The domain of early hominin stone tool making and tool using abilities has received little scholarly attention in mainstream philosophy of technology. This is despite the fact that archeological evidence of stone tools is widely seen today as a crucial source of information about the evolution of human cognition. There is a considerable archeological literature on the cognitive dimensions of specific hominin technical activities. However, within archeology and the study of human evolution the standard perception is stone tools are mere (...) products of the human mind. A number of recent approaches to cognition challenges this simplistic one-way-causal-arrow view and emphasizes instead the functional efficiency of tools or artifacts in transforming and augmenting human cognitive capacities. As a result, the very idea that tools or artifacts are intimately tied to human cognitive processes is fast becoming an alternative within the cognitive sciences and a few allied disciplines. The present study intends to explore its implications for philosophy of technology. The central objective of this paper is to examine the dynamic and intricate tool-mediated activities of the early hominins through the lens of Don Ihde’s post-phenomenological theory of human-technology relations and Lambros Malafouris’ Material Engagement Theory. Highlighting the key points where these two research approaches, despite their subtle nuances, converge and look capable of mutually catalyzing each other, the paper attempts to show why it is important to bring these approaches together for a more refined understanding of the controversial role these stone tools played in human evolution. (shrink)

The paper discusses the thesis of extended belief and its implications for the possibility of extending ordinary, personal level knowledge. A common worry is that knowledge will overextend, that there will be ‘cognitive bloat’. If the subject’s standing beliefs can be realized in devices such as notebooks and smart phones, what is there to prevent the conclusion that she knows everything stored on such devices? One response to this worry is to block the move from belief to knowledge, and argue (...) that these externally stored beliefs, although reliable, do not qualify as knowledge. I argue, instead, that the fundamental problem arises at the level of belief. We prevent bloating of knowledge by preventing the bloating of belief. To do so, I argue, we need to take seriously Clark and Chalmers’ suggestion that what is distinctive of belief is its role in folk psychological explanations. Paying attention to this role shows that the usual examples, such as Otto’s notebook information, do not qualify as beliefs. To qualify, the external information would have to be much more directly connected to, and deeply integrated into, the subject’s overall system of beliefs and desires. (shrink)

We consider the symbol grounding problem, and apply to it philosophical arguments against Cartesianism developed by Sellars and McDowell: the problematic issue is the dichotomy between inside and outside which the definition of a physical symbol system presupposes. Surprisingly, one can question this dichotomy and still do symbolic computation: a detailed examination of the hardware and software of serial ports shows this.

This paper provides an overview over the debate about so-called “situated approaches to cognition” that depart from the intracranialism associated with traditional cognitivism insofar as they stress the importance of body, world, and interaction for cognitive processing. It sketches the outlines of an overarching framework that reveals the differences, commonalities, and interdependencies between the various claims and positions of second-generation cognitive science, and identifies a number of apparently unresolved conceptual and ontological issues.

Many economic theorists hold that social institutions can lead otherwise irrational agents to approximate the predictions of traditional rational choice theory. But there is little consensus on how institutions do so. I defend an economic internalist account of the institution-actor relationship by explaining economic rationality as a feature of individuals whose decision-making is aided by institutional structures. This approach, known as the subjective transaction costs theory, represents apparently irrational behavior as a rational response to high subjective transaction costs of thinking (...) and deciding. The theory has two attractive features. First, it reconciles rational choice theory with the increasing body of evidence cataloguing putative errors in economic decision-making. Second, it vindicates the explanatory power of individual choice against externalist challenges; the subjective transaction costs theory keeps economic rationality in the head. (shrink)

The concept of an extended cognitive system is central to contemporary studies of cognition. In the paper I analyze the place of the epistemic subject within the extended cognitive system. Is it extended as well? In answering this question I focus on the differences between the first and the second wave of arguments for the extended mind thesis. I argue that the position of Cognitive Integration represented by Richard Menary is much more intuitive and fruitful in analyses of cognition and (...) knowledge than the early argument formulated by Andy Clark and David Chalmers. Cognitive Integration is compatible with virtue epistemology of John Greco’s agent reliabilism. The epistemic subject is constituted by its cognitive character composed of an integrated set of cognitive abilities and processes. Some of these processes are extended, they are a manipulation of external informational structures and, as such, they constitute epistemic practices. Epistemic practices are normative; to conduct them correctly the epistemic subject needs to obey epistemic norms embedded in the cultural context. The epistemic subject is not extended because of the casual coupling with external informational artifacts which extend his mind from inside the head and into the world. Rather, cognitive practices constitute the subject’s mind, they transform his cognitive abilities, and this is what makes the mind and epistemic subject “extended”. (shrink)

(No abstract is available for this citation).

