In this thesis, I investigated the self in autism using tools from philosophy and experimental cognitive science. Our self-representation shapes how we act in the world, and the feedback we receive in turn shapes how we represent ourselves. In the predictive processing framework I use, autism is characterised by differences in modelling or predicting the world under uncertainty which impacts both perception and action. Findings from the thesis show that individuals with more autistic traits are more prone to act early (...) in the face of rising uncertainty. The thesis also raises questions about the appropriate core features of autism. (shrink)

Enactivism advances an understanding of cognition rooted in the dynamic interaction between an embodied agent and their environment, whilst new mechanism suggests that cognition is explained by uncovering the organised components underlying cognitive capacities. On the face of it, the mechanistic model’s emphasis on localisable and decomposable mechanisms, often neural in nature, runs contrary to the enactivist ethos. Despite appearances, this paper argues that mechanistic explanations of cognition, being neither narrow nor reductive, and compatible with plausible iterations of ideas like (...) emergence and downward causation, are congruent with enactivism. Attention to enactivist ideas, moreover, may serve as a heuristic for mechanistic investigations of cognition. Nevertheless, I show how enactivism and approaches that prioritise mechanistic modelling may diverge in starting assumptions about the nature of cognitive phenomena, such as where the constitutive boundaries of cognition lie. (shrink)

It has been recently suggested that if the Extended Mind thesis is true, mental privacy might be under serious threat. In this paper, I look into the details of this claim and propose that one way of dealing with this emerging threat requires that data ontology be enriched with an additional kind of data—viz., mental data. I explore how mental data relates to both data and metadata and suggest that, arguably, and by contrast with these existing categories of informational content, (...) mental data should not be merely legally protected. Rather, if we value mental privacy as we know it, technological measures should be employed to ensure that one’s mental data are practically—not just legally—impossible for others to obtain. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Understanding is a demanding epistemic state. It involves not just knowledge that things are thus and so, but grasping the reasons why and seeing how things hang together. Understanding, then, typically requires inquiry. Many of our inquiries are conducted online nowadays, with the help of search engines, forums, and social media platforms. In this paper, I explore the idea that online inquiry easily leads to what I will call online illusions of understanding. Both the structure of online information presentation (...) (with hyperlinks, shares, retweets, likes, etc.) and the operation of recommender systems and the like make it easy for people using them to form the impression that they are conducting inquiry responsibly, whereas they are in fact fed with irrelevant information, or, even worse, falsehoods, misinformation, disinformation, or outright conspiracy theories. (shrink)

In this paper, I give readers an idea of what some scholars are interested in, what I found interesting, and what may be of future interest in the philosophy of emotion. I begin with a brief overview of the general topics of interests in the philosophy of emotion. I then discuss what I believe to be some of the most interesting topics in the contemporary discourse, including questions about how philosophy can inform the science of emotion, responses to aspects of (...) the mind–body problem, and concerns about perception, cognition, and emotion, along with questions about the place of 4E approaches and meta-semantic pluralist(e) approaches in the embodied cognitive tradition. I also discuss the natural kind–social construction debate in the philosophy of emotion, the emerging field of cultural evolution, the import of a dual-inheritance theory in this emerging field, and I propose a possible way to integrate the frameworks of dual-inheritance theory and meta-semantic pluralism(e) to demonstrate at least one way in which the philosophy of emotion can contribute to the emerging field of cultural evolution. I conclude with a brief summary of this paper and note at least one significant implication of my proposal for the natural kind–social construction debate in the philosophy of emotion. (shrink)

How does the integration of mixed reality devices into our cognitive practices impact the mind from a metaphysical and epistemological perspective? In his innovative and interdisciplinary article, “Minds in the Metaverse: Extended Cognition Meets Mixed Reality” (2022), Paul Smart addresses this underexplored question, arguing that the use of a hypothetical application of the Microsoft HoloLens called “the HoloFoldit” represents a technologically high-grade form of extended cognizing from the perspective of neo-mechanical philosophy. This short commentary aims to (1) carve up the (...) conceptual landscape of possible objections to Smart’s argument and (2) elaborate on the possibility of hologrammatically extended cognition, which is supposed to be one of the features of the HoloFoldit case that distinguishes it from more primitive forms of cognitive extension. In tackling (1), I do not mean to suggest that Smart does not consider or have sufficient answers to these objections. In addressing (2), the goal is not to argue for or against the possibility of hologrammatically extended cognition but to reveal some issues in the metaphysics of virtual reality upon which this possibility hinges. I construct an argument in favor of hologrammatically extended cognition based on the veracity of virtual realism (Chalmers, 2017) and an argument against it based on the veracity of virtual fctionalism (McDonnell and Wildman, 2019). (shrink)

Laying the groundwork -- Bateson and technology -- The art of living with technology.

