De pedras lascadas a modelos teóricos : um estudo sobre ficção e cultura

Abstract

Artifacts are closely linked to human culture in multiple ways: whether through the production of shelters or utensils that help us protect ourselves and face mundane situations, or through abstract mechanisms used to coordinate our everyday relationships or as tools in the search for new knowledge about the world. This thesis seeks to present and work with a wide range of artifacts of the most different types, from artifacts designed in a more traditional way, such as a stone axe, through seedless grapes, pets, electronic articles and social structures until we arrive at theoretical models. Starting from a basic series of criteria that aims to characterize some object as an artifact, we propose some adjustments to these criteria as we present and analyze new examples of artifacts. The adjustments made are updated and evaluated against the suggested examples. As we seek to advance our analysis we come across new questions and unusual types of artifacts. Thus, we are led to work on aspects of human culture and try to understand the role of make-believe and certain abstract objects present in our daily lives. Finally, after going through initially competing fictional theses, we find a relationship between make-believe and the manipulability of abstract artifacts as epistemic tools. When we analyze this connection in greater detail and some considerations about aspects of human cognition, we uncover a mechanism that seems to bring those theses together, namely, the manipulability of epistemic tools as an affordance mechanism. In this way, our trajectory attempts to corroborate the idea that artifacts are a constitutive part of human culture.