This paper aims to expand the range of empirical work relevant to the extended cognition debates. First, I trace the historical development of the person-situation debate in social and personality psychology and the extended cognition debate in the philosophy of mind. Next, I highlight some instructive similarities between the two and consider possible objections to my comparison. I then argue that the resolution of the person-situation debate in terms of interactionism lends support for an analogously interactionist conception of extended cognition. (...) I argue that this interactionism might necessitate a shift away from the dominant agent-artifact paradigm toward an agent–agent paradigm. If this is right, then social and personality psychology—the discipline(s) that developed from the person-situation debate—opens a whole new range of empirical considerations for extended cognition theorists which align with Clark & Chalmers original vision of agents themselves as spread into the world. (shrink)

The proponents of embodied cognition often try to present their research program as the next step in the evolution of standard cognitive science. The domain of standard cognitive science is fairly clearly circumscribed (perception, memory, attention, language, problem solving, learning). Its ontological commitments, that is, its commitments to various theoretical entities, are overt: cognition involves algorithmic processes upon symbolic representations. As a research program, embodied cognition exhibits much greater latitude in subject matter, ontological commitment, and methodology than does standard cognitive (...) science. The proponents of embodied cognition to explain the aspects of human cognition are using the importance of embodied interaction with the environment, which is a dynamic relation. The cause of disagreement between these two approaches is regarding the role assumed by the notion of representation. The discussion about the contrast between embodied cognition and standard cognitive science is incomplete without Gibson’s ecological theory of perception and connectionist account of cognition. I will briefly contrast these important theories with computational view of cognition, highlighting the debate over role of representation. Embodied cognition has incorporated rather extensively a variety of insights emerging from research both in ecological psychology and in connectionism. The way I have followed to contrast embodied cognition with standard cognitive science, involves concentration on those several themes that appear to be prominent in the body of work that is often seen as illustrative of embodied cognition. This strategy has the advantage of postponing hard questions about “the” subject matter, ontological commitments, and methods of embodied cognition until more is understood about the particular interests and goals that embodied cognition theorists often pursue. This approach might show embodied cognition to be poorly unified, suggesting that the embodied cognition label should be abandoned in favor of several labels that reflect more accurately the distinct projects that have been clumped together under a single title. Alternatively, it might show that, in fact, there are some overarching commitments that bring tighter unity to the various bodies of work within embodied cognition that seem thematically only loosely related. The contrast between these two approaches is highlighted not only the basis of a priori argument but major experiments have been mentioned, to show the weight of the assumptions of both the contrasting approaches. (shrink)

The proponents of embodied cognition often try to present their research program as the next step in the evolution of standard cognitive science. The domain of standard cognitive science is fairly clearly circumscribed (perception, memory, attention, language, problem solving, learning). Its ontological commitments, that is, its commitments to various theoretical entities, are overt: cognition involves algorithmic processes upon symbolic representations. As a research program, embodied cognition exhibits much greater latitude in subject matter, ontological commitment, and methodology than does standard cognitive (...) science. The proponents of embodied cognition to explain the aspects of human cognition are using the importance of embodied interaction with the environment, which is a dynamic relation. The cause of disagreement between these two approaches is regarding the role assumed by the notion of representation. The discussion about the contrast between embodied cognition and standard cognitive science is incomplete without Gibson’s ecological theory of perception and connectionist account of cognition. I will briefly contrast these important theories with computational view of cognition, highlighting the debate over role of representation. Embodied cognition has incorporated rather extensively a variety of insights emerging from research both in ecological psychology and in connectionism. The way I have followed to contrast embodied cognition with standard cognitive science, involves concentration on those several themes that appear to be prominent in the body of work that is often seen as illustrative of embodied cognition. This strategy has the advantage of postponing hard questions about “the” subject matter, ontological commitments, and methods of embodied cognition until more is understood about the particular interests and goals that embodied cognition theorists often pursue. This approach might show embodied cognition to be poorly unified, suggesting that the embodied cognition label should be abandoned in favor of several labels that reflect more accurately the distinct projects that have been clumped together under a single title. Alternatively, it might show that, in fact, there are some overarching commitments that bring tighter unity to the various bodies of work within embodied cognition that seem thematically only loosely related. The contrast between these two approaches is highlighted not only the basis of a priori argument but major experiments have been mentioned, to show the weight of the assumptions of both the contrasting approaches. (shrink)