Supernumerary robotic limbs are innovative devices in the field of wearable robotics which can provide humans with unprecedented sensorimotor abilities. However, scholars have raised awareness of the ethical issues that would arise from the large adoption of technologies for human augmentation in society. Most negative attitudes towards such technologies seem to rely on an allegedly clear distinction between therapy and enhancement in the use of technological devices. Based on such distinction, people tend to accept technologies when used for therapeutic purposes (...) (e.g., prostheses), but tend to raise issues when similar devices are used for upgrading a physical or cognitive ability (e.g., supernumerary robotics limbs). However, as many scholars have pointed out, the distinction between therapy and enhancement might be theoretically flawed. In this paper, we present an alternative approach to the ethics of supernumerary limbs which is based on two related claims. First, we propose to conceive supernumerary limbs as tools that necessarily modify our psychological and bodily identity. At the same time, we stress that such a modification is not ethically bad in itself; on the contrary, it drives human interaction with the environment. Second, by comparing our view with the extended mind thesis, we claim that the mediation through tools is crucial for the formation of novel meanings and skills that constitute human interaction with the world. We will relate the latter claim to enactivism as a helpful theoretical perspective to frame issues related to artificial limbs and, more in general, to technologies for augmentation. Based on this approach, we finally sketch some suggestions for future directions in the ethics of supernumerary limbs. (shrink)

The first work to offer a comprehensive pragmatist anthropology focusing on sensibility, habits, and human experience as contingently yet irreversibly enlanguaged.

Mental imagery often occurs during testimonial belief transmission: a testifier often episodically remembers or imagines a scene while describing it, while a listener often imagines that scene as it’s described to her. I argue that getting clear on imagery’s psychological roles in testimonial belief transmission has implications for some fundamental issues in the epistemology of testimony. I first appeal to imagery cases to argue against a widespread “internalist” approach to the epistemology of testimony. I then appeal to the same sort (...) of case to argue for an alternative, externalist view. (shrink)

The outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 has threatened ethnographic inquiry, undermining its quintessential characteristic. Participant observation, then, has been thoroughly dismembered by the radical measures implemented to prevent the spread of the virus. This phenomenon, in short, has dragged anthropologists to a liminal state within which ethnography is paradoxically caught in an onto-epistemological unstable vortex. The question of being here and not there, during the pandemic, is epitomised in the instability of different spatio-temporal contexts that overlap through technological mediations. Reflecting on previous (...) fieldwork experiences and current virtual inquiries with the Shuar of the Ecuadorian Amazon unfolds how COVID-19 has thoroughly reshaped how the author approaches subjects' socio-ecological settings. Against this background, the article argues that corporeal immersion remains a necessary condition for the anthropological scrutiny of multispecies relationalities amidst the challenging times of the Anthropocene. The article nevertheless demonstrates that the intellectual efforts to grasp the different material temporalities of virtual spaces embrace the ethical principles concerning the renunciation of fieldwork with vulnerable communities. Furthermore, a reflective and speculative stance is proposed to actualise the snapshots of faraway physicalities linking them to past embodied and multi-sensory experiences. It is ultimately theorised how these mnemonic devices operate as creative forms of inquiry that overcome the pandemic consequences, extra-stimulating our cognitive capabilities to reflect on prior and possible socio-material interactions. (shrink)

The history of the encounters between pragmatism and phenomenology is long, fruitful, yet also tormented. From the time of the 19th century American phenomenology of Josiah Royce up to the arrival of Husserl’s phenomenology in North America, pragmatism was always one of the leading American philosophical movements that actively contributed to the re-elaboration of the issues and strategies of phenomenology in order to make them comply and adjust to the new context. This was possible, in the f...

In this paper we consider the importance of trust, in the context of economic institutions, and specifically with respect to questions about market mechanisms and the role of social interactions. We review recent advances in institutional economics closely tied to developments in philosophy of mind and cognitive science, involving extended and enactive cognition. We argue that the analysis of different conceptions of institutional mind extension, in Denzau and North’s shared mental models, Clark’s extended mind, and a more enactive approach that (...) emphasizes the importance of social interaction and personal relationships, can benefit from Kathrine Hawley’s distinction between reliability and trust. Institutional arrangements based solely on the reliability of impersonal mechanisms can lead to a variety of social pathologies and, at the extreme, a form of cognitive atrophy, all of which can undermine the sustainability of institutions. Even if trust comes with risks and some degree of unpredictability, it turns out to be a necessary glue-like ingredient in the constitution of social institutions. (shrink)

