0022 Do artifacts exist in themselves?

Of course they do.  And yet, they do not.

Hodder packs a lot of philosophy into a few pages of denial (in S2C1).  A thing does not exist outside of its relations.  That is to say, thingness does not matter if there is no flowness.

0023 Unfortunately, the term, “things in themselves”, has a pedigree in modern civilization.  Indeed, the philosophical term appears a few centuries after Aristotle’s hylomorphe fell out of favor, along with other scholastic terms, such as “substance”.  In the modern Age of Ideas, the term, “substance”, is a shadow of what it was during the premodern Latin Age.  Also, the term, “things in themselves” is highlighted in order for philosophers not to lose sight of it.

0024 The Latin term for “a thing in itself” is noumenon.

A noumenon’s observable and measurable facets are its phenomena.

Here is a diagram.

0025 Scientists observe and measure phenomena.

For years, scientists debated whether it really is necessary (as many philosophers insist) not to lose sight of the noumenon.  Why not just focus on phenomena?  After all, phenomena are what observations and measurements record.

0026 On one hand, phenomena must be attributed to something, and that something must exist independently of observations and measurements, so maybe one cannot escape the idea of things themselves.

0027 On the other hand, scientists observe and measure phenomena, then they build mathematical and mechanical models based on that data.  They use a precisely defined disciplinary language in order to do that.  So, why not say that the model is more important than the noumenon?

Indeed, some scientists go so far as to replace the noumenon in the above figure with a successful model.  The advantages is that the model (standing in for the noumenon) can be objectified as its phenomena.

0028 Of course, Hodder dismisses these fine points of debate because he wants so show that things and flow go together.  So, things in themselves cannot suddenly stand for the assemblages of activities that go into their artifactual construction, maintenance and discard.

Can they?

0029 Oh, they can.

0030 The first step in natural philosophy is to recognize that a thing corresponds to Peirce’s category of secondness.  Secondness consists of two contiguous real elements.  For Aristotle’s hylomorphe, the real elements are matter and form.  For scientific materialism, the real elements are cause and effect.

0032 The problem?

Aristotle’s hylomorphe cannot be reduced to a mechanical or mathematical model (or equation).  Many times, cause and effect can be.  There is a difference.

0033 Consider a old-fashioned pendulum clock.

As a noumenon, a clock’s phenomena support observations and measurements that can be precisely formulated by a mechanical model.  For all practical purposes, the model of the clock can substitute for the thing itself.

As a noumenon, nothing about the mechanical and efficient model of the clock can tell anyone what to do at three o’clock.

Does that sound like the substances of [thingness] and [flowness]?

0034 So, Aristotle’s matter and form expresses the first abstraction in natural philosophy in regards to the noumenon, not its phenomena.  Of course, when an inquirer performs the first abstraction, one must take phenomena into account.  After all, phenomena are the observable and measurable facets of a noumenon.  If the Kant-inspired sloganeers are correct, then phenomena cannot fully objectify Aristotle’s hylomorphe, as the first step in appreciating the thing itself.

0035 Indeed, in the second section of chapter one (S2C1), I discover that Hodder’s “entanglement” belongs to the noumenon, which implies that this book is an exercise in phenomenology.  Phenomenologists have a method for making very intelligent guesses as to the nature of the noumenon.  This helps scientists under conditions when the noumenon is either not present, lost in the mists of time, or very difficult to assess.  All three conditions apply to the archaeological excavation at Catal Hoyuk, which Dr. Hodder ran for years.

0036 May I say that again?

The above figure implies that entanglement belongs to the noumenon, the thing itself.  The first nine chapters are devoted to appreciating archaeological sites as resolved entanglements, where [thingness] associates to content and [flowness] goes with situation.

0037 May I add a comment?

A philosophical version of “entanglement” not only re-structures Hodder’s conceptual apparatus, but it puts scientific enterprise on notice.  Kant’s slogan constitutes ‘what is’ of the Positivist’s judgment.  This is discussed at length in Razie Mah’s four-part e-work Biosemiotics as Noumenon.

Now, with Hodder as a sounding board, I cannot ignore the possibility that what is of the Positivist’s judgment constitutes a confounding. 

0038 Here is a picture.

A noumenon, the thing itself, entangles its phenomena.

Well, at least its form does.

Does that explain why a noumenon cannot be objectified as its phenomena?