This paper combines perspectives from different disciplines to open up an interdisciplinary view on basic processes of human interaction. Part I addresses problematic assumptions of dominating theories of mind and limits of phenomenological description. Part II presents findings from social psychological and neuroscientific experiments on sensomotor synchronization. These experiments were carried out at levels of experiencing, behavior/kinematics, organic functions, and neurophysiology. Novel approaches that study intercerebral processes in musicians who interact face-to-face are particularly relevant: parts of non-identical brains function like (...) temporarily coupled units. Part III discusses methodological issues and presuppositions of these experimental approaches as well as of current theories of mind. The findings from social psychology and neuroscience can serve to explicate phenomenological concepts and to complement descriptions, in particular of prereflective intentionality. Vice versa, the phenomenological view helps to critically examine limits and assumptions of empirical approaches and philosophical theories of mind. The presented findings on sensomotor and intercerebral synchronization corroborate phenomenological views of direct intercorporeal intersubjectivity, which provide an alternative to accounts that rely on simulation, representation, and inferential processes. (shrink)

The psychology and phenomenology of our knowledge of other minds is not well captured either by describing it simply as perception, nor by describing it simply as inference. A better description, I argue, is that our knowledge of other minds involves both through ‘perceptual co-presentation’, in which we experience objects as having aspects that are not revealed. This allows us to say that we perceive other minds, but perceive them as private, i.e. imperceptible, just as we routinely perceive aspects of (...) physical objects as unperceived. I discuss existing versions of this idea, particularly Joel Smith’s, on which it is taken to imply that our knowledge of other minds is, in these cases, perceptual and not inferential. Against this, I argue that perceptual co-presentation in general, and mind-perception in particular, yields knowledge that is simultaneously both perceptual and inferential. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that the increasing data about non-genetic inheritance requires the construction of a new conceptual framework that should complement the inclusive approaches already discussed in the literature. More precisely, I hold that this framework should be epistemologically relevant for evolutionary biologists in capturing the limits of extended inheritance and in reassessing the boundaries of biological systems that transmit traits to their offspring. I outline the first elements of an organizational account of extended inheritance. In this account, (...) the category of inherited factors is neither restricted to genes nor extended to stable resources related to trans-generational similarities. Instead, it includes persisting constitutive elements appearing as difference makers for heterogeneous organizational constraints, namely for heterogeneous constitutive parts whose specific role is to harness flows of matter and energy across generations of clearly delimited extended organized systems. This both inclusive and restrictive framework opens an additional way to apprehend how extended inheritance may affect evolutionary trajectories. (shrink)

: Artificial intelligences and robots increasingly mimic human mental powers and intelligent behaviour. However, many authors claim that ascribing human mental powers to them is both conceptually mistaken and morally dangerous. This article defends the view that artificial intelligences can have human-like mental powers, by claiming that both human and artificial minds can be seen as extended minds – along the lines of Chalmers and Clark’s view of mind and cognition. The main idea of this article is that the Extended (...) Mind Model is independently plausible and can easily be extended to artificial intelligences, providing a solid base for concluding that artificial intelligences possess minds. This may warrant viewing them as morally responsible agents. Keywords: Artificial Intelligence; Mind; Moral Responsibility; Extended Cognition Intelligenze artificiali come menti estese. Perché no? Riassunto: Intelligenze artificiali e robot simulano in misura sempre crescente le capacità mentali e i comportamenti intelligenti umani. Molti autori, tuttavia, sostengono che attribuire loro capacità mentali umane sia concettualmente errato e moralmente pericoloso. In questo lavoro si difende l’idea per cui le intelligenze artificiali possano avere capacità mentali simili a quelle umane, sostenendo che menti umane e artificiali possano essere considerate come menti estese – sulla scorta della prospettiva di Chalmers e Clark circa la mente e la cognizione. L’idea principale alla base di questo lavoro è che il Modello della Mente Estesa abbia plausibilità a prescindere e che possa essere facilmente esteso alle intelligenze artificiali, fornendo una base solida per concludere che le intelligenze artificiali possiedano delle menti e si possano considerare come agenti moralmente responsabili. Parole chiave: Intelligenza artificiale; Mente; Responsabilità morale; Conoscenza estesa. (shrink)

