shared emotional states to influence the development of social cognition and collective identity formation. However, this capacity to engage and empathise at new scales has proven itself a double edged sword. The ability to empathise with larger social groups has involved concomitant increases in groups identified as outsiders, as well as the emotional manipulation of social solidarity for political and economic gain. This paper moves on to consider the ways in which contemporary material cultural is used to frame narratives of empathy that are used to manage collective social perception. Finally, the paper will consider strategies and practices that play to the benefits of human empathic plasticity while working to mitigate the negative possibilities of social othering.
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The Neolithic-Bronze Age transition resulted in forms of emergent complexity (e.g. writing, state... more The Neolithic-Bronze Age transition resulted in forms of emergent complexity (e.g. writing, state bureaucracies, etc.) that have radically defined the course of human history. While there are many nuanced facets to the Bronze Age emergence, one undeniable fact is that it entailed profound transformations in social cognition. The Bronze Age involved significant changes in identity formation and the structure and scale of communities, particularly regarding specialisation, hereditary status, and social inequality. Utilising Material Engagement Theory, this paper presents a view of human social organisation as emerging through metaplastic feedback between ecosystems, material culture, and the brain. Specifically, this paper argues that the development and distribution of Cycladic figurines mediated transformations in social cognition as a response to anthropogenic changes in the environment. Cycladic colonisation during the late Neolithic can be understood as a period of ecosystem engineering and niche construction. A steady pattern of infilling indicates that ecological changes and growing demographic pressures began to stress the resiliency of Neolithic communities. This paper argues that human-induced changes to the flows of energy and matter in the Cycladic environment exerted novel pressures upon social organisation. The reconfiguration of subsistence practices and settlement patterns during the Neolithic-Bronze Age transition indicate a significant redistribution of the demands placed upon social cognition. Cycladic sculpting emerged from a period of substantial transformations in the landscape. The development of Cycladic figurines, in conjunction with new settlement, mortuary and social storage practices, indicates that the sculptures played a crucial role in mediating these transformations. Furthermore, by applying evidence from neuro and cognitive science to the archaeological record, it is possible to explore how the figurines supported shared attentional/intentional environments and new collective behaviour. In these regards, Cycladic sculpting can be understood as an example of cognitive-developmental niche construction that reconfigured and extended the boundaries of social cognition during the Early Aegean Bronze Age.
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Utilising Material Engagement Theory, this paper argues that Cycladic figurines mediated transfor... more Utilising Material Engagement Theory, this paper argues that Cycladic figurines mediated transformations in social cognition as a response to anthropogenic changes in the environment. The occupation of the Cyclades during the Late Neolithic can be understood as an intensive period of ecosystem engineering and niche construction. A steady pattern of infilling indicates that ecological changes and growing demographic pressures began to stress the resiliency of Neolithic communities. Archaeological evidence for the Cycladic Neolithic-Bronze Age transition fits well with models of adaptive cycles of growth, conservation, disruption and reorganisation in complex systems. Transformations in settlement patterns in the prehistoric Cyclades correspond closely with these dynamics. Moreover, the emergence, distribution and growth of Cycladic sculpting traditions in the Early Bronze Age mirror this process. This paper argues that human-induced changes to the flows of energy and matter in the Cycladic environment exerted novel pressures upon social organisation. The reconfiguration of subsistence practices and settlement patterns during the Neolithic-Bronze Age transition indicate a significant redistribution of pressures exerted upon social cognition. The appearance of Cycladic figurines in conjunction with the reorganisation of the landscape indicates that the sculptures played a critical role in mediating these social transformations. In view of recent finds on Keros, the figurines functioned to help organise relationships across the islands. The growth of Cycladic sculpting, when considered within the context of environmental change, social storage networks and long range voyaging, can be understood as crucial scaffolding through which social cognition developed. Overtime, as this paper will illustrate, this evolution of form enabled the organisation of Cycladic communities on a regional scale.
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The convergent evolution of social elites in farming societies implies that structural dynamics w... more The convergent evolution of social elites in farming societies implies that structural dynamics within agricultural systems produced strong developmental pressures favouring the emergence of hereditary dominance hierarchies. By exploring the archaeological evidence for the Neolithic-Bronze Age transition in Europe this paper argues that new forms of material engagement transformed ecological relationships in ways that enabled the creation of novel cognitive-developmental niches. Specifically, economic infrastructure, monumental construction, prestige goods and the broader ecological dynamics of agriculture produced non-linear feedback between brains, bodies and environment, encouraging the formation of stratified societies. Traditional explanations of hierarchy have tended to focus on individual motivations to acquire wealth and power while evolutionary perspectives have emphasised reproductive advantage. These viewpoints tend to have a reductionist focus on the individual or genetics while encouraging teleological and naturalised conceptions of social inequality. However, considering the trajectory of hominin evolution towards more egalitarian and cooperative social structures, the relatively sudden emergence of social stratification appears as an anomaly.