0039 If Hodder is on target, and the substance of things entangles the substance of flows, then the thingness of phenomena ends up initiating a flow that corresponds the empirio-schematic judgment, which is what ought to be of the Positivist’s judgment.

So, what am I saying?

Biosemiotics as Noumenon is implicated in Dr. Hodder’s discussion.

0040 The architecture of modern science recapitulates the architecture of Catal Hoyuk.

0041 Tell me whether the following seems vaguely familiar.

The question is, “What is a thing?”

The question is addressed in a recent article by Mariusz Tabaczek, eliciting a response by a capable semiotician, who posted a draft in the website academia.edu titled Response to Mariusz Tabaczek’s Article (2025) “Contemporary and Classical Versions of Hylomorphism”.

The response relies on the definition of “entanglement” developed in Razie Mah’s blog in December, 2025, titled Looking at Igor Pilshchikov and Mikhail Trunin’s Article (2016) “The Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics”.

The term, “entanglement” stands like a mirror of the term, “substantiation”, thereby confounding the structure of Peirce’s category of secondness.

0042 If it does, then smile.

There are two versions of entanglement, Hodder’s sociological version and Razie Mah’s Peircean version.  This examination shows how the latter complements the former..

0043 In chapter 1 (C1), the author argues that things and flows are entangled.

The following figure shows the process.  I will call Aristotle’s hylomorphe “the little noumenon”.  I will call the resolution of the entanglement “the big noumenon”.  Perhaps, “the middle noumenon” may be a better appellation.

0044 The little noumenon entangles matter.  That matter is a principle of unity.  The entanglement almost seems inevitable.  Of course, if the thing has form, than that form will entangle a principle of unity.  For example, a brick wall has form that exhibits a principle of unity that can be visually assessed, particularly when the wall starts to slump.  The wall is still there.  The principle of unity is compromised.  At some point, the issue must be addressed.

For the residents of Catal Hoyuk, the way that it is addressed is to coat the wall with plaster.

0045 What is going on in the assessment?

Well, the assessment involves the matter that goes into building the wall (mud-clay bricks)_2am and the shape of the wall_2af.  Bricks made of mud and clay have the correct structure to build a wall.  The question is whether they are disposed to keep that structure.

In short, the assessment may be diagrammed using Peirce’s category-based nested form.  An introduction may be found in Razie Mah’s e-works, A Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form and A Primer on Sensible and Social Construction.  After that introduction, the following nested form makes sense.

0046 The wall₂ emerges from (and situates) the potential of ‘the dispositions of the building materials’₁.

The normal context of structure₃ puts the actuality of the wall₂ into context.

The normal context of structure₃ brings the actuality of the wall₂ into relation with the potential of ‘the dispositions of the building materials’₁.

0047 Note how the little noumenon₂, the thing itself₂, enters the category-based nested form as either a single label₂ or as a hylomorphe₂.

The fact that a thing₂ may serve as an actuality₂ in a category-based nested form comports with the author’s claim that there is not such thing as a “thing in itself”.  This is a tricky aspect of a noumenon.  Does it take the title, “the thing itself”, even when it is an actuality₂ in a category-based nested form?  I suppose so.  Even worse, it₂ may be itself, only within in a category-based nested form.

0048 Consider the old-time mechanical clock, mentioned earlier.  The form of a clock_2af entangles a principle of unity (that is, time measurement)_2bm that serves as situation-level matter_2bm that substantiates (on the basis of flow) the embodiment of a schedule_2bf.  With a mechanical clock, a person_3b has the power_1b to be on time_3b.

So, a clock is a thing itself_2a on the basis of its normal context_3a and potential_1a.

0049 Here is the general picture of the middle noumenon, composed on content and situation levels, embedding the little noumenon_2a, the content-level actuality_2a.

0050 Not all entanglements resolve in this fashion.

0051 Nonetheless, I wonder, “What do the phenomena of archaeology consist of?”

When an archaeologist meticulously excavates a site, only things (for thingness) and clues (for flowness) are unearthed.

Here is a diagram.

0052 Does this suggest that Tabaczek’s philosophical exposition of classical and contemporary thought on Aristotle’s hylomporphe and Hodder’s proposal on the nature of entanglement offer pathways to express the character of Peirce’s category of secondness in so far as it is integrated into thirdness and firstness?

0053 In other words, the archaeologist finds artifacts_2a.  In terms of actuality_2a, the researcher will need to investigate matter_2am and form_2af.  Then, other clues allow the investigator to propose principles of unity_2bm and what the assemblages embody_2bf.

