Cognition and Tool Use The Blacksmith at Work Keller Keller Hardback

Cognition and Tool UseThe Blacksmith at Work\nAuthor(s): Charles M. Keller, Janet Dixon Keller\nFormat: Hardback\nPublisher: Cambridge University Press, United Kingdom\nImprint: Cambridge University Press\nISBN-13: 9780521552394, 978-0521552394\nSynopsis\nIn Cognition and Tool Use, anthropologists Janet and Charles Keller provide an account of human accomplishment based on ethnographic study. Blacksmithing, the transformation of glowing iron into artistic and utilitarian products, is the activity they chose to develop a study of situated learning. This domain, permeated by visual imagery and physical virtuosity rather than verbal logic, appears antithetical to the usual realms of cognitive study. For this reason, it provides a new entre to human thought and an empirical test for an anthropology of knowledge. How does a mind in practice approach a stable, 'sedimented' body of knowledge and create something truly original? What does human tool use say about human thought? What does so.