561 Richard Menary The Encultarated Hand 15 The Enculturated Hand Richard Menary 1 Introduction Sometimes we think with our hands. Is that an outrageous claim? What would make it less outrageous? Perhaps showing that mental concepts like intentionality are perfectly compatible with the claim would be a start. To establish this compatibility is the aim of the first section of this chapter. The compatability can be established by showing that a minimal intentional directedness can be found in the biological world. Animals are often intentionally directed at an object for some biologically specifiable end. This establishes the idea that an organism’s body can be intentionally directed without also needing a contentful representation to guide it. We then need a broad framework for understanding cognition in which the claim that we think with our hands makes sense. The framework I provide is one in which cognition is understood in terms of integration and enculturation. This is the aim of the second section. While the first section establishes that bodies can