How a group G can know that p has been the subject of much investigation in social epistemology in recent years. This paper clarifies and defends a form of non-supervenient, non-summative group knowledge: G can know that p even if none of the members of G knows that p, and whether or not G knows that p does not locally supervene on the mental states of the members of G. Instead, we argue that what is central to G knowing that (...) p is whether G has an epistemic structure that is functioning appropriately in accord with the action-related purposes of the group, and this structure may include non-agential elements such as devices that retain or process information. We argue that recent objections to non-summative group knowledge given by Jennifer Lackey do not in fact succeed in undermining the view, but do help to clarify the nature of non-summative group knowledge. The main upshot of our response to Lackey’s objections is that groups put their knowledge into action in ways that often differ from how individuals do so, and social epistemologists should be careful to notice these differences, especially insofar as groups often structure themselves by employing various epistemically-relevant devices. (shrink)

I discuss Clark’s predictive processing/extended mind hybrid, diagnosing a problem: Clark’s hybrid suggests that, when we use them, we pay attention to mind-extending external resources. This clashes with a commonly accepted necessary condition of cognitive extension; namely, that mind-extending resources must be phenomenally transparent when used. I then propose a solution to this problem claiming that the phenomenal transparency condition should be rejected. To do so, I put forth a parity argument to the effect that phenomenal transparency cannot be a (...) necessary condition on cognitive extension: roughly, since internal cognitive resources can fail to be transparent when used, by parity, external resources can fail to be phenomenally transparent too. Further, I argue that phenomenal transparency is not even a reliable indicator of cognitive extension; hence its absence should not be considered a problem for Clark’s extended mind-predictive processing hybrid. Lastly, I consider and allay a number of worries my proposal might raise, and conclude the paper. (shrink)

The aim of the paper is to develop the concept of perceptual relation and to apply it to digital environments. First, the meaning of perceptual relation is phenomenologically analyzed and defined as the interaction between the whole and its parts, which is theorized by the founders of Gestalt psychology. However, this relation is not considered as an intrinsic, but as an extended one, implying also the relation with the surrounding world (Umwelt). Subsequently, this concept of extended relation is applied to (...) a chosen object (a ball) as it is perceived in four different kinds of digital dimensions (on-screen, virtual, augmented, and hybrid). Through a phenomenological analysis, I argue that, whereas the whole-part configuration remains the same, some modes of appearance of the object (multisensoriality, figure-ground interaction, affordances, and persistence) are different. In order to define this dynamic, I have coined the concept of transdimensional analogy. (shrink)

Animal technique has occupied a marginal position in reflections on technique, and in the philosophical literature there is no strict definition of it. However, it is of great importance to understand the limits and the distinctive features of our own technique. This work argues that it is possible to establish a solid definition of animal technique based on two definitions of human technique (prosthetic notion of technique and material culture) and one particular dimension of human tools (cognitive tools). This paper (...) takes a naturalistic approach that enables to review different study cases focused on animals’ capacity to make and use tools. (shrink)

Recent work on empathy has focused on the phenomenon of feeling on behalf of, or for, others, and on determining the role it ought to play in our moral lives. Much less attention, however, has been paid to ‘feeling-with.’ In this paper, I distinguish ‘feeling-with’ from ‘feeling-for.’ I identify three distinguishing features of ‘feeling-with,’ all of which serve to make it distinct from empathy. Then, drawing on work in feminist moral psychology and feminist ethics, I argue that ‘feeling-with’ has unique (...) moral value over and above ‘feeling-for.’ I end by rebutting some likely objections to the claim that ‘feeling-with’ is morally valuable. (shrink)

The epistemic subject of collective scientific knowledge has been a matter of dispute in recent philosophy of science and epistemology. Following the distributed cognition framework, both collective-subject accounts (most notably by Knorr-Cetina, in _Epistemic Cultures_, Harvard University Press, 1999) as well as no-subject accounts of collective scientific knowledge (most notably by Giere, Social Epistemology 21:313–320, 2007; in Carruthers, Stich, Siegal (eds), _The Cognitive Basis of Science_, Cambridge University Press, 2002a) have been offered. Both strategies of accounting for collective knowledge are (...) problematic from the perspective of mainstream epistemology. Postulating genuinely collective epistemic subjects is a high-commitment strategy with little clear benefit. On the other hand, eliminating the epistemic subject radically severs the link between knowledge and knowers. Most importantly, both strategies lead to the undesirable outcome that in some cases of scientific knowledge there might be no individual knower that we can identify. I argue that distributed cognition offers us a fertile framework for analyzing complex socio-technical processes of contemporary scientific knowledge production, but scientific knowledge should nonetheless be located in individual knowers. I distinguish between the production and possession of knowledge, and argue that collective knowledge is collectively produced knowledge, not collectively possessed knowledge. I then propose an account of non-testimonial, expert scientific knowledge which allows for collectively produced knowledge to be known by individuals. (shrink)

