André Leroi-Gourhan
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André Leroi-Gourhan (August 25, 1911 – February 19, 1986) was a French archaeologist, paleontologist, paleoanthropologist, and anthropologist with an interest in technology and aesthetics.
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[edit] Technicity, ethnicity, milieu
In L'Homme et la matière (1943), Leroi-Gourhan proposes the concept of technical tendencies, that is, universal technical dynamics that operate independently of the ethnic groupings which are nevertheless the only forms through which these tendencies are concretised. The concretisation of the technical tendency in a particular ethnicity he calls a technical fact.
In Milieu et techniques (1945), Leroi-Gourhan develops this into a general theory of the relation between the technical (as universal tendency) and the ethnic (as specific, differentiated concretisation). The human group, according to Leroi-Gourhan, behaves as though it were a living organism, assimilating its exterior milieu via "a curtain of objects," which he also calls an "interposed membrane" and an "artificial envelope," that is, technology. The milieu of the organism is divisible into the exterior milieu (geography, climate, animals and vegetation) and the interior milieu (the shared past of the group, thus "culture," etc.). This division enables a clarification of the concept of technical tendency. A tendency, according to Leroi-Gourhan, is a movement, within the interior milieu, that gains progressive foothold in the exterior milieu.
[edit] Evolution, memory, program
Crucial to Leroi-Gourhan's understanding of human evolution is the notion that the transition to bipedality freed the hands for grasping, and the face for gesturing and speaking, and thus that the development of the cortex, of technology, and of language all follow from the adoption of an upright stance. What characterises humanity in its distinction from animals is thus the fact that tools and technology are a third kind of memory (in addition to the genetic memory contained in DNA and the individual memory of the nervous system), and thus a new form of anticipation, or programming. Anthropogenesis corresponds to technogenesis.
[edit] Influence
The French philosopher Jacques Derrida discusses Leroi-Gourhan in Of Grammatology (Baltimore & London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997, corrected edition), in particular the concepts of "exteriorization," "program," and "liberation of memory" (see entries on différance and deconstruction).
Leroi-Gourhan's work has also influenced the French philosopher Bernard Stiegler, who gives an extensive reading of Leroi-Gourhan in his book, Technics and Time, 1: The Fault of Epimetheus (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998).
[edit] Bibliography
Major works:
- L'Homme et la matière (Paris: Albin Michel, 1943).
- Milieu et techniques (Paris: Albin Michel, 1945).
- Le geste et la parole (Paris: Albin Michel, 1964-65). Translation: Gesture and Speech (Cambridge, Massachusetts & London: MIT Press, 1993).
- Les religions de la Préhistoire (Paris: PUF, 1964).
- Préhistoire de l'art occidental (Paris: Mazenod, 1965).
Also available in English:
- Prehistoric Man (New York: Philosophical Library, 1957).
- The Dawn of European Art: An Introduction to Palaeolithic Cave Painting (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982).
