The Japanese Society for Aesthetics

Aesthetics No.19 (2015): 1-11

A Provocative Approach to the ‘Anthropology of Art’,
with reference to C. S. Peirce
KATO Takafumi

Kyoto University, Kyoto

Introduction
Alfred Gell, a British anthropologist who passed away in 1997, proposes the theory of the‘anthropology of art’ in his posthumously published book Art and Agency[1] (hereinafter AA),and he refers to Charles S. Peirce’s concepts such as index and abduction in explaining his‘anthropology of art’. This paper will consider both Gell’s theory and Peirce’s thought, and argue
that although Gell’s understanding of Peirce’s thought does not necessarily seem appropriate,
Gell’s ‘anthropology of art’ suggests thought-provoking views about agencies regarding artistic
activities. Furthermore, this paper will suggest a contemporary applicability of Peirce’s thought,
which is independent of Gell’s theory.
The first section describes the outline of Gell’s ‘anthropology of art’. In the second section,
his concepts of ‘agency’ and ‘index’ are examined, and then, these concepts are applied to acouple of example cases. The third section focuses on Gell’s concept of the ‘extended mind’. The
fourth section speculates on the potential impact of the ‘extended mind’ and examines Peirce’s
concept of index. As a conclusion to this paper, a blueprint that can be developed from bothPeirce’s semiotics and Gell’s ‘anthropology of art’ will be suggested.

1. Anthropology of Art
In AA, Gell comprehensively argues his theory of ‘anthropology of art’. According to thistheory, the ‘anthropology of art’ examines “the social context of art production, circulation, andreception” (AA, p.3). Moreover, the objects of this study (in his word, ‘art objects’) do not haveto be so-called fine arts; for example, Gell refers to Hindu idol icons and Maori meeting houses
as examples of ‘art objects’. Thus, the art theory Gell suggests via the ‘anthropology of art’ isbased on social-scientific study approach (just like anthropology) andcovers almost all kinds of artefacts.
Gell repudiates the following definitions of art objects: that either art
objects are sign-vehicles, conveying ‘meaning’, or they are objects made inorder to provoke a culturally endorsed aesthetic response, or that they areboth of these simultaneously (AA, p.5).[2] To refute these definitions, Gelltakes an example of an Asmat shield (Fig.1), and wonders if the aesthetic
design on this shield attracts warriors on a battlefield. His answer is, ofcourse, no. This design should rather be regarded as aiming to intimidate
enemies. Gell states that “[a]nthropologicaly, it is not a ‘beautiful’ shield,

Fig.1 Asmat shield(cited from AA,
p.xxiv)

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but a fear-inducing shield” (AA, p.6). This means that art objects such as Asmat shields are notalways made with the aim of provoking an aesthetic response. He thus repudiates the definitionof art objects mentioned above, and establishes his art theory focusing on actions in the followingway:
I view art as a system of action, intended to change the world rather than encode symbolic
propositions about it. The ‘action’-centred approach to art is inherently more
anthropological than the alternative semiotic approach because it is preoccupied with thepractical mediatory role of art objects in the social process, rather than with theinterpretation of objects ‘as if’ they were texts. (AA, p.6)
Moreover, based on this ‘action’-centred approach, Gell redefines his ‘anthropology of art’as a study about the “social relations in the vicinity of objects mediating social agency” (AA, p.7).
The concept of ‘agency’ mentioned here clearly illustrates his distinct attitude, namely, his‘action’-centred attitude towards art objects.

