122 Environments of intelligence
If, fourth, I use an environmentally coupled process in order to compensate for
an internally based one that I am not able to perform for some reason, and if that
environmentally based substitute enables me to accomplish the same task with
roughly the same degree of effectiveness, efficiency and reliability (see Clark’s
“glue and trust” criteriondiscussed earlier), functional equivalence will be reached
on all levels by means of a mechanism that is clearly distinct from the impaired
one. Such will be the case in what has been termed “sensory substitution” (see
Farina 2013; Kiverstein et al. 2015): situations of sensory impairment might be
mended by artefacts that compensate for the function that has been lost and that
typically recruit an alternative sensory modality.
If, fifth, an environmentally coupled process allows for the establishment of
novel functions, and hence is constitutive S to them, there will be no reference
point for determining functional equivalence, so that the function in question will
have to be identified in the first place. It is upward along this hierarchy of types
of functional relations that one will find the most rewarding proving grounds for
any claim of extendedness.
Constitutional matters
The distinction between constitutive W and constitutive S types of cases introduced
in the previous section partly matches the respective foci of “first wave” parityoriented views of extended cognition, which highlight functional equivalence
between internal and environmentally coupled cognitive processes, and “second wave” complementarity views, which highlight the role of environmentally
extended processes as co-constituents of some cognitive abilities.
9
Still, the mapping of these “waves” onto the types of constitutiveness introduced earlier is not
strictly disjunctive, and some of the preceding points might help to partly integrate
these arguments: where classical functionalism focused on analogies between
input/output relations in different systems on a general level, and where the “microfunctionalism” defended by Wheeler (2010) focuses on more fine-grained analogies in functions of the structures that realise a superordinate function, a history of
selected effects of the traits of the systems under consideration will help to explain
the establishment of certain functions in the first place. At the same instance, it
is a matter of course to an aetiological view of functions to be impartial towards
somatic boundaries, provided that the environmental structures in question form
part of the necessary conditions in an explanation of the presence of some function.
It is equally a matter of course for an aetiological view, as it is for the developmental systems theorist, to accept that the roles played by the co-constituents of some
function are more likely heterogeneous in kind than mutually substitutable.
Still, one might accept either or both types of constitutive roles of environmental factors for some of the adaptive functions of some organism’s traits without
necessarily accepting them as being coupled with the organism in the sense suggested by Clark and Chalmers. According to Kim Sterelny (2010), the Extended
Mind Hypothesis overemphasises prima facie functional similarities between
internal and artefact-involving cognitive processes while playing down the role of
If, fourth, I use an environmentally coupled process in order to compensate for
an internally based one that I am not able to perform for some reason, and if that
environmentally based substitute enables me to accomplish the same task with
roughly the same degree of effectiveness, efficiency and reliability (see Clark’s
“glue and trust” criteriondiscussed earlier), functional equivalence will be reached
on all levels by means of a mechanism that is clearly distinct from the impaired
one. Such will be the case in what has been termed “sensory substitution” (see
Farina 2013; Kiverstein et al. 2015): situations of sensory impairment might be
mended by artefacts that compensate for the function that has been lost and that
typically recruit an alternative sensory modality.
If, fifth, an environmentally coupled process allows for the establishment of
novel functions, and hence is constitutive S to them, there will be no reference
point for determining functional equivalence, so that the function in question will
have to be identified in the first place. It is upward along this hierarchy of types
of functional relations that one will find the most rewarding proving grounds for
any claim of extendedness.
Constitutional matters
The distinction between constitutive W and constitutive S types of cases introduced
in the previous section partly matches the respective foci of “first wave” parityoriented views of extended cognition, which highlight functional equivalence
between internal and environmentally coupled cognitive processes, and “second wave” complementarity views, which highlight the role of environmentally
extended processes as co-constituents of some cognitive abilities.
9
Still, the mapping of these “waves” onto the types of constitutiveness introduced earlier is not
strictly disjunctive, and some of the preceding points might help to partly integrate
these arguments: where classical functionalism focused on analogies between
input/output relations in different systems on a general level, and where the “microfunctionalism” defended by Wheeler (2010) focuses on more fine-grained analogies in functions of the structures that realise a superordinate function, a history of
selected effects of the traits of the systems under consideration will help to explain
the establishment of certain functions in the first place. At the same instance, it
is a matter of course to an aetiological view of functions to be impartial towards
somatic boundaries, provided that the environmental structures in question form
part of the necessary conditions in an explanation of the presence of some function.
It is equally a matter of course for an aetiological view, as it is for the developmental systems theorist, to accept that the roles played by the co-constituents of some
function are more likely heterogeneous in kind than mutually substitutable.
Still, one might accept either or both types of constitutive roles of environmental factors for some of the adaptive functions of some organism’s traits without
necessarily accepting them as being coupled with the organism in the sense suggested by Clark and Chalmers. According to Kim Sterelny (2010), the Extended
Mind Hypothesis overemphasises prima facie functional similarities between
internal and artefact-involving cognitive processes while playing down the role of