Ronald Giere embraces the perspective of distributed cognition to think about cognition in the sciences. I argue that his conception of distributed cognition is flawed in that it bears all the marks of its predecessor; namely, individual cognition. I show what a proper (i.e. non-individual) distributed framework looks like, and highlight what it can and cannot do for the philosophy of science.

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)

Distributed cognition (d-cog) claims that many cognitive processes are distributed across groups and the surrounding material and cultural environment. Recently, Nancy Nersessian, Ronald Giere, and others have suggested that a d-cog approach might allow us to bring together cognitive and social theories of science. I explore this idea by focusing on the specific interpretation of d-cog found in Edwin Hutchins' canonical text Cognition in the wild. First, I examine the scope of a d-cog approach to science, showing that there are (...) important disputes between cognitive and social theorists on which d-cog remains silent. Second, I suggest that, where social explanations can be recast in d-cog terms, this reformulation will not be acceptable to all social theorists. Finally, I ask how we should make sense of the claim that, on a d-cog analysis, social factors are cognitive factors. (shrink)

One approach to science treats science as a cognitive accomplishment of individuals and defines a scientific community as an aggregate of individual inquirers. Another treats science as a fundamentally collective endeavor and defines a scientist as a member of a scientific community. Distributed cognition has been offered as a framework that could be used to reconcile these two approaches. Adam Toon has recently asked if the cognitive and the social can be friends at last. He answers that they probably cannot, (...) posing objections to the would-be rapprochement. We clarify both the animosity and the tonic proposed to resolve it, ultimately arguing that worries raised by Toon and others are uncompelling. (shrink)

In recent years, the idea has been gaining ground that our traditional conceptions of knowledge and cognition are unduly limiting, in that they privilege what goes on inside the ‘skin and skull’ of an individual reasoner. Instead, it has been argued, knowledge and cognition need to be understood as embodied, situated, and extended. Whether these various interrelations and dependencies are ‘merely’ causal, or are in a more fundamental sense constitutive of knowledge and cognition, is as much a matter of controversy (...) as the degree to which they pose a challenge to ‘traditional’ conceptions of cognition, knowledge and the mind. In this paper we argue that when the idea of ‘extendedness’ is applied to a core concept in epistemology and the philosophy of science—namely, scientific evidence—things appear to be on a much surer footing. The evidential status of data gathered through extended processes—including its utility as justification or warrant—do not seem to be weakened by virtue of being extended, but instead are often strengthened because of it. Indeed, it is often precisely by virtue of this extendedness that scientific evidence grounds knowledge claims, which individuals may subsequently ascribe to themselves. The functional equivalence between machine-based gathering, filtering, and processing of data and human interpretation and assessment is the crucial factor in deciding whether evidence has been gathered, rather than the distinction between intra- and extracranial processes or individual and social processes. To prioritize biological processes here, and to assert the superiority of human cognitive capacities seems both arbitrary and unwarranted with respect to gathering evidence, and ultimately would lead to an unattractive skepticism about many of the methods used in science to gather evidence. In other words, conceiving of scientific evidence as ‘impersonal’ not only better captures the character of evidence-gathering in practice, but also makes sense of a large amount of evidence-gathering that ‘personal’ accounts fail to either acknowledge or accurately describe. Whilst we suggest it is likely that all internally-distributed evidence-gathering processes are merely contingently internal processes, a significant number of externally-distributed evidence-gathering processes are necessarily externally-distributed. Some evidence can only be gathered by extended epistemic agents. (shrink)

Drawing on a range of literature, I introduce two new concepts for understanding and exploring distributed cognition: resilience engineering and degeneracy. By re-examining Ed Hutchins’ (1995) ethnographic study of the navigation team I show how a focus on the developmental acquisition of cognitive practices can draw out several crucial insights that have been overlooked. Firstly, that the way in which agents learn and acquire cognitive practices enables a form of resilience engineering: the process by which the system is able to (...) overcome and adapt to errors and the vagaries of nature. Secondly, that the best way to engineer a resilient system is through promoting degeneracy – how differing structures produce the same function – at the level of cognitive practices. These two features show that focusing on cognitive practices and developmental trajectories is important for both greater explanatory leverage; and is also useful in regard to the practicalities of designing real-world cognitive systems. (shrink)