Standard models of visual perception hold that vision is an inferential or interpretative process. Such models are said to be superior to competing, non-inferential views in explanatory power. In particular, they are said to be capable of explaining a number of otherwise mysterious, visual phenomena such as multi-stable perception. Multi-stable perception paradigmatically occurs in the presence of ambiguous figures, single images that can give rise to two or more distinct percepts. Different interpretations are said to produce the different percepts. In (...) this paper, I argue that a non-inferential account of visual perception is just as capable of explaining multi-stable perception. I propose an embedded understanding of vision, and show how the embedded account can, after properly qualifying them, use the explanatory resources of the inferential view to explain just what such a view explains. (shrink)

Philosophers of perception widely agree that sensory properties, like color, are represented in perceptual experience. Arguments are usually needed to establish that something other than sensory properties, for example three-dimensional objects or kind properties, are part of perceptual content. Call the idea that sensory properties are represented in perceptual experience the Sensation View (SV). Given its widespread acceptance, we may expect to find strong reasons for holding SV. In this paper, I argue that we lack such reasons: SV is largely (...) unjustified. We have surprisingly poor justification for thinking that sensory properties are represented in perception. By focusing on the case of vision, I show that an embedded understanding of visual perception, and empirical evidence in cognitive psychology, indicate that SV is far from warranted. (shrink)

The extended mind thesis states that the mind is not brain-bound but extends into the physical world. The philosophical debate around the thesis has mostly focused on extension towards epistemic artefacts, treating the phenomenon as a special capacity of the human organism to recruit external physical resources to solve individual tasks. This paper argues that if the mind extends to artefacts in the pursuit of individual tasks, it extends to other humans in the pursuit of collective tasks. Mind extension to (...) other humans corresponds essentially to the ‘we-mode’ of cognition, the unique power of human minds to be jointly directed at goals, intentions, states of affairs, or values. Because the capacity for collective intentionality holds evolutionary and developmental primacy over human-epistemic artefacts relations, the extended mind should not be seen as a special phenomenon, but as a central aspect of the human condition. The original extended mind thesis carried important implications for how the cognitive sciences should proceed. In a version of the thesis that accommodates collective intentionality, these implications would go far deeper than originally assumed. (shrink)

In discussing the famous case of Otto, a patient with Alzheimer’s disease who carries around a notebook to keep important information, Clark and Chalmers argue that some of Otto’s beliefs are physically realized in the notebook. In other words, some of Otto’s beliefs are extended into the environment. Their main argument is a functionalist one. Some of Otto’s beliefs are physically realized in the notebook because, first, some of the beliefs of Inga, a healthy person who remembers important information in (...) her head, are physically realized in her internal memory storage, and, second, there is no relevant functional difference between the role of the notebook for Otto and the role of the internal memory storage for Inga. The paper presents a new objection to this argument. I call it “the systems reply” to the functionalist argument since it is structurally analogous to the “the systems reply” to Searle’s Chinese room argument. According to the systems reply to the functionalist argument, what actually follows from their argument is not that beliefs of Otto are physically realized in the notebook but rather that the beliefs of the hybrid system consisting of Otto and his notebook are physically realized in the notebook. This paper also discusses Sprevak’s claim that the functionalist argument entails radical versions of extended mental states and shows that his argument is also vulnerable to the systems reply. (shrink)

: In this paper I approach the problem of the boundaries and location of consciousness in a strictly physicalist way. I start with the debate on extended cognition, pointing to two unresolved issues: the ontological status of cognition and the fallacy of the center. I then propose using identity to single out the physical basis of consciousness. As a tentative solution, I consider Mind-Object Identity and compare it with other identity theories of mind. Keywords: Extended Mind; Spread Mind; Enactivism; Cognition; (...) Consciousness; Mind-Object Identity; Identity I confini e la localizzazione della coscienza secondo le teorie dell’identità Riassunto: In questo lavoro tratterò il problema dei confini e della localizzazione della coscienza in termini strettamente fisicalisti. Prenderò le mosse dal dibattito sulla cognizione estesa, portando l’attenzione su due questioni irrisolte: lo status ontologico della cognizione e la fallacia del centro. Proporrò quindi di usare l’identità per individuare la base fisica della coscienza. Come possibile soluzione, prenderò in considerazione la Mind-Object Identity, confrontandola con oltre teorie dell’identità della mente. Parole chiave: Mente estesa; Mente diffusa; Enattivimo; Cognizione; Coscienza; Mind-Object Identity; Identità. (shrink)