This paper presents a view of social inequality as embedded within the non-linear dynamics of complex systems across a number of scales from evolutionary-ecology to ontogenetic development and social cognition. Neolithic and Bronze Age practices reconfigured and intensified flows of energy, matter and information in the environment producing novel developmental pressures. New forms of material culture, exchange and specialisation diversified social identities while tethered mobility and disparities in ecological inheritance created structural dependencies that consolidated asymmetrical relationships. It is the contention of this paper that hereditary dominance hierarchies can be understood as a form of cognitive-developmental niche construction in which core groups, in control of significant energetic bottlenecks, ontogenetically “domesticated” subordinate groups.
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Conference announcements by Alexander R Aston
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Thesis Chapters by Alexander R Aston
PhD thesis, University of Oxford, 2021
This thesis applies the principles of Material Engagement Theory (MET), which examines material c... more This thesis applies the principles of Material Engagement Theory (MET), which examines material culture as a dynamic and integral component of human cognitive systems, to study the relationships between Cycladic marble sculpting, social cognition and social complexity. The work investigates how material culture shapes the development of intersubjectivity and generates social interactions at emergent scales. As a case study in emergent social complexity this thesis examines the development of Cycladic marble sculpting and the Early Bronze Age ritual centre of Keros. In this light, Cycladic sculpting traditions can be interpreted to have mediated the shifting burdens of social cognition during the Early Bronze Age, facilitating the emergence of novel social organisation as a response to the changing dynamics of the Aegean world. In attempting a cognitive archaeology of Keros and Cycladic sculpting, this thesis examines a broad array of scientific data as well as underutilised archaeological evidence within the framework of MET to generate a coherent approach to social cognition in recent pre-history. If material culture is understood to be an intrinsic feature of human cognitive processes, it is possible to examine the archaeological record as a form of niche construction that has reshaped the evolution and development of the mind. Specifically, evidence from the cognitive sciences suggests an evolutionary feedback loop generated between hands, eyes and the bodies of others. Social cognition can thus be understood to develop from perception-action systems that evolved through pragmatic and cooperative social interactions mediated by material culture. Cycladic figurines, as this thesis argues, present as attention-capturing technologies which shaped identity formation and coordinated social interactions at emergent scales. The relationship between marble, social interaction and longboat voyaging provides a robust explanation for the development and transformation of Keros as well as the broader chronology of the region. Thus, it is argued that the attention-capturing properties of Cycladic figurines generated a semiotics of value through which kinship dynamics were conceptualised and manipulated, enabling the regional organisation of long-range voyaging regimes on Keros.
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Papers by Alexander R Aston
that rituals are arbitrary manifestations of symbolic minds. Process archaeology understands ritual as a means of organising energetic flows of persons and things into stable forms that endure over time. This perspective supports exploring the emergence of symbolic relationships and cultural forms as a developmental entwining of cognitive and ecological processes.
Book Chapters by Alexander R Aston
Conference Papers by Alexander R Aston
Conference Presentations by Alexander R Aston
This paper presents a view of social inequality as embedded within the non-linear dynamics of complex systems across a number of scales from evolutionary-ecology to ontogenetic development and social cognition. Neolithic and Bronze Age practices reconfigured and intensified flows of energy, matter and information in the environment producing novel developmental pressures. New forms of material culture, exchange and specialisation diversified social identities while tethered mobility and disparities in ecological inheritance created structural dependencies that consolidated asymmetrical relationships. It is the contention of this paper that hereditary dominance hierarchies can be understood as a form of cognitive-developmental niche construction in which core groups, in control of significant energetic bottlenecks, ontogenetically “domesticated” subordinate groups.
Conference announcements by Alexander R Aston
Thesis Chapters by Alexander R Aston
that rituals are arbitrary manifestations of symbolic minds. Process archaeology understands ritual as a means of organising energetic flows of persons and things into stable forms that endure over time. This perspective supports exploring the emergence of symbolic relationships and cultural forms as a developmental entwining of cognitive and ecological processes.
This paper presents a view of social inequality as embedded within the non-linear dynamics of complex systems across a number of scales from evolutionary-ecology to ontogenetic development and social cognition. Neolithic and Bronze Age practices reconfigured and intensified flows of energy, matter and information in the environment producing novel developmental pressures. New forms of material culture, exchange and specialisation diversified social identities while tethered mobility and disparities in ecological inheritance created structural dependencies that consolidated asymmetrical relationships. It is the contention of this paper that hereditary dominance hierarchies can be understood as a form of cognitive-developmental niche construction in which core groups, in control of significant energetic bottlenecks, ontogenetically “domesticated” subordinate groups.