2. Agency and Index
This section examines two essential concepts of the ‘anthropology of art’: agency and index.
Gell explains the concept of agency in the following way:
Agency is attributable to those persons (and things, see below) who/which are seen as
initiating causal sequences of a particular type, that is, events caused by acts of mind or willor intention, rather than the mere concatenation of physical events. (AA, p.16)
An Asmat shield, as we have seen above, has an active function of intimidating enemies. Thisfunction can be considered as deriving from the shield maker’s intention to intimidate theenemies. If so, the agency of the shield can be attributed to the craftsman. However, it is not soeasy to tell to whom (or what) this agency should be attributed, because it is possible that aperson who has requested the craftsman to make it has an intention to intimidate the enemies,
thus the shield having the function; considering in this way, the agency might be attributed to
the requester. The attribution of agency is not stable, but varies by viewpoints.
It should also be remarked that agency can be attributed to not only humans but also nonhuman things. Gell takes an example of a statue of Shiva, a Hindu god, and explains how agency
is attributed to this statue (AA, pp.122-6). His explanation is as follows: even when a mouse runs
over a statue of Shiva, Shiva does not move at all; according to Hindu theology, however, theShiva statue can be thought of as sacrificing its freedom of movement, and thus providing its
worshippers with divine benefits; therefore it intentionally stands still even when a mouse isrunning on it, and in this sense, agency can be attributed to a statue of Shiva. Gell thus concludes
that agency can be attributed to things.
The concept of index is as essential as agency in Gell’s theory. To understand the significanceof index, the background reason why Gell needs this concept should be noted. As explained inA Provocative Approach to the ‘Anthropology of Art’, with reference to C. S. Peirce3

the previous section, the ‘anthropology of art’ is based on ‘action’-centred approach, and thisstudy analyses “social relations in the vicinity of objects mediating social agency” (AA, p.7).
Accordingly, each object needs to be considered in a context of social relations.[3] To illustrate
how art objects are considered in such a way, Gell suggests a way to understand art as analogous
to religious activities; theatres, libraries, and galleries can be regarded as shrines, and artists arepriests; art critics are theologians, and the religious doctrine of art is pursuit of the universal
beauty.[4] Moreover, Gell contends that when art objects are anthropologically examined,
researchers should be philistine-like in the same way that anthropologists are atheistic when
they conduct research about a foreign religious system.[5] Even though the ‘anthropology of art’examines ‘art objects’, ‘art objects’ should not be understood as aesthetic objects but as neutral
objects; thus, the term ‘index’, which is free from aesthetic implication, is introduced to standfor them.
The concept of index is introduced from C.S. Peirce’s semiotics, and it originally means asign which represents an object by virtue of a physical connection; for example, according toPeirce, a weathercock is an index because it physically veers with the wind to stand for the
direction of the wind.[6] However, Gell’s use of the concept of index seems different from Peirce’s.
Gell states “the index is itself seen as the outcome, and/or the instrument of, social agency” (AA,p.15); in Gell’s theory, for example, smoke might be regarded as “the index of fire-setting byhuman agents (burning swiddens, say)”(ibid.). Peirce would explain the same smoke in thefollowing way: a fire is burning a bush or something and this causes the smoke according to aphysical law of burning, so this smoke can be regarded as an index of a burning fire. Althoughboth of Peirce and Gell are focusing on ‘action’, Peirce’s index is focusing on physical actions
between an index and its object, whilst Gell’s index can refer to social actions generated byhuman agents as well; here is a huge leap from Peirce’s index to Gell’s index.
In order to understand the concept of (Gell’s) index, another concept Gell borrows from
Peirce should also be remarked on: abduction. According to Peirce, abduction is an inferential
process as follows. A surprising circumstance C is observed, but if A is true C is explicable, sothen there is a reason for considering A as true.[7] This inferential process in which A is inferredfrom C is, of course, not yet reliable; abduction offers only a hypothesis, and this hypothesis
needs to be confirmed by other inferential processes, namely, induction and deduction.[8]However, it should also be remarked that abductive reasoning could become habitual as the same
abductions are repeated in similar situations and abducted hypotheses are confirmed by virtue
of induction and deduction. The concept of ‘habit’ is the core of Peirce’s thought, and therefore
the process of abduction is important as the beginning of making habits.[9] With thesebackgrounds kept in mind, Gell’s concept of index will now be examined.
Gell argues that indexes mediate agencies through the process of abduction, and he takes anexample of a smile which could mean friendliness: it is highly likely that those who look at a
portrait of a smiling person will consider as showing friendliness the person in the portrait, thesitting model of the portrait, or the ‘subject’, which is Gell’s expression, of the portrait; thus, notonly actual people’s minds, but also the minds of people in paintings can be inferred from indexes(AA, p.15). Gell generalises this consideration as follows:4

