Cultural Objects

'Both artifacts and other human bodies raise the question of how it is possible to see human thoughts and projects by looking at a physical object. Nevertheless, there are important differences between two cases. To see an artifact is to feel the presence of other humans, but as we saw above, the others may not actually be present. To see another living human body, in contrast, is to experience the actual presence of another self. Moreover, other people are the subjects of thoughts and projects, whilst artifacts are not. Merleau-Ponty also notes that the problem of other selves is more fundamental than that of cultural objects. Plasibly, one first comes to see cultural objects as distinctively human by perceiving the human behaviour in which they are used or produced. After time, the artifacts appear as the sediments of such activity. Cultural objects that one has never seen in use will also appear as behavioural sediments in virtue of their similarity to those one has seen used. However, this explanation presupposes an analysis of how one sees behaviour as manifesting another's thoughts and projects. It follows that an account of other selves is prior to an accout of cultural objects. '

---  Merleau-Ponty and Phenomenology of Perception