So how do we explain "material culture" (see below for example of use of this
expression)?
On one view the expression is an unthinking oxymoron - for what is material is
what is constituted merely by matter, and what is constituted merely by matter
cannot constitute "culture". On another view, probably only held by some
philosophers and physicists, there is no oxymoron because all that exists is
matter or its physical and chemical adjuncts - and so-called "culture" is
simply a rerrangement of this "material" in particular ways.
Yet it does not strike most of us this way - we know human culture may be
reflected and embodied in material objects, but without "human culture" being
simply a rearrangement of material _in material terms_.
Yet how? The materialism of Marx provides little help, and nor does the very
different materialism of Democritus, nor the radical materialism of Quine.
Popper's theory of Worlds 1, 2 and 3 is, in part, an attempt to offer a
philosophical framework that addresses these problems (as opposed to a W1
physical monism that dismisses these problems as non-existent - because brain
states and culture are simply aspects of physics and chemistry). In the W123
theory, we need to keep clear the distinct levels at which content may exist -
so a bronze age shield will exist as content that has properties of purely a W1
sort but may also embody properties of a cultural W3 sort (for example,
technological knowledge as to how to build a strong but light shield, or
cultural beliefs as to gods and symbols).
There are many aspects to this W123 theory, which is not fully developed in
Popper's work. Two may be noted. First, in Popper's version, the W3 content
only causally affects W1 (i.e. brings about changes in material) via the
workings of W2 (which includes W2 developing W1 devices, like the loom or
computer, than might be used to automate the production of W1 items that embody
W3 content). Second, going beyond its denial that culture can be understood in
only W1 terms, Popper's theory denies that the W3 culture is simply a figment
of W2 - say of human psychology.
A third point is that all of this bears, for Popper, on how we should approach
the mind-body problem: see _The Self And Its Brain_.
Conversely, how we approach the mind-body problem bears on issues of how
culture affects human life. In this regard, one of Popper's points in his
defence of mind-body interactionism is that such interactionism is defended as
something that does occur but it is not defended as something that is
statistically the most common way that physical brain states and mental states
co-exist i.e. it is perfectly possible that many aspects of mental states are
mostly the result of a parallelism of some kind with physical brain states -
indeed this seems likely (Popper uses optical illusions to make the point: even
when we know the optical picture is an illusion this does not change the visual
picture, which may be simply parallel to certain physiological workings; on the
other hand, the fact we can know some given visual picture is an illusion
suggests a level of mental state that is not running in simple parallelism with
physiological workings - because we are aware the results of the physiological
workings give rise to an illusion, and that awareness cannot be the result of
mere parallelism).
When we examine human history, we may find this aspect of the mind-body problem
writ large in how human culture develops. There will be aspects of human
culture that are akin to a kind of parallelism of mind-body, and other aspects
that are really only explicable by way of conscious mental states going against
what would be otherwise 'given' or 'natural' in terms of a human physiology
(and so on). Many examples might be used, but cultural preferences for food may
be one.
Surströmming
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Surströmming
Just enough salt is used to prevent the raw fish from rotting (chemical
decomposition). A fermentation process o... | |
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There is a particularly putrid kind of fish that is cultural delicacy in
Scandnavians who find it at least as disgusting as other humans but force
themselves, calling it an "acquired taste" (the practice may have originated
from a culture where eating such disgusting food was necessary to survive at
some point). This kind of preference is hardly the product of a easy
parallelism between natural inclinations (given human physiology) and mental
states and W3 cultural practices. That is, it is implausible that an 'easy
parallelism' lies at the root of a cultural practice where German author
Wolfgang Fassbender wrote that "the biggest challenge when eating surströmming
is to vomit only after the first bite, as opposed to before".
In trying to understand these issues we may also draw on the revolutionary and
very surprising results of modern science as regards the character of W1 - a
character that in terms of physics seems to include the notion of many
sub-atomic particles and of 'dark matter', and in terms of biology has produced
many examples showing how the genome is a 'house divided against itself.' It
may not be surprising that barely apparent forces can operate at the cultural
level and that culture is a broad church constantly divided against itself.
DL
Consistent with this theory, archaeologists find that settlement patterns andAnglo-Saxon settlement of Britain
land-use show no clear break with the Romano-British past, though there are
marked changes in material culture>