KATO Takafumi[T]he means we generally have to form a notion of the disposition and intentions of ‘social
others’ is via a large number of abductions from indexes […]. (ibid.)
According to this view, it is clear that the ‘anthropology of art’ can be understood as a study aboutindexes which mediate agencies of ‘social others’ via abductions.
Two concepts explained above, namely, agency and index are key concepts of the‘anthropology of art’. The remaining part of this section shows how these concepts work and the‘anthropology of art’ functions in practice.
At the outset, it may be helpful to introduce more a few terms. Gell designates as an ‘agent’
an object to which agency is attributed, and an object which receives agency is called a ‘patient’.
In addition, Gell argues that four kinds of objects should be introduced into the ‘anthropology ofart’: Index, Artist,[10] Prototype, and Recipient. Each of these four can be either an agent or apatient. Even when considering one pair of an agent and a patient, there may be four-multipliedby-four possible cases, namely, sixteen possible cases of agent/patient relations among this pair:these relations are social relations the ‘anthropology of art’ aims to examine. It is beyond thescope of this paper to examine all the permutations; taking just two typical cases would meet theaim of this paper.
The first example case of social agent/patient relations can be expressed in the following
way.
(A): [[Prototype]

Artist]Index]

Recipient [11]Regardless of the length of arrows, each of them expresses the relationship between two objects.
An object put in a position previous to an arrow is understood as an agent, whilst an object afteran arrow is a patient. A long arrow means the relationship between an index as an agent and the
direct patient of this agent (called the ‘primary’ patient). It can also be noticed that within eachbracket an agent/patient relation is established; an Artist, who is a patient of the agency of a
Prototype, exerts his or her agency on an Index, and in turn, this Index, which inherits the
background of the Artist and the Prototype, exerts its agency on the ‘primary’ patients, namely,
its Recipients.
It is Joshua Reynolds’s portrait of Samuel Johnson that Gell takes as an example of the case(A). In this example, an actual person, Samuel Johnson, is a Prototype, and Reynolds is an Artist;
the portrait is an Index, and viewers of it are Recipients. Johnson is a sitting model for thisportrait, so his appearance dominates how Reynolds paints; a Prototype (Johnson) can be
regarded as exerting his agency on an Artist (Reynolds). On the other hand, it is Reynolds who
paints the portrait; an Artist exerts his or her agency on an Index. In turn, this portrait could
cause in viewers’ mind, for example, an admiration for Johnson as a great lexicographer; an
Index exerts its agency on Recipients.
On the other hand, according to Gell, this explanation is not the case of the Mona Lisa by
Leonardo da Vinci, although it is also a portrait. The social agent/patient relations about the caseof the Mona Lisa can be expressed in the following way.

A Provocative Approach to the ‘Anthropology of Art’, with reference to C. S. Peirce(B): [[[Artist]

Prototype]Index]

5

Recipient [12]Gell contends that “the features, or some semblance of the features, once possessed by the
woman referred to in Leonardo’s picture, are significant only in so far as they mediate ourawareness Leonardo’s art as a painter” (AA, p.52); in the case of the Mona Lisa, an Artist is
Leonardo, who is expressing his art, and this “Leonardo’s art” may be regarded as a Prototype.
An Index is the painting itself, and viewers are Recipients. Comparing this second example withthe first one, from Gell’s view, the agent/patient relation between an Artist and a Prototype
seems to be reversed. However, the case of the Mona Lisa can be analysed in the same way as
the first example; the sitting model for the Mona Lisa (assumed to be Lisa del Giocondo) can beconsidered as exerting her agency on the Artist, Leonardo. It is rather important to notice that
Gell’s explanation of social agent/patient relations is flexible, and can describe various kinds ofseries of such relations.[13]These successive series of agent/patient relations can be infinitely prolonged; for example,
they can be prolonged to describe a process of an artist’s work affecting other artists’ works, or aprocess of a cultural tradition being established and inherited from generation to generation; orthe whole life and the whole of works of an artist can be analysed by using this series of relations.
From this idea, Gell suggests a unique view about the concept of mind. The next section will
examine his idea of the ‘extended mind’.