For a group to be an agent, it must be individuated from its environment and other systems. It must, in other words, be an individual. Despite the central importance of individuality for understanding group agency, the concept has been significantly overlooked. I propose to fill this gap in our understanding of group individuality by arguing that agents are autonomous as it is commonly understood in the enactive literature. According to this autonomous individuation account, an autonomous system is one wherein the (...) constituent processes of the system actively produce and sustain that self-same system, which will run down or fail if any of these constituent processes cease. This definition of autonomy provides us with a precise and operational account of the individuality of group agents. I will then compare this account to those of Carol Rovane and Raimo Tuomela to argue that it offers the best explanation of what kinds of groups are group agents. (shrink)

There has been a resurgence of interest lately within philosophy of mind and action in the category of mental action. Against this background, the present paper aims to question the very possibility, or at least the theoretical significance, of teasing apart mental and bodily acts. After raising some doubts over the viability of various possible ways of drawing the mental act/bodily act distinction, the paper draws some lessons from debates over embodied cognition, which arguably further undermine the credibility of the (...) distinction. The insignificance of the distinction is demonstrated in part by showing how the focus on ‘inner’ acts hampers fruitful discussion of Galen Strawson’s skepticism of mental agency. Finally, the possibility is discussed that a distinction between covert and overt action should supplant the one between mental and bodily action. (shrink)

In this paper, we describe causal powers realism as a conjunction of four claims: causal powers are not reducible to counterfactuals; they are empirically-discoverable; they manifest effects in conjunction with partners; and their manifestations empower further manifestations. We describe four challenges to extended mind theory and for each show how an ontology of causal powers realism either avoids or dissolves the problem. We close by suggesting that causal powers realism isn’t a competitor with extended mind theory but rather a new (...) way to understand what it means for minds to be extended. (shrink)

Much recent work on empathy in philosophy of mind and cognitive science has been guided by the assumption that minds are composed of intracranial phenomena, perceptually inaccessible and thus unobservable to everyone but their owners. I challenge this claim. I defend the view that at least some mental states and processes—or at least some parts of some mental states and processes—are at times visible, capable of being directly perceived by others. I further argue that, despite its initial implausibility, this view (...) receives robust support from several strands of empirical research. (shrink)

Recent philosophical work on the relation between reasoning and bodily action is dominated by two views. It is orthodox to have it that bodily actions can be at most causally involved in reasoning. Others have it that reasoning can constitutively involve bodily actions, where this is understood as a matter of non‐mental bodily events featuring as constituents of practical reasoning. Reflection on cases of reasoning out‐loud suggests a neglected alternative on which both practical and theoretical reasoning can have bodily actions (...) as constituents, where such bodily actions themselves amount to contentful mental events. Furthermore, the natural lines of resistance to this view trade on type‐token errors, or on a questionable common‐factor assumption. (shrink)

In his paper, in this journal, Sterelney claims that cases of extended mind are limiting cases of environmental scaffolding and that a niche construction model is a more helpful, general framework for understanding human action. He further claims that extended mind cases fit into a corner of a 3D space of environmental scaffolds of cognitive competence. He identifies three dimensions which determine where a resource fits into this space and suggests that extended mind models seem plausible when a resource is (...) highly reliable, individualised/entrenched and a single-user resource. Sterelney also claims that the most important cognition-enhancing resources are provided collectively by one generation to the next. In this paper, I argue that Sterelney is both right and wrong and this because he focuses primarily on external, physical resources and construes scaffolding as exclusively unidirectional and diachronic. Using examples of unfamiliar tool use, visual processing and human emotional ontogenesis, I argue, respectively, that extended mind cases include those which fail to meet Sterelney’s dimensional criteria; that the most important cognition—enhancing resources are those which actually build brains; that these are provided on a one-to-one basis in emotional ontogenesis; and, this depends on bidirectional and synchronic cognitive scaffolding. (shrink)