AI systems play an increasingly important role in shaping and regulating the lives of millions of human beings across the world. Calls for greater _transparency_ from such systems have been widespread. However, there is considerable ambiguity concerning what “transparency” actually means, and therefore, what greater transparency might entail. While, according to some debates, transparency requires _seeing through_ the artefact or device, widespread calls for transparency imply _seeing into_ different aspects of AI systems. These two notions are in apparent tension with (...) each other, and they are present in two lively but largely disconnected debates. In this paper, we aim to further analyse what these calls for transparency entail, and in so doing, clarify the sorts of transparency that we should want from AI systems. We do so by offering a taxonomy that classifies different notions of transparency. After a careful exploration of the different varieties of transparency, we show how this taxonomy can help us to navigate various domains of human–technology interactions, and more usefully discuss the relationship between technological transparency and human agency. We conclude by arguing that all of these different notions of transparency should be taken into account when designing more ethically adequate AI systems. (shrink)

Este artigo pretende mostrar que os argumentos sustentados por Ryle podem ser uma postura crítica ao problema do realismo e dos processos mentais: primeiramente, porque o realismo, diferentemente de algumas teorias da mente contemporâneas, separa a vida mental das outras propriedades que compõem o mundo e, posteriormente, porque tal argumento precisaria explicar como tais propriedades podem instanciar um conteúdo que não seria parte de um sistema físico [como o cérebro]. Deste modo, argumenta-se que, a partir de Ryle, a interação dos (...) processos mentais com a possibilidade da existência de objetos externos à consciência não depende de nenhuma arquitetura biológica, mas dos elementos semânticos que utilizamos cotidianamente para falar e dizer o mundo. Esta postura, por um lado, redesenha críticas à chamada doutrina oficial e, por outro, nutre uma parcela de argumentos realistas que deveriam ser atacados e dissolvidos pelas atuais teorias da mente. Palavras-chave: Realismo, linguagem, processos mentais, cognição, Ryle. (shrink)

This paper investigates the connection between two recent trends in philosophy: higher-orderism and conceptual engineering. Higher-orderists use higher-order quantifiers (in particular quantifiers binding variables that occupy the syntactic positions of predicates) to express certain key metaphysical doctrines, such as the claim that there are properties. I argue that, on a natural construal, the higher-orderist approach involves an engineering project concerning, among others, the concept of existence. I distinguish between a modest construal of this project, on which it aims at engineering (...) higher-order analogues of the familiar notion of first-order existence, and an ambitious construal, on which it additionally aims at engineering a broadened notion of existence that subsumes first-order and higher-order existence. After identifying a substantial problem for the ambitious project, I investigate a possible response which is based on adopting a cumulative type theory as the background higher-order logic. While effective against the problem at hand, this strategy turns out to undermine a major reason to embrace higher-orderism in the first place, namely the idea that higher-orderism dissolves a range of otherwise intractable debates in metaphysics. Higher-orderists are therefore best advised to pursue their engineering project on the modest variant and against the background of standard type theory. (shrink)

In this paper I distinguish between illustrative and performative uses of artworks in the teaching and communication of philosophy, drawing examples from the history of art and my own practice. The former are where works are used merely to illustrate and communicate a philosophical idea or argument, the latter are where the artist or teacher philosophizes through the creation of art. I hope to promote future collaboration between philosophers, art historians and artists, with artworks becoming catalysts for artistic-philosophical investigation, thus (...) revitalizing the idea of universities embodying ongoing and open-ended conversations. (shrink)

Clark and Chalmers propose that the mind extends further than skin and skull. If they are right, then we should expect this to have some effect on our way of knowing our own mental states. If the content of my notebook can be part of my belief system, then looking at the notebook seems to be a way to get to know my own beliefs. However, it is at least not obvious whether self-ascribing a belief by looking at my notebook (...) is a case of introspection the same way that knowing my non-extended beliefs is. Traditionally this sort of introspection is thought to be privileged and special in ways that the extended introspection case seems not to be. There is nothing privileged about looking at my notebook. Anyone could do it. The aim of the paper is to find out how to understand extended introspection and whether there is something privileged and special about knowing one’s own extended beliefs. Moreover, the notebook case has close analogs using twenty-first century technology. It seems possible to know our beliefs that are extended to smartphones, wearable technology or a cloud-based data store. First, I present the case of extended introspection. I then discuss whether it should be understood as ordinary introspection or as mind-reading. Both seem to be bad fits, which finally prompts an original account for extended introspection based on epistemic rules. (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)

