Beth Preston, “A Philosophy of Material Culture: Action, Function, and Mind” (Routledge, 2012)
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What is the main focus of Beth Preston’s new book on material culture?
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Hello and welcome to New Books and Philosophy, a podcast channel with the New Books Network. I'm Carrie Figner of the University of Iowa and I'm co host of the channel along with Robert Talice of Vanderbilt University. In our bi-monthly podcasts, we interview philosophers about their new books in areas ranging from aesthetics to ancient philosophy, epistemology and philosophy of science, ethics and social and political philosophy, metaphysics, mind, and many more. Today's interview is with Professor Beth Preston of the University of Georgia. Her new book, A Philosophy of Material Culture, Action, Function and Mind, is just out from Routledge. Many philosophers have written on the ways in which human beings produce artifacts and on the nature of artifacts themselves, often distinguishing the act of producing or making from growing
and distinguishing artifacts from natural objects. Some such as Marx and Engels took production to be basic to human nature. However, such discussions have tended to be theoretically restricted. For example, in the philosophy of technology, the focus is primarily on non religious and non artistic artifacts. In this slim but comprehensive volume the doctor Preston provides a foundation for understanding material culture in general. Indeed, she uses the phrase material culture to avoid the restrictive connotations of artifacts. And other terms commonly used in this neck of the philosophical woods are Preston approaches her subject from two basic vantage points the philosophy of action to consider the nature of production and use of material culture.
and the philosophy of function to consider the nature of the items that are produced and used. In doing so, she breaks new ground in understanding collaboration and improvisation and And draws on work on biological functions and functions of systems such as cognitive systems. to develop a concept of function appropriate to understanding the functions of the items we make and use. Let's turn to the interview. Uh hello, Beth Preston. Yes, hello Carrie. Hi. So welcome to New Books in Philosophy. Well, thank you very much. I'm very glad to be here. Uh it's great. I'm I'm looking forward to talking about your your new book, um, which is a theory of uh gives us a theory of material culture drawing from work in action, philosophy of action, um, philosophy of function and and mind.
Um And so I think uh the probably the best way to uh approach the book is to explain your interest in these areas which is sort of longstanding from a lot of different perspectives, um and so how all these longstanding interests that you've had in in philosophy of action, philosophy of technology and philosophy of mind have sort of come together in this particular volume.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the main focus of Beth Preston’s new book on material culture?
0:00–9:19
2
Why does Preston prefer the term “item of material culture” over “artifact”?
9:19–17:25
3
How does the book distinguish between intentional and unintentional artifacts?
17:25–25:15
4
What is Preston’s account of improvisation and the strategies that support it?
25:15–33:49
5
How does she explain collaborative (joint) action without centralized control?
33:49–41:45
6
What is the proper‑function theory of material items and how does it differ from system function?
41:45–49:55
7
How are novel prototypes and phantom functions treated in her framework?
49:55–57:23
8
What future research directions does Preston envision for philosophy of material culture?
57:23–1:04:37
Speakers
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