Danto, Dutton, and our preunderstanding of tribal art and artifacts
pp. 39-52
in: Carol C. Gould, Robert S. Cohen (eds), Artifacts, representations and social practice, Berlin, Springer, 1994Abstract
How can we understand the art and artifacts of tribal societies, given that the ethnocentric label "tribal" implies that those societies are radically different from our own culturally and conceptually? To begin with, how do we know whether tribal people make an art/artifact distinction? If they do, is it the same as ours? If not, how can we correctly understand what seem to us to be their art and artifacts?
