With the grounding of Cartesian mind-body dualism in modern European philosophy the mind has been granted a pivotal place in the field of epistemology. As a result, knowledge production is...Show moreWith the grounding of Cartesian mind-body dualism in modern European philosophy the mind has been granted a pivotal place in the field of epistemology. As a result, knowledge production is predominantly considered a disembodied enterprise. Over the last century critiques have been formulated against placing knowledge within the perimeters of the mind. For one, the phenomenological tradition offered an influential critique against the separability of mind, body as well as the external world in which the cognisant being finds oneself. Despite providing a powerful argument against disembodied theories of knowledge it appears the applicability of such a phenomenological theory falls short when transcending knowledge on the level of individual experience. This research takes a different approach in critiquing a disembodied understanding of knowledge. Through findings in ethnography and material culture studies it becomes clear knowledge cannot be confined to the internal mental processes of individual subjects. These two research fields bring special attention to firstly, the distributive nature of knowledge amongst collectivities and secondly, the shared epistemological and ontological aspects of knowledge amongst groups of people/cultures required to produce knowledge. Knowledge is considered something that is constructed intersubjectively and in direct relation to the physical world and power discourse in which it is used. Through case studies in material culture currently housed at the Pitt Rivers Museum, an ethnographic and anthropology institute in Oxford, UK, it is argued that mind, body and external world properties play inseparable roles in the way knowledge is produced. In addition it becomes clear that a traditional Cartesian understanding of knowledge has consistently been used in interpreting the knowledge systems of other cultures. Such projection of a traditional Cartesian understanding of knowledge on the knowledge systems of other cultures has left an often distorted view of other modes of knowing, being and understanding, and attests to the colonial conditions under which the objects examined here were acquired. Study of material objects expose the fallacy in mind-body dualism and ought to be considered the missing links regarding knowledge systems obscured as result of the universalisation of the traditional Cartesian understanding of knowledge.Show less
