A Provoking Approach to the 'Anthropology of Art', in reference to C. S. Peirce

Abstract

This paper is an attempt to suggest a provoking theory about actions of human beings (including art-creating actions, art-appreciating actions, etc.). With this aim, I refer to Alfred Gell's posthumous book, Art and Agency (AA hereinafter), especially focusing on his concepts of 'agency' and 'index'. Because 'index' is a concept derived from C. S. Peirce's semiotics, Gell's theory may also imply a kind of applicability of Peirce's idea, though Gell's 'index' is not necessarily compatible with Peirce's. In Gell's terminology, 'index' is an object that mediates 'agency'. What he argues is that 'agency' can be attributed to not only persons but also things such as god statues as long as they (persons and things) are seen as initiating causal sequences caused by some sort of intention. Utilizing these concepts, Gell puts forward 'Anthropology of Art'. He suggests that art objects should be anthropologically examined in order to grasp their 'behaviour' (AA, p.11) in the context of social relations. In this paper, above all I remark on Gell's unique idea The Extended Mind', which is also the title for the last chapter of AA. Interestingly, according to this idea, artworks (and artefacts) and persons can be regarded analogously as 'indexes' embodying collective consciousness of social agents.