Artifacts and symbols as causal devices of culture

Abstract

the purpose of this paper is to show that the social sciences and humanities normally overlook the causal effects made by the material environmentand its artifacts in the set of tangible and intangible assets that constitute human culture. I argue a vision of culture as causal arrangements where there is no difference between material culture and symbolic culture. Such vision of culture can then lead us to be able to accept artificial environment as an ecological niche, in which there is a coevolution of technicalenvironment and human beings. This transforms the artifacts networks into a human habitat in which human practices can occur.

Keywords

• culture
• cultural anthropology
• philosophy of culture
• material culture
• technical artifacts
• philosophy of technology