In recent years, philosophers and psychologists have criticized character- or virtue-based normative theories on the basis that human behavior and cognition depend more on situation than on traits of character. This set of criticisms, which initially aimed at broadly Aristotelian virtue theories in ethics, has expanded to target a wide range of approaches in both ethics and, recently, epistemology. In this essay, I draw on the works of Maria Montessori to defend her conception of character and particularly of intellectual virtue (...) in the light of situationist objections. I start with an overview of the situationist challenge before turning to some reasons to think that Montessori’s virtue epistemology might be susceptible to it. I then offer a brief discussion of Montessori’s approach to character. After laying out two ways that Montessori, like recent conservative defenses of virtue epistemology, deflates the significance of situationist findings, I show some ways that Montessori’s virtue epistemology resembles so-called “accommodationist” responses to situationism. (shrink)

Organisations are computing systems. The university’s sports centre is a computing system for managing sports teams and facilities. The tenure committee is a computing system for assigning tenure status. Despite an increasing number of publications in group ontology, the computational nature of organisations has not been recognised. The present paper is the first in this debate to propose a theory of organisations as groups structured for computing. I begin by describing the current situation in group ontology and by spelling out (...) the thesis in more detail. I then present the example of a sports centre to illustrate why one might intuitively think of organisations as computing systems. To substantiate the thesis, I introduce Piccinini’s restrictive analysis of physical computation. As I show, organisations meet all criteria for being computing systems. Organisations are structured groups with the function of manipulating medium-independent vehicles according to rules. Furthermore, I argue for the modal claim that this is a necessary feature of organisations. Having sketched the computational account of organisations, I compare it to other proposals in the literature. (shrink)

Taking advantage of Denis Noble’s description, in “The Illusions of the Modern Synthesis” of the first illusion, related to the concept of natural selection itself, I will further strengthen the criticism by adding three groups of considerations mainly concerning human cognition: 1) how semiotic brains build cognitive niches; 2) the role of abduction – and in particular of manipulative abduction – in building a semiotic artificial world; 3) the biosemiotics of the so-called disembodiment of the mind. Human semiotic brains are (...) engaged in a continuous process of delegation and distribution of cognitive functions to the environment to lessen cognitive limitations, also and especially taking advantage of what I have called “manipulative abduction”. These design semiotic activities are closely related to the process of cognitive niche construction, which should be regarded as the second major participant, after natural selection, in evolution. An important effect of this semiotic brain activity is a continuous process of disembodiment of the mind that exhibits a new cognitive perspective on the mechanisms underlying the semiotic emergence of meaning processes. (shrink)

In this paper I look into a problem concerning the characterization of the main conceptual commitments of the ‘post-cognitivist’ theoretical framework. I first consider critically a proposal put forward by Rowlands (2010), which identifies the theoretical nucleus of post-cognitivism with a convergence of the theses of the extended and the embodied mind. The shortcomings I find in this proposal lead me to an indepedent and wider issue concerning the apparent tensions between functionalism and the embodied and enactive approaches.

Complex systems like literacy and numeracy emerge through multigenerational interactions of brains, behaviors, and material forms. In such systems, material forms – writing for language and notations for numbers – become increasingly refined to elicit specific behavioral and psychological responses in newly indoctrinated individuals. These material forms, however, differ fundamentally in things like semiotic function: language signifies, while numbers instantiate. This makes writing for language able to represent the meanings and sounds of particular languages, while notations for numbers are semantically (...) meaningful without phonetic specification. This representational distinction is associated with neurofunctional and behavioral differences in what neural activity and behaviors like handwriting contribute to literacy and numeracy. In turn, neurofunctional and behavioral differences place written representations for language and numbers under different pressures that influence the forms they take and how those forms change over time as they are transmitted across languages and cultures. (shrink)

This paper investigates the notion of ‘distributed cognition’—the idea that entities external to one’s organic brain participate in one’s overall cognitive functioning—and the challenges it poses to the notion of personhood. Related to this is also a consideration of the ever-increasing ways in which neuroprostheses replace and functionally replicate organic parts of the brain. However, the literature surrounding such issues has tended to take an almost exclusively physicalist approach. The common assumption is that, given that non-physicalist theories (chiefly, dualism, and (...) hylomorphism) postulate some form of immaterial ‘soul’, then they are immune from the challenges that these advances in cognitive science pose. The first aim of this paper, therefore, is to argue that this is not the case. The second aim of this paper is to attempt to elucidate a route available for the non-physicalists that will allow them to accept the notion of distributed cognition. By appealing to an Aristotelian framework, I propose that the non-physicalist can accept the notion of distributed cognition by appealing to the notion of ‘unitary life’ which I introduce, as well as to Aristotle’s dichotomy between active and passive mind. (shrink)

