The extension of the extended mind 123
the agents who not only rely on environmental supports but also actively mobilise
environmental resources, natural and other, so as to construct their own cognitive niches (a concept more richly developed in his 2003 book). Sterelny (2010)
argues that functional couplings of the Extended Mind kind are limiting cases
of the more general phenomenon of environmental scaffolding: the reliance of
organisms on the presence of some environmental features or artefacts without
which some function could not be accomplished. For example human beings have
become reliant on the availability of cooked food or means of cooking food, as
their metabolic apparatus has become insufficient for coping with exclusively
raw food. Hence, cooking is an environmental scaffolding for the human metabolism, but it will be hardly illuminating to refer to the human metabolism as being
extended into the environment.
With respect to constitutive W cases, all hopes for an artefact to pass muster as being
part of an extended cognitive processes rather than a mere scaffolding rest on the
degree of integration of the artefact into the accomplishment of a cognitive function,
such as memorising facts or orienting oneself in space – which are functions that still
can be accomplished to some extent by the unaided mind. However, genuinely material “anchors” for certain cognitive tasks may often be both more efficient and historically prior to analogously formed conceptual ones (Hutchins 2005). Still, there will
always be room for debate as to whether some concrete coupling with some artefact
is tight and integrated enough to warrant the bestowal of the “extended” predicate,
or to make us, in Clark’s words, “natural-born cyborgs” (2003). There is no steadfast
ontological criterion to make that decision for us, although the evolutionary history
of the mechanisms involved will provide some guidance.
Hence, the quest will be for evolved mechanisms for recruiting artefacts for
the performance of cognitive functions. Clearly, it is not some concrete type of
artefact (the notebook, the smartphone) that we have evolved to be coupled with.
What can be credibly argued to have evolved is a general and highly adaptable
ability to create and recruit such artefacts – from simple drawings to computing gadgets. In Millikan’s terms (see p. 113), it is the direct proper function of
the organism-based mechanisms involved to recruit a variety of artefacts for the
accomplishment of a cognitive task, and it is the direct proper function of any
concrete type of artefact involved to make its contribution to the accomplishment
of that task, in cooperation with the organism-based mechanisms. If, though, one
takes the lessons to be learned from developmental systems theory seriously, the
practice of using artefacts should be expected to feed back into the organisation of
the brain, and might do so beyond childhood development (Farina 2016).
It will be more difficult to identify the nature and functions of instances of
environmental coupling that play a constitutive S role, as the respective cognitive
ability supposedly would not exist without the environmental counterpart. It will
even be difficult to identify the ability in question as being properly cognitive. If
one follows Adams and Aizawa (2001) in defining cognitive processes ab initio
as a subset of the processes within the human nervous system, one has a criterion
for what counts as cognitive that rules out “extra-cranial” processes by default,
albeit a question-begging one. After all, there are many non-cognitive neuronal
the agents who not only rely on environmental supports but also actively mobilise
environmental resources, natural and other, so as to construct their own cognitive niches (a concept more richly developed in his 2003 book). Sterelny (2010)
argues that functional couplings of the Extended Mind kind are limiting cases
of the more general phenomenon of environmental scaffolding: the reliance of
organisms on the presence of some environmental features or artefacts without
which some function could not be accomplished. For example human beings have
become reliant on the availability of cooked food or means of cooking food, as
their metabolic apparatus has become insufficient for coping with exclusively
raw food. Hence, cooking is an environmental scaffolding for the human metabolism, but it will be hardly illuminating to refer to the human metabolism as being
extended into the environment.
With respect to constitutive W cases, all hopes for an artefact to pass muster as being
part of an extended cognitive processes rather than a mere scaffolding rest on the
degree of integration of the artefact into the accomplishment of a cognitive function,
such as memorising facts or orienting oneself in space – which are functions that still
can be accomplished to some extent by the unaided mind. However, genuinely material “anchors” for certain cognitive tasks may often be both more efficient and historically prior to analogously formed conceptual ones (Hutchins 2005). Still, there will
always be room for debate as to whether some concrete coupling with some artefact
is tight and integrated enough to warrant the bestowal of the “extended” predicate,
or to make us, in Clark’s words, “natural-born cyborgs” (2003). There is no steadfast
ontological criterion to make that decision for us, although the evolutionary history
of the mechanisms involved will provide some guidance.
Hence, the quest will be for evolved mechanisms for recruiting artefacts for
the performance of cognitive functions. Clearly, it is not some concrete type of
artefact (the notebook, the smartphone) that we have evolved to be coupled with.
What can be credibly argued to have evolved is a general and highly adaptable
ability to create and recruit such artefacts – from simple drawings to computing gadgets. In Millikan’s terms (see p. 113), it is the direct proper function of
the organism-based mechanisms involved to recruit a variety of artefacts for the
accomplishment of a cognitive task, and it is the direct proper function of any
concrete type of artefact involved to make its contribution to the accomplishment
of that task, in cooperation with the organism-based mechanisms. If, though, one
takes the lessons to be learned from developmental systems theory seriously, the
practice of using artefacts should be expected to feed back into the organisation of
the brain, and might do so beyond childhood development (Farina 2016).
It will be more difficult to identify the nature and functions of instances of
environmental coupling that play a constitutive S role, as the respective cognitive
ability supposedly would not exist without the environmental counterpart. It will
even be difficult to identify the ability in question as being properly cognitive. If
one follows Adams and Aizawa (2001) in defining cognitive processes ab initio
as a subset of the processes within the human nervous system, one has a criterion
for what counts as cognitive that rules out “extra-cranial” processes by default,
albeit a question-begging one. After all, there are many non-cognitive neuronal