0054 In S3C1, Hodder discusses changing definitions of entanglement.

His original proposition, from 2012, associates “entanglement” to four types of relation between humans (H) and things (T).  These are (1) humans depend on things (HT), things depends on humans (TH), humans depend on humans (HH), and things depend on things (TT).

0055 This proposition now expands to include flows, as well as things.

0056 This raises the question, which portions of the two-level interscope associate to things?

The situation and content-level actualities do.

Then, what portions associate to humans?

It must be the normal contexts and potentials.

0057 This is sort of confusing.  Normal contexts and potentials concern things, but they are really mental processes in humans.  Is that another style of “entanglement”?  If so, this would be neither sociological or philosophical.  It would be psychological and existential.

0058 I now proceed with caution into an appreciation that (what Hodder calls) “dependence” engages the normal contexts₃ and potentials₁ within the following sensible construction.

0059 How do humans depend on a thing_2a?

They note its structure_3a and what it can do_1a.  Then, the identify a use_3b according to one of its powers_1b.

How do things_2a depend on humans?

Once the humans use a thing_2a, then they will continue to do so until something better comes along.  But, that ‘something’ has to be a lot better for humans to make the adjustment.

0060 Hodder mentions how pottery appears in the timeline of the excavation at Catal Hoyuk.

Three phases are present.

An early phase has little (or no) pottery.  But, they use clay for cooking.  How?  They make clay balls and place them in a cooking fire (in the house with plastered walls).  Then, they remove the heated clay ball and place it in a closed basket containing meat.  It is a time consuming way to cook.  The results are delicious.  Today, the process is called “sous vide”.

During a middle phase, pottery is used for cooking meat.  It is also used for making yogurt and cheese.  Cooking in a pot requires less attention than clay balls.  Clay pots are used for cooking and storage.

In the late phase, some pottery gets decorated.  Decorated clay pots are used for exchange.  Pot stands (used to display decorated pots) become fashionable.

0061 In S4C1, the author discusses the entanglement of things (TT).  The clay for clay pots is dug up in an area near the settlement that is also used for grazing sheep.  Clearly, the identity_3b and structure_3a of the resulting holes do not comport with the identity_3b and structure_3a of grazing sheep.  Nothing says “stupid” as much as a sheep and a hole in the ground.

0062 The content and situation levels for clay pots look perfectly sensible.  Of course, one would want to obtain clay from a nearby location.

The same levels for sheep do not.  Rather than embodiment_2bf, sheep stumble into nearby holes dug for clay.

0063 So, there is a situation-level entanglement.

0064 Grazing on grass_2bm [substantiates by way of flow] the embodiment of sheep_2bf.

The holes that interfere with the embodiment of sheep_2bf [entangle] what?

What is entangled?

0065 Surely, the process of making of clay pots (as matter) is entangled with the form of the embodiment of sheep_2bf. 

The process of making clay pots (as entangled matter) is not the same as containment (as situation-level matter) serving as the principle of unity_2bm.

0066 Two steps take place.

The content-level form_2af inspires (through the resolution of a content-level entanglement) a principle of unity_2am as situation-level matter.  The form of a clay_2af pot stands for the principle of containment_2bm.

The situation-level form_2bf inspires (through the resolution of a situation-level entanglement) a process_2cm as perspective-level matter.  The embodiment of clay pots_2bf stands for the principle of a process_2cf whereby clay is obtained from local sources.

0067 For sheep, the form of sheep_2af stands for the principle of grazing grass_2bm.

The embodiment of sheep_2bf stands for the principle of a process_2cm whereby sheep are pastured near the settlement.

0068 Thing-thing entanglement (TT) (C3), such as the one between obtaining clay for pots and setting pasture for sheep, implicates a perspective-level form_2cf.  That perspective-level form_2cf must be some kind of agreement, concerning the use of land around the settlement.

Similarly, thing-human entanglement (TH) (C4) produces a mutual dependence between human efforts (processes_2cm) and the embodiment of things_2bf.

0069 Here is a picture of the result, where the perspective-level actuality_2c contains the label “form_2cf“.

0070 Finally, human-thing entanglement (HT) (C2) may or may not bring processes_2cf to awareness, because [thingness] and [flowness] do not question [their perspective-level substance].

