Artifacts and Artifact-Mediated Action
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Artifacts
Central to Michael Cole’s elaboration of Cultural Psychology is the notion of artifacts and the mediation of human behavior. Advancing on the Russian cultural-historical conception of tool-mediated action, Cole situates tool-use within a larger conception of artifact-based mediation. Much like Dewey, Cole defines an artifact as a cultural object that is modified over the course of human history for the purposes of goal-directed behavior. For Cole, artifacts are simultaneously ideal (i.e., conceptual) and material: Artifacts "are ideal in that their material form has been shaped by their participation in the interactions of which they were previously a part and which they mediate the present”. As Cole explains, all artifacts embody a cultural purpose- an ideal form- that is made concrete in their particular design and application. Whether we consider physical artifacts such as tables or abstract artifacts such as language, it is the purpose-driven manufacture of these artifacts that gives them significance.
The Special Structure of Artifact Mediated Action
As Cole observes, what is particularly unique to human history is the use of tools to mediate cultural activity. For the Russian cultural-historical psychologists, this mediated process was theorized in terms of a triadic relationship of a subject operating upon an object through a medium, i.e., subject-medium-object. It is in the culturally constructed world of mediation that human beings find the leverage to achieve ends impossible without such mediation.
Three Levels of Artifacts
Borrowing from Marx Wartofsky’s conception of three levels of cultural artifacts, Cole explores a hierarchical structure for distinguishing types of artifacts. Following Wartofsky, the first class of artifact is the primary artifact. These are artifacts that are directly constructed for practical application, i.e., axes and bowls, but also writing instruments and telecommunication networks. The second class of artifact is the secondary artifact. These are artifacts that form representations of primary artifacts. Secondary artifacts include recipes, traditional beliefs, norms and the like. They enable the preservation and transmission of modes of action and belief. The third class of artifact is the tertiary artifact. These are artifacts associated with fantasy and play. Tertiary artifacts include works of art and processes of perception. Tertiary artifacts are the least situated in the concrete world of rules and norms. Taken together, Cole characterizes these three classes of artifacts as the linchpin of culturally mediated activity.
Questions
1. Is Cole's distinction between tool and artifact a necessary one?
2. What is the impact of the Internet and cyberspace on the world of mediated artifacts?
3. Are Cole's three classes of artifacts the same/different from Popper's three worlds?