3. Gell’s Extended Mind
Gell gives the title of “The Extended Mind” to the last chapter of AA. Although this title mightrecall a famous idea of the philosophy of mind, which was proposed by Clark and Chalmers[14]and has been the subject of much discussion among philosophers, Gell does not refer to thisextended mind. Gell’s idea of the ‘extended mind’ is well expressed in the following suggestion:
Especially if, as I shall be doing, we consider ‘persons’ not as bounded biological organisms,
but use this label to apply to all the objects and/or events in the milieu from which agency
or personhood can be abducted. (AA, p.222)
Gell puts forward this suggestion to argue that “a person and a parson’s mind are not confined
to particular spatio-temporal coordinates, but consist of a spread of biographical events andmemories of events” (ibid.). Accordingly, each person and her mind can be considered asconsisting of her biographical backgrounds. Moreover, material objects that testify the
backgrounds of this person, such as her relics or the artefacts she makes, can be construed as her
indexes. Consequently, Gell proposes a particular understanding of the concept of person; “[t]heperson is thus understood as the sum total of the indexes which testify, in life and subsequently,
to the biographical existence of this or that individual” (AA, p.222-3). Therefore, in Gell’s theory,the concept of person’s mind can be extended even to such indexes; this is Gell’s idea of the‘extended mind’. An agency of a person would be mediated via numerous indexes, and Gell calls
each of them a “distributed object” (AA, p.223). He believes this agency can be regarded as

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distributed to each index because the distributions of the agency can be found in each index.
Thus, the ‘extended mind’ can also be extended to a collective series of indexes.
The concept of the ‘extended mind’ is closely related to the idea of successive series of
agent/patient relations, which has been examined in the previous section. For example, assume
that artworks of an artist X make an impact on new artworks of another artist Y: it is arguablethat even in Y’s works X’s agency is observable and that Y’s works are also indexes of X;
consequently, the biological backgrounds of X are continually updated. In the same way, thewhole life of an artist Z can be understood as a series of agent/patient relations among indexesof Z such as her works and her belongings; the agency of Z is distributed to each index of Z and
her mind can be extended to all the indexes.
Gell proposes a particular example regarding the ‘extended mind’: the Maori meeting house(Fig. 2).[15] From the latter half of the 19th century, the Maori people began to compete witheach other by constructing meeting houses, instead of resorting to warlike means. Each Maoricommunity builds a huge meeting house and elaborately decorates its exterior and interior withtraditional carving and painting; Each meeting house expresses “the wealth, sophistication,technical skill, and ancestral endowment” (AA, p.251) of each community. Gell argues that themeeting house illustrates the collective agency of its community for three reasons. Firstly, this issimply because people collect in the house. Secondly, this is because the meeting house consistsof a number of artefacts and can be understood as an organic artefact as a whole, which expresses
the historical backgrounds of the community. Then, the third reason is the most important. Gellstates this as follows:
The house is a body for the body. Houses are bodies because they are containers which, likethe body, have entrances and exits. Houses are cavities filled with living contents. Houses
are bodies because they have strong bones and armoured shells, […]. To enter a house is toenter a mind, a sensibility; […]. Like many traditional psychologists, the Maori located mind
and intention in the viscera. To enter a house is to enter the belly of ancestor and to be
overwhelmed by the encompassing ancestral presence; […]. (AA, pp.252-3. The italicisationis Gell’s.)
It is clear that Gell regards a Maori meeting house as a collective index of the community’s agency,
by likening it to a body; in this body, there is the mind of the community.
Moreover, Gell focuses on the process inwhich several traditional styles are inherited byother houses and at times affected by otherstyles, and he compares this process to theprocess in which an artist develops her style. To
put this into a simple example, one traditional
style observed in one meeting house can be
inherited by and developed in other meetingFig.2 Maori meeting house
houses, just as one artistic style observed in one(cited from AA, p.252)
artist’s works can be inherited by and developed

A Provocative Approach to the ‘Anthropology of Art’, with reference to C. S. Peirce7in her later works. This analogy also suggests that each meeting house can be regarded as
analogous to a sketch, which is a preparation work for a future masterpiece. The competitive
purpose of the Maori meeting house taken into account, each house can be understood as apreparation for the future ultimate meeting house which surpasses all the other meeting houses.
The whole process of constructing the ultimate meeting house can also be understoodanalogously to the whole life of an artist; it is a collective process consisting of successive seriesof agent/patient relations.
This section has examined Gell’s concept of the ‘extended mind’, and shown that the mindsof persons or communities can be considered as extending to the collective indexes such as thewhole of one artist’s art works and the Maori meeting house. In the next section, this concept
will be developed beyond the Gell’s scope, with reference to C.S. Peirce’s thought.