For example, an innovation may be required to figure out that one can cook food in a basket by adding clay balls heated in a fire.  Once the tradition is established, then there is no reason to deal with the perspective level.  The perspective level only comes into play when sensible construction (somehow) does not work well.

0071 So far, this examination presents a philosophical definition of entanglement that complements Hodder’s use of the term.  On top of that, there appears to be two confoundings that resolve in a very specific fashion.  The entangled matter actually (in secondness) belongs to the adjacent-higher level than the originating matter.

Here is a picture.

0072 Now, I would like to focus on the second confounding.

I would like to figure out a satisfying label for the perspective-level form_2cf.

0073 The general structure, as an extension of Tabaczek’s exploration into classical and contemporary hylomorphism, occupies the left side of the following diagram.

The example of sheep and pits dug in the pursuit of good clay occupies the right side.

0074 The author is not clear about this situation with respect to sheep that are grazed in the area that has pits dug out in pursuit of clay.  Really, can I expect an answer?  Catal Hoyuk goes out of business around 7500 years ago (radiocarbon dating).

There are clues.

Apparently reeds grasses (technically called “phragmites”) proliferate in wet areas, which could correspond to holes dug for clay.  In Figure 4.2 (S1C4), the author diagrams a process where reeds are used for roofing.  So, maybe the holes were not a problem, after all.  Maybe the scenario is even more complicated.  Do sheep eat phragmites?  I suspect that they do.

So, maybe sheep are not as stupid as I originally imagined.

The ones that go into the pits to eat the reeds, however, might not have a plan for getting out.

0075 So, humans have to constitute a plan, not an explicit plan, but a habit of action that constitutes a judgment. A process_2cm as matter [substantiates] a habit for checking whether sheep cannot get out of holes_2cf as form.  At the same time, the person checking the sheep can gather a bunch of reeds to keep the rooftop flush. 

0076 Here my picture of the resolution of the situation-level confounding.

A single process_2cm deals with both getting clay for pots_2am and the stupidity of sheep_2am.

0077 Note that the perspective-level contiguity is not [substantiates].  It is [affordance] or [affordness].  Affordness associates with the niche, which is the potential of ‘an actuality independent of the adapting species’₁.  Every thing in the digging holes for clay and grazing sheep in the same area saga offers a danger and an opportunity.  That danger or opportunity is called an “affordance”.  So, the awkward sounding, “affordness”, is not too far removed.

I will try not to fall into the pit of terminology.

0078 Hodder strives to capture a complex and nuanced appreciation of a suite of actualities that associate with the noumenon of archaeology, whose observable and measurable facets (or phenomena) are recorded during excavations.

He has only one word, “entanglement”.

0079 The following actualities come from a Peirce-based rearticulation of chapter one (C1) and touch on chapters two through four (C2-C4), on the basis of a Dominican’s recent survey of post-modern philosophers on the topic of Aristotle’s hylomorphism.

0080 These three actualities may be cast as “sensical_2a” (based on the senses), “sensible_2b” (based on one’s assessment of the situation) and “social_2c” (typically assumed to be operational, but one never knows when sensible construction will fail).

In the above figures, the three actualities are configured as “little_2a“, “middle_2b” and “big_2c” noumenon.

0081 The above figure presents a virtual-nested form in the realm of secondness.  The normal contexts₃ and potentials₁ do not appear, even though I may correctly claim that, without them, the actualities₂ cannot be correctly assessed.  Fortunately, I know what they are for the content and situation levels, because of Dr. Tabaczek’s fine review.  Unfortunately, the perspective-level normal context_3c and potential_1c remain unlabeled.

0082 What about those clay balls?

In section 2 of chapter 2 (S2C2), Hodder poses some questions.

Do humans depend on clay balls?

Do the clay balls depend on humans?

What does “dependence” mean?

0083 Four items are required: fire, clay ball, basket with lid and a hunk of meat.

Oh, one also needs sticks that will work as “tongs”.

0083 If this is a family-based operation, whoever is in charge of the clay ball must have the skill to “tong” the hot ball.

I don’t think that these sticks have ever been found in the ruins of Catal Hoyuk.  The baskets that hot clay balls go into have also not been found.

0084 Here is a picture of the first step for one of those items.

I suspect that archaeologists figure this out by various residues on excavated clay balls.  What a hot little noumenon the clay ball is.