Within the field of neuroscience, it is assumed that the central nervous system is divided into two functionally distinct components: the brain, which does the cognizing, and the spinal cord, which is a conduit of information enabling the brain to do its job. We dub this the “Cinderella view” of the spinal cord. Here, we suggest it should be abandoned. Marshalling recent empirical findings, we claim that the spinal cord is best conceived as an intrabodily cognitive extension: a piece of (...) biological circuitry that, together with the brain, constitutes our cognitive engine. To do so, after a brief introduction to the anatomy of the spinal cord, we briefly present a number of empirical studies highlighting the role played by the spinal cord in cognitive processing. Having so done, we claim that the spinal cord satisfies two popular and often endorsed criteria used to adjudicate cases of cognitive extension; namely the parity principle and the so-called “trust and glue” criteria. This, we argue, is sufficient to vindicate the role of the spinal cord as an intrabodily mental extension. We then steel our case considering a sizable number of prominent anti-extension arguments, showing that none of them poses a serious threat to our main claim. We then conclude the essay, spelling out a number of far-from trivial implications of our view. (shrink)

The question whether cognition ever extends beyond the head is widely considered to be an empirical issue. And yet, all the evidence amassed in recent years has not sufficed to settle the debate. In this paper we suggest that this is because the debate is not really an empirical one, but rather a matter of definition. Traditional cognitive science can be identified as wedded to the ideals of “smallism” and “localism”. We criticize these ideals and articulate a case in favor (...) of extended cognition by highlighting the historical pedigree and conceptual adequacy of related empirical and theoretical work. (shrink)

I argue that sometimes a group can author a work of art without the work being either co-authored or multiply-authored. Sometimes the group, itself, is an author, rather than any of its members alone or together. I argue that when a group is an author like this, it has mental properties that no individual member of the group possesses. For example, we can consider the groups that authored digital remixes based on a film titled #INTRODUCTIONS created by the artists LaBeouf, (...) Rönkkö & Turner. YouTubers posted their digital remixes online, and the question is: Who authored those remixes? I contend that many digital remixes are authored by groups that are capable of cognition. (shrink)

Nussbaum’s version of the capability approach is not only a helpful approach to development problems but can also be employed as a general ethical-anthropological framework in ‘advanced’ societies. This paper explores its normative force for evaluating information technologies, with a particular focus on the issue of human enhancement. It suggests that the capability approach can be a useful way of to specify a workable and adequate level of analysis in human enhancement discussions, but argues that any interpretation of what these (...) capabilities mean is itself dependent on (interpretations of) the techno-human practices under discussion. This challenges the capability approach’s means-end dualism concerning the relation between on the one hand technology and on the other hand humans and capabilities. It is argued that instead of facing a choice between development and enhancement, we better reflect on how we want to shape human-technological practices, for instance by using the language of capabilities. For this purpose, we have to engage in a cumbersome hermeneutics that interprets dynamic relations between unstable capabilities, technologies, practices, and values. This requires us to modify the capability approach by highlighting and interpreting its interpretative dimension. (shrink)

It has been pointed out that Sensorimotor Enactivism, a theory that claims that perception is enacted and brought about by movement, says very little about the neural mechanisms that enable perception. For the proponents of the predictive approach to Sensorimotor Enactivism, this is a challenge that can be met by introducing predictive processing into the picture. However, the compatibility between these theories is not straightforward. Firstly, because they seem to differ in their stand towards representations: while Sensorimotor Enactivism is said (...) to belong to the non-representational wing of cognitive science, predictive processing has a representational profile. And secondly, because they exhibit different explanatory strategies: while Sensorimotor Enactivism prioritizes the interactions of the embodied agent, predictive processing has internalist commitments. The aim of this paper is to address these concerns and show that a predictive approach to Sensorimotor Enactivism is viable. More specifically, I focus on the Free-Energy approach, a theory that falls within the ballpark of predictive processing. In this paper I argue for the following claims. I argue that both Sensorimotor Enactivism and the Free-Energy approach may be understood for some systems in representational terms. The non-representational reading of Sensorimotor Enactivism is not mandatory and neither is the representational reading of the Free-Energy approach. Sensorimotor Enactivism is, in this respect, compatible with both representational and non-representational interpretations of the FEA. So, the position towards representations of these frameworks should not stand in the way of a predictive approach to Sensorimotor Enactivism. I also show that the Free-Energy approach allows for an account that prioritizes the interaction of the embodied agent with the environment. This is the explanatory strategy followed by Sensorimotor Enactivism. To justify this strategy and following other proponents of Sensorimotor Enactivism, I argue that by referring to the interactions of the embodied agent a better account of the phenomena in question is provided. On this basis, I claim that Sensorimotor Enactivism and the Free-Energy approach are compatible in what concerns their explanatory strategy as well. Thus, making the case for the viability of the predictive approach to Sensorimotor Enactivism. (shrink)