Even though it has been argued that scientific cognition is distributed, there is no consensus on the exact nature of distributed cognition. This paper aims to characterize distributed cognition as appropriate for philosophical studies of science. I first classify competing characterizations into three types: the property approach, the task approach, and the system approach. It turns out that the property approach and the task approach are subject to criticism. I then argue that the most preferable way to understand distributed cognition (...) in science is provided by the system approach that takes a distributed-cognitive system as the unit of analysis. I clarify this position by considering possible objections and replies. (shrink)

I resolve several pressing and recalcitrant problems in contemporary philosophy of science using resources from John Dewey's philosophy of science. I begin by looking at Dewey's epistemological and logical writings in their historical context, in order to understand better how Dewey's philosophy disappeared from the limelight, and I provide a reconstruction of his views. Then, I use that reconstruction to address problems of evidence, the social dimensions of science, and pluralism. Generally, mainstream philosophers of science with an interest in Dewey (...) pay little attention to the body of scholarship on Dewey and tend to misinterpret or miss important features of his work, while Dewey scholars generally do not connect his work to the nuanced problems of the contemporary scene (with some notable exceptions). My dissertation helps to fill this important gap and correct common interpretive mistakes by reconstructing and clarifying Dewey's philosophy of science and using it to resolve several contemporary problems. Though his is the road less traveled, Dewey's views provide a good starting place for addressing current concerns. He worked towards a model of science that is both fully naturalistic and fundamentally oriented towards human practice, demands that have been strongly argued for but poorly assimilated by most mainstream philosophers of science. He treats scientific practice, and human thinking generally, as not only embodied but also socially and technologically embedded, and thus can be used to open up a dialogue with much of the social studies of science. He has an anti- foundationalist but structured epistemology, and he offers a way to navigate the narrow paths between an immodest and simplistic realism and the pessimistic extremes of anti-realism and social constructivism, a pursuit of interest to many major philosophers of science at present. Philosophy of science took a different path in the twentieth century, beginning with the "received view'' of logical positivism that left many of the nuances of the original movement by the wayside. No aspect of that starting point has avoided disrepute in recent decades. I show that Dewey avoided the wrong turns of mid- century philosophy of science which are now blocking the way forward. (shrink)

El objetivo de este artículo es analizar y revisar las normas que filosóficamente asociamos al proceso de testimonio, inquiriendo hasta qué puntoson0 consistentes con los conocimientos empíricos de las ciencias cognitivas.Tradicionalmente, el problema del testimonio surgía cuando, desde una epistemología de corte individualista, se suponía, siguiendo el dictum ya marcado en la Modernidad tanto por racionalistas como por empiristas, de que el conocimiento debía ser testado personalmente. Sin embargo, disciplinas y enfoques recientes, como la Cognición Socialmente Distribuida y la Epistemología (...) Social ofrecen otra vía al considerar al grupo la unidad cognitiva realmente significativa e intentar solucionar el problema del testimonio desde esa perspectiva. Nuestro objetivo es analizar los motivos por los que la CSD es un buen modelo para explicar algunas de las paradojas y problemas epistemológicos cuando tenemos en cuenta el papel del testimonio en el desarrollo de la ciencia. The goal of this paper is to review and analyze norms philosophically associated with the process of testimony and to investigate to what extent they are consistent with empirical knowledge supplied by cognitive science. Traditionally, the problem of testimony used to arise when it was supposed, from the viewpoint of an individualistic epistemology, that followed the dictum stated by rationalists and empiricists in Modernity, that knowledge had to be tested personally. However, recent disciplines and approaches, like Socially Distributed Cognition and Social Epistemology, provide alternative ways of thinking. This is the case when we consider the group as the truly significant cognitive unit and from such perspective we try to solve the problem of testimony. Therefore, our aim is to examine the reasons why SDC offers a good model for explaining some of the paradoxes and epistemological problems that arise when we consider the issue of testimony in the development of science. (shrink)

Recent work on the semantic view of scientific theories is highly critical of the position. This paper identifies two common criticisms of the view, describes two popular alternatives for responding to them, and argues those responses do not suffice. Subsequently, it argues that retuning to Patrick Suppes’ interpretation of the position provides the conceptual resources for rehabilitating the semantic view.