4. Reconsideration of the ‘Anthropology of Art’
This paper has so far examined the ‘anthropology of art’ based on Gell’s argument. It should
be noted, however, that the theory of ‘anthropology of art’ can be further developed by taking
into account the comprehensive understanding of Peirce’s concept of index.
When discussing the ‘extended mind’, Gell mentions homunculi, pace D. C. Dennett.[16]Homunculi are to be understood as conscious entities which dwell in heads of people, interpretthe input from the external world, and work out perceptive consciousness in the minds of people.
As seen in the second section, Gell contends that agency can be attributed to things such as thestatues of gods. He explains that there are two kinds of strategy which allow the statues to havethe agency: the externalist strategy and the internalist strategy (AA, pp.126-54).[17] The
externalist strategy assumes that the social (and inter-subjective) conventions are decisive
factors in attribution of agency; for example, when worshippers of a Shiva statue think the statue
is intentionally sacrificing its freedom, the agency is attributed to the statue via worshipper’s
conventional thought. On the other hand, regarding the internalist strategy, Gell mentions
homunculi. In the internalist strategy, the statues of gods need to have internal objects to which
the agency should finally be attributed. For example, “[s]uppose, instead of drilling ‘eye’ holes inthe spherical idol, we leave it as it is, but place it in a box, an ark” (AA, p.133); the stone can be
regarded as “the locus of agency” (ibid.), and the box can be regarded as the sacred container ofthe locus of agency. This illustrates a relation similar to the relation between homunculi and ahuman head. Gell thus relates the concept of homunculi to his argument.
The concept of homunculi cannot avoid the defect of infinite regress; homunculi inside ahuman head request inside each of them smaller homunculi, which should interpret the input
from greater homunculi, and this regression continues for ever. Nevertheless, Gell thinks thatthe internalist strategy is still viable, and that both the internalist strategy and the externalist
strategy are indispensable in his ‘anthropology of art’. He argues as follows:
From the anthropological point of view, if not the philosophical one, the solution to theconflict between the external notion of agency, deriving from insertion in the social milieu,
and the ‘internalist’ theory of agency, deriving from an inner subjective self, is to be sought

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in this ‘enchainment’, the structural congruence between the inner self (which is relational)
and the outer self (which is equally relational, but on an expanded scale). (AA, pp.140-1)
Gell thinks that the infinitely nested structure of the inner self and the outer self continues
endlessly like the infinite regress of homunculi, but he also thinks that the distinction between
the inner self and the outer self is only relative. In mentioning homunculi, Gell intends to pointout this particular characteristics observed in the nested structure of an inexhaustible numberof the inner and outer selves. Indeed, Gell’s concept of the ‘extended mind’ has the same nested
structure. This concept of mind can be construed as extended to a collective index whichmediates collective agency of persons and communities. Moreover, it is also arguable that eachindex has its backgrounds, and these backgrounds consist of numerous previous indexes.
Therefore, here can also be observed the infinitely nested structure of the inner and outer indexes.
The question about an Asmat shield mentioned in the second section should be consideredagain: to whom (or what) should the agency be attributed? The concept of the ‘extended mind’
suggests that there can be a multi-layered entity to which the agency might be attributed, andthis entity is not confined to particular space or time but consists of a collective index andbackground indexes. When it comes to art, the ‘anthropology of art’ offers a radical shift of theunderstanding of artworks: artworks can be understood as a collective index which has an
infinitely nested and multi-layered structure.
Now the concept of index needs to be re-examined with reference to Peirce’s semiotics. As
argued above, it is true that there is a discrepancy between Peirce’s index and Gell’s index.
However, Gell’s concept of index can be revised in accord with Peirce’s index when the following
explanation by Peirce is considered:
An index stands for its object by virtue of a real connection with it, or because it forces themind to attend to that object. […] A weathercock is an indication, or index, of the directionof the wind; because, in the first place, it really takes the selfsame direction of the wind, sothat there is a real connection between them, and in the second place, we are so constitutedthat when we see a weathercock pointing in a certain direction it draws our attention to that
direction, and when we see the weathercock veering with the wind, we are forced by the lawof mind to think that direction is connected with the wind.[18]Peirce points out two aspects of the concept of index. The first one has been seen in the second
section: an index stands for an object according to physical laws. The second aspect is remarkable
here: an index forces its interpreter’s mind to connect the index with a real object according tothe ‘law of mind’. The ‘law of mind’ could be understood here as a series of mental habits
established in a person’s mind. To take the example of a weathercock, one observes certain
physical phenomena repeatedly and gains scientific knowledge about them. Through theseprocesses, one establishes a series of mental habits, which forces the mind to connect thedirection of weathercock with the direction of the wind when one sees a weathercock. An index
can thus stand for an object by virtue of mental habits, even though these habits may need toderive from observations of physical phenomena and scientific knowledge.