0085 The author is completely on target with respect to the tong-wielding person and the clay ball.  They depend on one another.  That is the story of the first edition.  The second edition takes the situation under consideration.  The situation entangles things other than the hot clay ball.  Other things are necessary for the flow.

0086 The little noumenon entangles matter that enters the middle noumenon.

The entanglement resolves in the substance of flow.

0087 The middle noumenon may be labeled “a two-level interscope” or “a sensible construction”.

The sensible construction includes moments when a less-than-agile cook drops the hot clay ball, sending it rolling across the well plastered floor.

Such an incident does not make the two-level interscope any less sensible.

But, it is funny to imagine.

0088 Peirce’s category of secondness covers the entire drama.  But, the inquirer should not forget the attendant elements in thirdness and firstness, that are not included in the above diagram.

0098 In S3C2, the author admits that the perspective-level thing_2c is hard to imagine.

Years of corporate indoctrination… er… “education” have beat the potential to ‘contextualize identity_3b and structure_3a‘ out of us, only to insert other postulates of inevitability.

The author’s example is a tourist finding a lovely pebble on the beach during a stunningly beautiful sunset.  The pebble marks a moment.  Heidegger labels the moment “Dasein”.

The English translation is “You had to be there.”

0099 The tourist takes the pebble home, and places it on a tray of travel momentoes in the curio display cabinet.

Perhaps, it is unremarkable among the other travel momentoes.  The sunset was so beautiful that it lingers in the tourist’s dreams.

0100 Following the previously developed three-level interscope, here is a diagram of Hodder’s example of “reflective thought”.

0101 Notice anything interesting?

Where are the tourist’s family and friends?

0102 I guess that you had to be there.

The luminosity of Hodder’s theory of entanglement cannot be dimmed by the author’s sociological breakdown of HT, TH, HH and TT distinctions.  But, it can be parodied by examples such as this.

0103 The constitution of ‘where I’ve been’_2cf stands for little items that I’ve collected and placed in my curio_2am.

Plus, the curio cabinet as a ritual location for my travel memories_2af stands for the principle that ‘my travels have made me who I am’_2bm.

0104 How pathetic is that?

0105 Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) lives through the Second Battle among the Enlightenment Gods, the Hot War among Fraternal Ideologies (1939-1945) as the pre-eminent philosopher in Germany.  He gets tagged with working for the losing side.  Now, Hodder testifies that Heidegger was wrestling with issues relevant to eighty years in the future.

0106 How does one describe the substance of thingness?

Does the German label, “Dasein”, suffice?

Does the label, “ready to hand”, portray the way that flowness situates thingness.

Does the label, “present to hand”, portray the way that affordance contextualizes flowness?

Peirce’s categories provide a new “language” for speaking the terminology of Martin Heidegger… and… Ian Hodder, for that matter. 

0107 Heidegger pays no attention to the writings of the obscure American, Charles Peirce (1839-1914).  He has an excuse.  He lives in Germany during a civilizational crisis.

Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947), trains in and teaches mathematics in London before he accepts a professorship at Harvard in 1924 (at the tender age of 63).  Harvard University gave him an office near where Charles Peirce’s handwritten papers… er… “unpublished manuscripts” were kept.  In 1927, Whitehead publishes Symbolism: Its Meaning and Effects and delivers the Gifford Lectures that are later edited into the volume, Process and Reality.  These are the topics of interest to Hodder.

0108 Some of Peirce’s papers were purchased in 1914 by Josiah Royce (1855-1916).  When Royce suddenly died… well… that put an end to his efforts.  Peirce’s copious notes remained in an office at Harvard.

Replace the terms “little items” and “curio cabinet” in the above figure with “Peirce’s unpublished manuscripts in various empty offices” and “trunks stored in the library at Harvard University”, then adjust the narrative accordingly.

What if… like in a science fiction story… you had access to a curio cabinet where the tokens of memory told their stories to whoever picked them up?

Could anyone become family or friend?

0109 Section three of chapter two (S3C2) considers previous accounts of human dependence on things.  The author breaks his discussion into three topics.  The list of authors is not exhaustive.

0110 Being there with things concerns phenomenology. “Phenomenology” transliterates into “the logos of phenomena”.  This seems strange, because this “logos” (the “word”, so to speak) is the noumenon.  To me, Hodder’s treatment of entanglement, including the HT, TH, TT and HH dependencies, does not pose a mechanical or mathematical model.  It offers a guess as to what the noumenon must be.  Once the noumenon is clarified, then its phenomena can be observed and measured, resulting in positivist models.