The paper draws on an algorithmic criterion to demonstrate that the self is a composite, scattered, and patterned object. It also addresses the question of extendedness of the self-pattern. Based on the criteria drawn from algorithmic complexity, I argue that although the self-pattern possesses a genuinely extended aspect the self-pattern and its environment do not constitute a genuine composite object.

The concept of “autonomy”, once at the core of the original enactivist proposal in The Embodied Mind, is nowadays ignored or neglected by some of the most prominent contemporary enactivists approaches. Theories of autonomy, however, come to fill a theoretical gap that sensorimotor accounts of cognition cannot ignore: they provide a naturalized account of normativity and the resources to ground the identity of a cognitive subject in its specific mode of organization. There are, however, good reasons for the contemporary neglect (...) of autonomy as a relevant concept for enactivism. On the one hand, the concept of autonomy has too often been assimilated into autopoiesis and the implications are not always clear for a dynamical sensorimotor approach to cognitive science. On the other hand, the foundational enactivist proposal displays a metaphysical tension between the concept of operational closure, deployed as constitutive, and that of structural coupling ; making it hard to reconcile with the claim that experience is sensorimotorly constituted. This tension is particularly apparent when Varela et al. propose Bittorio as a model of the operational closure of the nervous system as it fails to satisfy the required conditions for a sensorimotor constitution of experience. It is, however, possible to solve these problems by re-considering autonomy at the level of sensorimotor neurodynamics. Two recent robotic simulation models are used for this task, illustrating the notion of strong sensorimotor dependency of neurodynamic patterns, and their networked intertwinement. The concept of habit is proposed as an enactivist building block for cognitive theorizing, re-conceptualizing mental life as a habit ecology, tied within an agent’s behaviour generating mechanism in coordination with its environment. Norms can be naturalized in terms of dynamic, interactively self-sustaining, coherentism. This conception of autonomous sensorimotor agency is put in contrast with those enactive approaches that reject autonomy or neglect the theoretical resources it has to offer for the project of naturalizing minds. (shrink)

Extended Cognition (EC) hypothesizes that there are parts of the world outside the head serving as cognitive vehicles. One criticism of this controversial view is the problem of “cognitive bloat” which says that EC is too permissive and fails to provide an adequate necessary criterion for cognition. It cannot, for instance, distinguish genuine cognitive vehicles from mere supports (e.g. the Yellow Pages). In response, Andy Clark and Mark Rowlands have independently suggested that genuine cognitive vehicles are distinguished from supports in (...) that the former have been “recruited,” i.e. they are either artifacts, or, products of evolution. I argue against this proposal. There are counter examples to the claim that “Teleological” EC is either necessary or sufficient for cognition. Teleological EC conflates different types of scientific projects, and inherits content externalism’s alienation from historically impartial cognitive science. (shrink)

Recent works in philosophy of mind and the cognitive sciences draw an “unconventional” picture of cognitive processes and of the mind. Instead of conceiving of cognition as a process that takes place within the boundaries of the skull and the skin, some contemporary theories claim that cognition is a situated process that encompasses the human agent’s boundaries. In particular, the Extended Mind Hypothesis (EMH) and the Enactive approach to cognition claim that embodied action is constitutive of cognitive processes, and thus (...) of the mind. Although both theories give an “extended” or “extensive” picture of cognition and of the mind, they disagree on the epistemic value of internal representations. The EMH claims that we need to posit internal action- oriented representations (AORs). AORs would account for action-selection, action-control, and for the prediction of incoming perceptual information. The enactive approach to cognition argues against AORs. The concept of AOR does not fulfill the representational conditions necessary to talk about representations properly. Furthermore, AORs are expressive of an internalistic prejudice, which makes the EMH weak. Moreover, a semiotic analysis of AORs shows that these items called “representations” are not active at all. Therefore, the epistemic posit of AOR plays no interesting job in the project of extending the mind in virtue of a reassessment of the concept of representation aimed at making it embodied and active. Therefore I claim that the concept of AOR has to be rejected. Action- control, action-selection, and the anticipation of aspects of action-perception loops can be explained in a more enactive way. Embodied action in a field of affordances explains how agents respond selectively to environmental features and how action-perception loops are anticipated by the “affective agent”. Furthermore, the enactive approach to cognition - especially if coupled with a semiotic description of cognitive niches and with some insights from the affective sciences (e.g. appraisal of core relational themes) - gives an explanation of action that, in contrast to the EMH, is actually able to “extend the mind”. (shrink)