A Provocative Approach to the ‘Anthropology of Art’, with reference to C. S. Peirce

9

In the ‘anthropology of art’, an index is assumed to mediate the agencies of social others via
the process of abduction. It has been explained in the second section that in Peirce’s philosophy
the process of abduction is regarded as the beginning of making habits. These taken into account,
Gell’s concept of index can be revised as follows: indexes stand for the agencies of social others
via abduction, and this abduction leads one to make habits and establish the ‘law of mind’. Thus,
the connection between the indexes and the agencies is more robustly established. Peirce’s index
is, however, standing for physical phenomena in the external world, while Gell’s index ismediating, or standing for, the social agencies or the minds of others; there is still a huge
discrepancy. This paper does not stick to Gell’s viewpoint, but speculates on the applicability ofthe ‘anthropology of art’ from a Peircean viewpoint.
Peirce’s cosmology should be referred to here. Peirce regards the whole universe as a hugecollective sign, which continues to evolve.[19] Even the physical laws which control all natural
phenomena can be construed as habits established through the evolutional process of the sign(s)of the universe. Moreover, Peirce argues that these physical laws should be regarded as ‘real’ inthe actual world.[20] Thus, indexes stand for real things which are fundamental in the evolving
universe, so Peirce’s concept of index has great significance in his semiotic cosmology. In otherwords, indexes can stand for the backgrounds of the evolutional process of the whole universe.
When the ‘anthropology of art’ is revised with reference to this view, the ‘extended mind’,
which has been explained by taking the example of the evolutional process of Maori meetinghouses, can be considered as analogous to the evolutional process of the universe Peirce’s
cosmology argues for. Therefore, the ‘anthropology of art’ can be revised to offer insights into
the structure of series of not only social agencies of humans but also, for example, agencies of an
ecological system of various biological entities and physical substances in the universe. Although
this might sound extravagant and it can be extremely difficult to conceive of a concrete example
for this idea, it should also be remarked that artistic activities have often been extravagant so far,and it is arguable that they should be so in the future as well.

Conclusion
This paper has examined the ‘anthropology of art’, and pursued its applicability withreference to Peirce’s philosophy. The conclusion to this paper can be stated in terms of following
two points. Firstly, Gell’s concept of the ‘extended mind’ has a particular kind of structure: an
infinitely nested and multi-layered structure of inner and outer selves. The agency is not confined
to particular time or space; it can be attributed to any layer of this structure, or even to thecollective whole of the structure. Secondly, Peirce’s index is especially significant in his semiotic
cosmology, because it stands for the evolutional backgrounds of the whole universe. When Gell’s
example of Maori meeting houses is understood as analogous to Peirce’s idea of the evolving
universe, the ‘anthropology of art’ can be revised to involve not only studies on human social
agencies but also agencies of ecological systems of organisms and physical materials.
When it comes to art, artistic activities such as art-creating actions and art-appreciating
actions can gain significance as reflective activities which request reconsideration on existing
indexes and reconstruct the understanding of collective agencies which are not confined to a

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particular time and space. This revision of the ‘anthropology of art’ suggests to artists,
philosophers of art, and art historians that the objects they are dealing with or studying can bereconstructed as the indexes mediating the ‘extended mind’ which may offer insights intoenormous evolving semiotic processes such as an ecological system --- or perhaps the whole
universe according to Peirce’s semiotics, though I cannot help admitting that this still sounds too
extravagant.
Notes
[1]
[2]
[3]