0111 Material culture and materiality includes both Hegel’s thing and Marx’s thing, as well as later proposals by Simmel (on social interaction) and Gell (on agency).  In the following, I will only discuss Hegel and Marx.

Why?

They are entangled.

0112 Cognition and extended mind proposals are formulated while regarding recent advances in the neurosciences.  Neuroscience research is laboratory-oriented and may regard the human brain as matter and cognition as form.

0113 To me, the brain-cognition thing associates to – what Hegel called – spiritual arrangements.  It is just like the hot clay ball rolling towards the one pillar of the house that is “supported” by the skull of the cook’s father, recovered after decomposition, then covered with plaster.

One cannot deny the material arrangements of cooking a slab of meat.  At the same time, the rolling ball signifies another situation, where her brother’s son is like the rolling clay ball and her brother must now deal with it.  The agency of the ball speaks in tongs.

0114 Here are diagrams of Hegel’s and Marx’s things.

0115  While onlookers may offer smelling salts to philosophers who swoon over these simplifications, allow me to refer to Razie Mah’s blogs for December 2025, which details the entanglement of the things of Karl Marx (1818-1883) and Juri Lotman (1922-1993).  These two things, one materialist and one semiotic, also appear to be diametrically opposed.

They are not.  They are entangled.  Some of the implications are discussed by Razie Mah in four blogs posted on January 1, 2026 titled, Looking at Melinda A. Zeder’s Article (2025) “Unpacking the Neolithic”.

0116 As it turns out, Marx’s and Lotman’s things constitute a new Overton window for postmodern archaeology.

Does that mean that the above figure depicts the old Overton window?

I guess that depends how how one defines the term, “Overton window”.

Otherwise, the answer is “yes”.

0117 So how does Hegel’s thing end up entangling Marxist matter?

Here is a picture.

0118 Hegel’s and Marx’s things game the empirio-schematic judgment, in so far as they both consist of two contiguous real elements, which precisely fits Peirce’s category of secondness.  Secondness is the realm of actuality.

In the empirio-schematic judgment, a disciplinary language (relation, thirdness) brings mathematical and mechanical models (what ought to be, secondness) into relation with observations and measurements of phenomena (what is, firstness).  Note that mathematical and mechanical models are imbued with secondness, the realm of actuality.  This makes sense, because there are real elements on either side of an equal sign for any equation.  Mechanical models manifest cause and effect in truncated material and efficient manners.

Truncated?

The formal and final attributes of material and efficient causation go into the trunk.

The trunk ate it.

0119 Hegel’s and Marx’s things cannot be mechanically or mathematically modeled, even though anthropologists go to great lengths to imagine that they do.  That is because they are not models (in the natural science sense of the term).  They are expressions of what the noumenon must be. 

0120 What does that imply?

If phenomena are observable and measurable facets of their noumenon, and if the noumenon is not as obvious for the social sciences as it is for the physical sciences, then social scientists measure phenomena on the basis of what the noumenon must be.

0121 What better way to assess what the noumenon must be than to theoretically structure a social-science noumenon according to the structure of Peirce’s secondness?

Aristotle’s hylomorphe is an exemplar of Peirce’s secondness.

So are Hegel’s and Marx’s things.

0122 Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel is the first to propose a dyadic structure as a social noumenon.  Hegel’s thing reifies his insight that the normal context of a spirit₃ brings the actuality of a historical contradiction of any thesis by an antithesis₂ into relation with the possibility of ‘synthesis’₁.

History goes like this.  First, there is a thesis.  Then, contradictions within the thesis inspires an antithesis.  Then, for the longest time, people attuned to the thesis battle people attuned to the antithesis.  Then, the apparently insoluble conflict is put into context by a spirit₃ operating on the potential of a synthesis₁.  That synthesis₁ becomes the thesis₂ as a new system₃ constellates.

0123 Here is a picture of Hegel’s category-based nested form.

I should say “forms”, because there are two of them (U and L).

0124 Now, I depict the trajectory of a historical entanglement and its resolution.

0125 The upper category-based nested form (U) describes the civilizational changes that fascinated Hegel.

0126 How does this nested form pack into Hegel’s thing?

To me, the normal context of spirit₃ and the potential of ‘synthesis’₁ go into matter that substantiate the long-lived “human condition”, where thesis and antithesis are locked in contradiction₂ as form.