Distributed cognition is an umbrella term for the overlapping, competing, and sometimes conflicting theories in current philosophy and cognitive science which claim that cognition is distributed across brain, body, and world. 4E cognition is another name used for this framework, with the 4Es representing embodied, enactive, embedded, and extended cognition (for a more comprehensive overview, see Anderson et al. 2018). This framework can help bring to the fore neglected ideas of the mind and the cognitive roles of bodies and environments (...) (along with related resources, tools, practices, and institutions) in other historical periods. The early modern period inherited and developed concepts of the mind from classical antiquity and medieval traditions that accorded a cognitive role to the body and world. Furthermore, it underwent transformative sociocultural, scientific, and technological shifts, which led to a heightened awareness of, and at times anxiety about, the distributed nature of the mind. This entry focuses on early modern notions and practices of distributed cognition in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, alongside an exploration of the nature and origins of Cartesian substance dualism. In the early modern period, the humors, passions, spirits, and faculties of the soul were believed to interconnect human minds with each other and with the surrounding world. In addition, gestures; spoken, written, and printed language; clothes and other objects; living things (particularly other people); and practices and institutions were understood as diversely expressing, enabling, and constitutive of human minds. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-20791-9_586-2. (shrink)

The idea that God creates out of Himself seems quite attractive. Many find great appeal in holding that a temporally finite universe must have a cause, but I think there’s also great appeal in holding that there’s pre-existent stuff out of which that universe is created—and what could that stuff be but part of God? Though attractive, the idea of creation ex deo hasn’t been taken seriously by theistic philosophers. Perhaps this is because it seems too vague—‘could anything enlightening be (...) said about what those parts are?’—or objectionable—‘wouldn’t creating out of those parts lessen or destroy God?’ Drawing from Stephen Kosslyn and Michael Tye’s work on the ontology of mental images, I respond to the above questions by developing a theory on which God creates the universe out of His mental imagery. (shrink)

Advanced technologies such as drones, intelligent algorithms and androids have grave implications for human existence. With the purpose of exploring their basis for doing so, the paper proposes a framework for investigating the complex relationship between such devices and human practices and language-mediated cognition. Specifically, it centers on the importance of the typically neglected intermediate layer of culture which not only drives both technophobia and philia but also, more fundamentally, connects pre-reflective experience and socio-material practices by placing advanced technologies in (...) the loop. Theoretically, the paper draws on contributions from performativist Science and Technology Studies and Radically Embodied Cognitive Science and pushes new grounds by stressing their compatibility. Yet, it also emphasizes the importance of the enlanguaged side of cognition which is a requirement for human-style socio-material practices and, hence, the emergence of cultures that fetishizes certain technologies. (shrink)

Our everyday life is increasingly permeated with digital objects that carry out smart and complex functions. The latest (but certainly not final) advancement of smart digital applications – is to be identified the creation of a field, at once conceptual and material, of things denominated smart objects (henceforth SOs). This technological evolution is so pervasive that it is referred to as smartification. Smart objects have some distinctive features including in particular varying degrees of agency, autonomy and authority. There is no (...) doubt that the SO category is extremely broad, various and intrinsically fuzzy, it is evident that the phenomenon is by no means easy to define: which objects are really smart and which are not? But above all: what do we mean in semio-linguistic, and not psychological nor merely phenomenological terms, when we attribute the qualifier smart to an artifact? What is clear is that a new, or at least different (and controversial) relationship is developing between objects and subjects, or rather between human beings and objects inhabiting the spaces of social action: that is, a new system of objects, to cite Baudrillard (1968), or a new “society of objects” (see Landowski and Marrone 2002). In this paper we will focus on a type of smart physical device designed to interact with its users in the domestic sphere, assisting them in a variety of tasks – such as for example Amazon Echo, capable of connecting to Alexa, an intelligent personal assistant based on machine learning, or the more recent Google Assistant. Our semiotic-oriented – or, more precisely, potentially socio-semiotic/ethno-semiotic – analysis will deal with these issues theoretically by concentrating on the problem of identity, which is anthropologically, but also and above all philosophically, sensitive. We shall look at the impact of technological devices on the perceptive/cognitive systems of human beings, starting with a reflection on the practices of interaction, signification and interpretation that also involve digital objects with a possible impact on everyday life. (shrink)

Machine learning models are becoming increasingly prevalent in algorithmic trading and investment management. The spread of machine learning in finance challenges existing practices of modelling and model use and creates a demand for practical solutions for how to manage the complexity pertaining to these techniques. Drawing on interviews with quants applying machine learning techniques to financial problems, the article examines how these people manage model complexity in the process of devising machine learning-powered trading algorithms. The analysis shows that machine learning (...) quants use Ockham’s razor – things should not be multiplied without necessity – as a heuristic tool to prevent excess model complexity and secure a certain level of human control and interpretability in the modelling process. I argue that understanding the way quants handle the complexity of learning models is a key to grasping the transformation of the human’s role in contemporary data and model-driven finance. The study contributes to social studies of finance research on the human–model interplay by exploring it in the context of machine learning model use. (shrink)