[4]
[5]

[6]

[7]
[8]
[9]
[10]

[11]

[12]
[13]

[14]
[15]
[16]
[17]

Gell, A. (1998) Art and Agency: An Anthropological Theory, Oxford University Press.
Cf. Morphy, H. (1994) “The Anthropology of Art”, in T. Ingold (ed.), Companion Encyclopedia of
Anthropology, Routledge, pp.648-85.
It may be arguable that this stance is similar to George Dickie’s institutional theory of art. In“Vogel’s Net”, Gell mentions the institutional theory as “a sociological theory rather than a truly
philosophical one” and argues “the objectionableness of Dickie’s theory from the standpoint oftraditional aesthetics is precisely what constitutes its appeal to the anthropologist” (Gell, A. (1999)"Vogel's Net", in Eric Hirsch (ed.), The Art of Anthropology: essays and diagrams, Athlone,
pp.187-214.).
Gell, A. (1992) “The Technology of Enchantment and the Enchantment of Technology”, in Jeremy
Coote and Anthony Shelton (ed.), Anthropology, Art, and Aesthetics, Oxford University Press.
Gell remarks that Howard Morphy is “understandably disinclined to accept the verdict of theWestern art world as to the definition of ‘art’ beyond the physical frontiers of the West”(AA, p.5),
even though Gell does not accept Morphy’s definition of art. See also Morphy, op.cit.
Peirce, C. S. (1998) Essential Peirce: Selected Philosophical Writings, vol.2 (1893-1913), edited by
the Peirce Edition Project, Indiana University Press, p.14. [Reference to this book is designated
EP2.]
EP2, p.231.
See also EP2, p.434-50.
See also EP2, p.226-41.
Gell suggests that not only creators of fine art but also children drawing in a classroom, and even
Mary Richardson, who slashed the Rokeby Venus in the National Gallery in London, can be
regarded as ‘Artists’ in Gell’s framework. See AA, pp.51-65.
In the original text (AA, p.52), this diagram is expressed as follows: [[Prototype-A] Artist-A]
Index-A]
Recipient-P. A is an abbreviation for agent, and P is for patient. Hyphens and lettersafter hyphens (A and P) are omitted in this paper for simplicity. Cf. AA, p.51.
Cited from AA, p.52, although ‘-A’s and ‘-P’s are omitted for simplicity.
Recipients may also be agents; for example, Gell suggests that patrons of certain artists can exercise
influence over the artworks. In addition, Gell mentions present-day gallery-goers, and argues“[t]hey do not feel passive; after all, entering a gallery is something they do voluntarily, out ofmotives which can certainly be attributed to their own social agency.”(AA, p.34)
Clark, A. and Chalmers, D. (1998) “The Extended Mind”, Analysis, vol.58, pp.10-23.
Gell refers to Neich, R. (1996) Painted Histories, Auckland University.
Gell refers to Dennett, D. C. (1981) “Artificial Intelligence as Philosophy and as Psychology”, inBrainstorms, MIT Press, pp.109-126.
‘Externalism’ and ‘Internalism’ are often discussed in the field of philosophy of mind. However,Gell does not mention basic articles in this field such as Putnam, H. (1975) “The meaning of‘meaning’”, in K. Gunderson (ed.), Language, Mind, and Knowledge, University of Minnesota

A Provocative Approach to the ‘Anthropology of Art’, with reference to C. S. Peirce

11

Press, pp.131-91, or Burge, T. (1979) “Individualism and the mental”, Midwest Studies in
Philosophy, vol.4, pp.73-122. It is therefore uncertain to what extent Gell is aware of implicationsof words such as ‘internalist’ and ‘externalist’ in the context of philosophy of mind.
[18] EP2, p.14.
[19] EP2, pp.193-4.
[20] One of the most comprehensive explanations of Peirce’s concept of reality can be found in EP2,
pp.177-195.

* This is the English version of my paper in Bigaku 64, no.1 (2013), pp.47-58, published by the JapaneseSociety for Aesthetics.