0127 So, the overall picture of the human condition₂ (as form) is that the spirit₃ and its synthesis₁, which created our Zeitgeist in a remarkable thesis, must be preserved (as matter), but is subject to disagreements about what this remarkable insight really means (as form, again).

0128 The lower category-based nested form (L) describes a civilizational stasis that Marx instantly recognized.

If Hegel’s spirit₃ operates on the possibility of ‘synthesis’₁, then a civilization-exploiting elite₃ will try to ensure that there is no possible resolution₁ to the social conflict₂ that their party benefits from.

0129 An elite party infiltrates institutions in society_C.  Then, elite institutions_C promulgate a thesis that calls for individuals in community_A to join organizations_B that are under management by the elites_C.  Individuals resisting material and instrumental exploitation in an organizational setting produce the antithesis, which unfortunately, gets co-opted by the elite.

0130 So, a thesis is promulgated by elites and its antithesis is co-opted by elites.  The result is that the spirit₃ cannot constellate a synthesis₁.  The system₃ continues as long as there is no potential for a ‘synthesis’ that collapses the promulgated thesis and its co-opted antithesis.

Perhaps, the best way to thwart the spirit₃ is to obsessively focus on material arrangements.

Imagine someone so twisted as to propose that material arrangements are … um… spiritual arrangements.

Imagine the education required forth that.

0131 To me, the downside of Hegel’s nested form (that is, the Marxist nested form) overlays a three-tier nested form, where the society_C tier  brings the organization_B tier into relation with the potential of ‘the individual in community_A tier‘.

Hmmm, maybe I am off target in that impression.

The condition of the individual looks bleak, to say the least.

0132 The upper and lower (U and L) category-based nested forms can reify into things.  Clearly, Hegel’s and Marx’s things are different, because each focuses on one or the other version of two entangled category-based nested forms. 

0133 I derive Hegel’s and Marx’s things from their category-based nested forms for two reasons.

First, the discussion shows that not all confoundings resolve into interscopes.  There are many ways for a confounding to resolve.  For this reason, confoundings can present opportunities and dangers.

Second, Hodder’s argument is bound between these two things.

0134 In other words, Hegel’s and Marx’s things_2c constitute the Overton window_2a for Hodder’s discussion of entanglement as a principle of unity_2bm.

0135 Of course, my digression into the phenomenology of Hodder’s early chapters, may seem a little shocking, especially the part about the author’s cognitive processing_2cm staying within the bounds of an Overton window framed by Hegel and Marx.

0136 To me, the text tells the tale.

For example, the title of chapter 2 (C2), “Humans Depend on Things”, reflects Hegel’s thing, because humans provide the spiritual₃ (or cognitive₃) synthesis₁ that substantiates processes (theses) in the face of difficulties (anti-theses)₂.

The titles of chapter three (C3), “Things Depend on Other Things”, and four (C4), “Things Depend on Humans”, reflects Marx’s point of view, because the interdependence of established things and the vulnerability of established things draw people into organization_B.

The title of chapter five (C5) “Humans Depend on Humans” completes the transit from Hegel to Marx by suggesting that a system_C that thwarts the potential of ‘escaping from a sociological entanglement’_A transforms entanglement_B into entrapment_B.

0137 Read on, because the path from Hegel to Marx overlays a much more significant, semiotic, turn.

0138 Now, I consider chapters three and four (C3 and C4) in earnest.

0139 Do humans depend on things (C2)?

Archaeology, unlike many of the contemporary humanities, must reach out to the empirical (or “natural” or “physical and biological”) sciences in order to figure out how humans convert stuff_2am into artifacts_2af  in the normal context of structure_3a, operating on the potential of ‘the dispositions of things’_1a.

0140 Humans depend on things_2a to structure_3a their lives_3b (identities_3b).

0141 This dependence has a deep evolutionary history.  Unfortunately… or some would say… fortunately, stone tools serve as archaeological evidence for human entanglement with things. 

Stone tools are the tip of an iceberg of adaptive tool-use.

If Michael Tomasello is on target in saying that our genus evolves under conditions of obligatory collaborative foraging (especially in the span from bipedalism to the domestication of fire), followed by adding obligatory social-circle harmonizing (from the domestication of fire to say… 8800 years ago), then there are two social circles strongly concerned with things.  These social circles are the team (15) and the community (150).