In recent years, we have witnessed the rise of a contemporary approach to cognitive psychology known as 4E cognition. According to this ‘extracranial’ view of cognition, the mind is not ensconced in the head, but dynamically intertwined with a host of different entities, social as well as technological. The purpose of the present article is to raise a concern about 4E cognition. The concern is not about whether the mind is in fact extended, but about how this condition is currently (...) portrayed in the 4E literature. It is argued that 4E scholars tend to paint an overly idealized picture of human–technology relations in which all entities are presumed to cooperate and collaborate. The article first describes the basic tenets of extended cognition and distributed cognition, two of the most thingly approaches in this new wave of cognitive psychology. It then proceeds to discuss the twin notions of cognition and representation and argues that it may be time to leave these concepts behind. Finally, it sketches out the so-called ‘dogma of harmony’ in the 4E literature and argues for the importance of making analytical room for conflictual human–technology relations. Two examples of such conflictual relations are provided: bad habits and deskilling. (shrink)

Regardless of whatever else physicalism requires, nearly all philosophers agree that physicalism cannot be true in a world which contains fundamental mentality. I challenge this widely held attitude, and describe a world which is plausibly all-physical, yet which may contain fundamental mentality. This is a world in which priority monism is true—which is the view that the whole of the cosmos is fundamental, with dependence relations directed from the whole to the parts—and which contains only a single mental system, like (...) a brain or computer. Because some properties of the whole are fundamental under priority monism, it follows that that the mental properties of a cosmos-encompassing brain or computer system may be fundamental in a priority monist world. Yet such a world need not contain anything physically unacceptable: the mental properties of the cosmos-encompassing brain or computer can be characterized in a physicalism-friendly functionalist or identity-theoretic way. Thus, as I see it, physicalism need not be false in such a world. This constitutes a challenge to those who hold the view that physicalism is inconsistent with the existence of fundamental mentality. (shrink)

A widely cited roadblock to bridging ecological psychology and enactivism is that the former identifies with realism and the latter identifies with constructivism, which critics charge is subjectivist. A pragmatic reading, however, suggests non-mental forms of constructivism that simultaneously fit core tenets of enactivism and ecological realism. After advancing a pragmatic version of enactive constructivism that does not obviate realism, I reinforce the position with an empirical illustration: Physarum polycephalum (a slime mold), a communal unicellular organism that leaves slime trails (...) that form chemical barriers that it avoids in foraging explorations. Here, environmental building and sensorimotor engagement are part of the same process with P. polycephalum coordinating around self-created, affordance-bearing geographies, which nonetheless exist independently in ways described by ecological realists. For ecological psychologists, affordances are values, meaning values are external to the perceiver. I argue that agent-enacted values have the same status and thus do not obviate ecological realism or generate subjectivism. The constructivist-realist debate organizes around the emphasis that enactivists and ecological theorists respectively place on the inner constitution of organisms vs. the structure of environments. Building on alimentary themes introduced in the P. polycephalum example and also in Gibson’s work, I go on to consider how environment, brain, visceral systems, and even bacteria within them enter perceptual loops. This highlights almost unfathomable degrees of mutually modulating internal and external synchronization. It also shows instances in which internal conditions alter worldly configurations and invert values, in Gibson’s sense of the term, albeit without implying subjectivism. My aim is to cut across the somatic focus of enactive constructivism and the external environment-oriented emphasis of ecological realism and show that enactivism can enrich ecological accounts of value. (shrink)

Los diversos estudios que circundan en la literatura de la filosofía de la mente nos acercan a la comprensión de la conciencia desde estudios fisicalistas, naturalistas, y eliminativistas, los cuales, en su mayoría, terminan por sucumbir en el problema del dualismo. La teoría del emergentismo searleano realiza su aporte sobre la comprensión de la naturaleza de la conciencia desde la contribución de las neurociencias, sin caer en reduccionismos y presenta una alternativa de superación del dualismo. Pese a ello, al analizar (...) la teoría naturalista de Searle se evidencia que esta resulta ser insuficiente para comprender la naturaleza del fenómeno mental, además de caer en un nuevo dualismo: naturaleza/sociedad. Razón por la cual, en este escrito se realizará un análisis de la teoría searleana de la conciencia, con el fin de proponer al lenguaje como elemento constitutivo de la naturaleza de este estado mental y no como producto derivado de la mente. Es decir, se propone una concepción biopragmática de la conciencia; estudio en el que se sustenta que biología y pragmática del lenguaje son condiciones sine qua non para la existencia de niveles superiores de la conciencia y superar el dualismo natural/social. (shrink)