Cognition is embodied when it is deeply dependent upon features of the physical body of an agent, that is, when aspects of the agent's body beyond the brain play a significant causal or physically constitutive role in cognitive processing. In general, dominant views in the philosophy of mind and cognitive science have considered the body as peripheral to understanding the nature of mind and cognition. Proponents of embodied cognitive science view this as a serious mistake. Sometimes the nature of the (...) dependence of cognition on the body is quite unexpected, and suggests new ways of conceptualizing and exploring the mechanics of cognitive processing. Embodied cognitive science encompasses a loose-knit family of research programs in the cognitive sciences that often share a commitment to critiquing and even replacing traditional approaches to cognition and cognitive processing. Empirical research on embodied cognition has exploded in the past 10 years. As the bibliography for this article attests, the various bodies of work that will be discussed represent a serious alternative to the investigation of cognitive phenomena. Relatively recent work on the embodiment of cognition provides much food for thought for empirically-informed philosophers of mind. This is in part because of the rich range of phenomena that embodied cognitive science has studied. But it is also in part because those phenomena are often thought to challenge dominant views of the mind, such as the computational and representational theories of mind, at the heart of traditional cognitive science. And they have sometimes been taken to undermine standard positions in the philosophy of mind, such as the idea that the mind is identical to, or even realized in, the brain. (shrink)

According to the hypothesis of extended cognition (HEC, hereafter), human cognitive processing extends beyond the boundary of the human organism.1 As I understand HEC, it is a claim in the..

In summaries of “best practices” for pedagogy, one typically encounters enthusiastic advocacy for metacognition. Some researchers assert that the body of evidence supplied by decades of education studies indicates a clear pedagogical imperative: that if one wants their students to learn well, one must implement teaching practices that cultivate students’ metacognitive skills. -/- In this dissertation, I counter that education research does not impose such a mandate upon instructors. We lack sufficient and reliable evidence from studies that use the appropriate (...) research design to validate the efficacy of metacognitive skill-building interventions (not just evaluate their relationship to learning outcomes). I argue that improved academic outcomes following these interventions aren’t necessarily mediated by increased metacognitive skills; rather, enhanced student performance can be accounted for by other factors that accompany metacognitive training, particularly the explicit provision of domain-specific knowledge. -/- On the way to this conclusion, I elaborate some complications and controversies surrounding “metacognition.” This is a sprawling and nebulous construct, which makes generalizations about its pedagogical value dubious from the outset. Moreover, it is unclear the extent to which the end goal of metacognitive skill-building (cognitive self-mastery, involving knowledge of and control over our own minds) is even possible, given our mental architecture; some cognitive scientists allege that we are subject to phenomenological illusions which make this seem more achievable than it actually is. -/- I also attempt to provide an account of how metacognitive skill-building could receive glowing endorsements from educators and education researchers, even though its conceptual and empirical underpinnings are flimsy. The error theory I offer identifies two major factors that may foster belief in the efficacy of metacognitive training: goalpost-shifting around the objective of such efforts, and motivated reasoning in defense of the desirable conclusion that educators can significantly reshape students’ minds and unlock their intellectual potential through simple pedagogical interventions. (shrink)

The Extended Mind Thesis (EMT) is traditionally formulated against the bedrock of functionalism, and ongoing debates are typically bogged down with questions concerning the exact relationship between EMT and different versions of functionalism. In this paper, I offer a novel ally for EMT: the new mechanistic approach to explanation. I argue that the mechanistic framework provides useful resources not just to disambiguate EMT, and to show which objections fail to pose a serious challenge, but also to answer some of the (...) deeper problems that stem from the functionalist roots of EMT. (shrink)