0142 Razie Mah’s two-part e-book, Comments on Michael Tomasello’s Arc of Inquiry (1999-2019) serves as a reference.

0143 Our ancestors adapt, not to “things themselves”, but to the category-based nested forms that treat things_2a as {matter [substantiating] form}_2a.

0144 Hodder’s great insight is that things entangle humans in mutual dependencies (C4).

This includes the fact that one thing_2a, such as a composite tool made of stone and wood, may depend on many things (C3).  A thing may depend on the sequence in which it is made.  There is an art to structuring_3a a thing_2a according to the dispositions of its ingredients_1a.

0145 Structure_3a is situated by the power_1b to do something based on a principle of unity_2bm.  That unity_2bm substantiates the embodiment of a composite tool_2bf.  The form_2bf“formalizes” an identity_3b.  Identity_3b also applies to the person_3b affiliated with the tool_2bf.

0146 In order to portray the idea that things depend on things (as well as their dispositions_1a), the author presents Figure 3.2, containing a network of things_2a and qualities_1a associated with wall plaster in the houses at Catal Hoyuk.  Here is my reproduction of a portion.

0147 My selection of items emphasizes that one of the functions of plaster as a wall outer layer is to support paint that turns the wall white, allowing daylight and moonlight to illuminate living spaces.  Each of these items associate to one of the six elements in the two-level interscope of structure_3a and identity_3b.

0148 The two-level interscope is a sensible construction.  Sensible construction presumes that a perspective level applies, even though one cannot articulate what the perspective-level may be.

Sensible construction resolves a content-level entanglement.

0149 I want to add two points (O and P).

0150 First (O), the sensible construction involves only implicit abstraction, as opposed to explicit abstraction.  Razie Mah’s Primer on Implicit and Explicit Abstraction applies here.  Implicit abstraction is an adaptation that exploits two of Peirce’s three natural signs: icon and index.

All signs are triadic relations where a sign-vehicle (SV) stands for a sign-object (SO) in regards to a sign-interpretant (SI).  Icons are natural signs where the sign-object (SO) is based on imagery, similarity, pantomime, and so forth.  Indexes are natural signs where the sign-object is based on contiguity, indication, pointing, and so forth.  Icons and indexes associate to implicit abstraction because their sign-vehicles appear to image and indicate their referents, even after routinization (which is where the third natural sign, symbol, comes into play.  Symbols are natural signs where the sign-object is based on habit, agreement, convention and so on.)

0151 Second, Latin Age scholastics were interested in distinguishing ens reale (mind-independent being, associated with things) and ens rationis (mind-dependent being, associated with humans).  Only in the 1600s, after over three centuries of debate, do the scholastics (who are now labeled “Baroque”, because, like late-modern Spain, they ended up “broke”) come up with the definition of the sign as a triadic relation.  Charles Peirce figures out his definition from reading the Baroque scholastics.

The scholastics are of interest because they explicitly distinguished two of the three sign-relations that are contained within a three-level interscope.  In particular, the specifying sign-relation (technically called “specificative extrinsic or intrinsic formal causality”) associates to sensible construction in the following manner.

0152 The reference is Razie Mah’s blog for October 2023, titled Looking at John Deely’s Book (2010) “Semiotic Animal”.

0153 For the ongoing example, for the households of Catal Hoyuk, plaster and paint_2af (SV_s) stands for the light of the sun and moon entering the home_2bm (SO_s) in regards to the identity of the home_3a operating on ‘the power of the surfacing to scatter light through its whiteness’_1b (SI_s).

0154 This connection is crucial, because it shows that Hodder’s thesis has evolutionary roots as deep as hand talk.  Hand talk is an adaptation to team activities, particularly in the span from the start of bipedalism to the domestication of fire.  This early stage is pre-linguistic because it only allows sensible construction.  It operates solely on the basis of specifying sign-relations.

0155 The supposition that words picture or point to their referents is so deeply ingrained in the human evolutionary experience, that today, when an inquirer hears the word, “entanglement”, the presumption is that the form of the spoken term_2af (SV_s) stands for a principle that gives unity_2bm to a real embodiment_2bf (SO_s) in regards to the word’s identity_3a operating on the potential of ‘the power of the spoken word’_1b (SI_s).

0156 Specifically, the forms of HT, TH, TT and HH dependencies_2af (SV_s) stand for entanglement as a principle of unity_2bm (SO_s) in regards to hominin identity_3a operating on the potential of ‘human powers_1b (SI_s).