This paper takes an embodied and extended cognition perspective to ER integration – a cognitive process through which a learner integrates external representations (ERs) in a domain, with her internal (mental) model, as she interacts with, uses, understands and transforms between those ERs. In the paper, I argue for a theoretical as well as empirical shift in future investigations of ER integration, by proposing a model of cognitive mechanisms underlying the process, based on recent advances in extended and embodied cognition. (...) I present this new model in contrast to the still dominant classical cognitivist (information processing) approaches to ER integration, and the educational technology intervention designs such approaches inspire. I then exemplify this distinction between the information processing model and the new model through a case of arithmetic problem solving. Corroborative neuroscience evidence presented in relation to this case provides empirical support for the new model by showing how bodily actions (sensorimotor mechanisms) are critical to ER integration and learning. Finally, as educational implications of the new model, I demonstrate the need for: (i) re-viewing the development of ER integration and expertise as fine-tuning of the learner's action or sensorimotor system, and (ii) a shift of focus in new-media intervention design principles based on this newer understanding of ER integration in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. (shrink)

The Hypothesis of Extended Cognition (HEC) holds that that not all human cognition is realized inside the head. The related but distinct Hypothesis of Extended Mentality (HEM) holds that not all human mental items are realized inside the head. Clark & Chalmers distinguish between these hypotheses in their original treatment of cognitive extension, yet these two claims are often confused. I distinguish between functionalist theories on which functional roles are individuated according to computational criteria, and those on which functional roles (...) are individuated according to rational criteria. I then present an argument for a modest version of HEC from computational functionalism, based on Clark & Chalmers’ original argument. In doing so I articulate a successor to their parity principle, and review studies by Wayne Gray et al. that provide plausible evidence for actual cognitive extension. I then respond to a new criticism of HEC by Mark Sprevak using the modest account I have developed, arguing that Sprevak conflates HEC and HEM. (shrink)

This paper argues that our folk-psychological expertise is a special case of extended and enculturated cognition where we learn to regulate both our own and others’ thought and action in accord with a wide array of culturally shaped folk-psychological norms. The view has three noteworthy features: it challenges a common assumption that the foundational capacity at work in folk-psychological expertise is one of interpreting behaviour in mentalistic terms, arguing instead that successful mindreading is largely a consequence of successful mindshaping; it (...) argues that our folk-psychological expertise is not only socially scaffolded in development, it continues to be socially supported and maintained in maturity, thereby presenting a radically different picture of what mature folk-psychological competency amounts to; it provides grounds for resisting a recent trend in theoretical explanations of quotidian social interaction that downplays the deployment of sophisticated mentalizing resources in understanding what others are doing. (shrink)

The value of knowledge has always been a central topic within epistemology. Going all the way back to Plato’s Meno, philosophers have asked, why is knowledge more valuable than mere true belief? Interest in this question has grown in recent years, with theorists proposing a range of answers. But some reject the premise of the question and claim that the value of knowledge is ‘swamped’ by the value of true belief. And others argue that statuses other than knowledge, such as (...) justification or understanding, are distinctively valuable. We will call the general question of why knowledge is valuable the value problem. (shrink)

Humans leverage material forms for unique cognitive purposes: We recruit and incorporate them into our cognitive system, exploit them to accumulate and distribute cognitive effort, and use them to recreate phenotypic change in new individuals and generations. These purposes are exemplified by writing, a relatively recent tool that has become highly adept at eliciting specific psychological and behavioral responses in its users, capability it achieved by changing in ways that facilitated, accumulated, and distributed incremental behavioral and psychological change between individuals (...) and generations. Writing is described here as a self-organizing system whose design features reflect points of maximal usefulness that emerged under sustained collective use of the tool. Such self-organization may hold insights applicable to human cognitive evolution and tool use more generally. Accordingly, this article examines the emergence of the ability to leverage material forms for cognitive purposes, using the tool-using behaviors and lithic technologies of ancestral species and contemporary non-human primates as proxies for matters like collective use, generational sustainment, and the non-teleological emergence of design features. (shrink)

This paper argues for the importance of a passive form of embodiment for educational purposes to capture tacit environmental influences. G. Buck’s account of learning as experience is put in discussion with psychological approaches to reveal the limitation of what psychology can achieve, especially when it comes to situated experiences within educational environments. As a solution to overcome this problem a concept of passive embodiment is developed that allows for a body that is receptive to multisensory environmental influences. Böhme’s concept (...) of atmospheres in relation to Schmitz’ New Phenomenology provide a theoretical framework to understand how these situated experiences are evoked by certain situations. This allows for a new understanding of passive, embodied experiences within educational environments by incorporating the tacit influences of the setting. (shrink)