128 Environments of intelligence
If constitutive modes of cognitive coupling carry the day as the paradigms of
extensions of the mind, as I have sought do demonstrate, we might better conceive
of the human and other minds as extended not by virtue of being equipped with a
number of artificial add-ons that work as external instruments of internally based
cognition. Instead, we should conceive of cognition as being extended over traits
of the organism and properties of the environment, incorporating and integrating
entities, processes and mechanisms on either side of the somatic boundaries. Both
sides have evolved, grown and, in part, purposefully created to be so integrated.
In conjunction, they will either constitute W alternative mechanisms for the accomplishment of some cognitive functions or constitute S some functions, as necessary
conditions for their presence. In either case, but to different degrees, the establishment and performance of these functions depends both on evolved mechanisms
and on the environment-shaping activities of the cognising organisms themselves.
Whether developmental systems theory or environmental constructivism or
niche constructivism or teleofunctionalism or theories of extended cognition are
concerned, they appear to share a leitmotif introduced into modern Anglo-Saxon
philosophy by John Dewey (especially in 1929).
13
In critical reaction to Herbert
Spencer’s self-styled Darwinian conception of the organism-environment relation
and in accordance with a different lesson drawn from Darwin, Dewey considers
the distinction between organism and environment artificial to begin with. Presuming that distinction to be ontologically grounded creates many of the problems
that most accounts of the adaptive efforts of an organism keep struggling with.
To live plainly is a particular way of being related to one’s environment. It also
is an interactive, environment-shaping relation, and it is continuous with being a
cognitive system, in terms of the evolved function of cognition to help an organism cope with a complex and continuously changing environment. On this view, it
will be difficult to find cognitive processes that do not incorporate features of the
environment. At root, all cognition is extended, and only some of the historically
most recent cognitive traits allow for a notable degree of decoupling. The mind is
not extended into but over the environment.
Notes
1 For systematic mappings of that debate, see Menary (2010b) and Wilson and Clark
(2009). Hurley (2010) embeds her account in a broader taxonomy of externalist positions in the philosophy of mind. A useful commented bibliography on extended cognition is provided by Kiverstein et al. (2013).
2 This concern is shared by the main critics of extended cognition, Adams and Aizawa
(2001), Rupert (2004) and Sprevak (2009).
3 See, for example Wheeler and Clark (2008), where evolutionary and developmental considerations play a major role in an argument for dynamic interactions among genetic,
organismic and cultural factors; or Wilson and Clark (2009), where an explicit and positive
reference is made to evolutionary accounts of biological functions; or Rowlands (2004,
224–227), who refers to Millikan-style proper functions and their aetiological credentials.
4 Other statements of this paradigm include Godfrey-Smith (1994), Neander (1991a,
1991b), Papineau (1987) and Price (2001); see also the anthology by Macdonald and
Papineau (2006).
If constitutive modes of cognitive coupling carry the day as the paradigms of
extensions of the mind, as I have sought do demonstrate, we might better conceive
of the human and other minds as extended not by virtue of being equipped with a
number of artificial add-ons that work as external instruments of internally based
cognition. Instead, we should conceive of cognition as being extended over traits
of the organism and properties of the environment, incorporating and integrating
entities, processes and mechanisms on either side of the somatic boundaries. Both
sides have evolved, grown and, in part, purposefully created to be so integrated.
In conjunction, they will either constitute W alternative mechanisms for the accomplishment of some cognitive functions or constitute S some functions, as necessary
conditions for their presence. In either case, but to different degrees, the establishment and performance of these functions depends both on evolved mechanisms
and on the environment-shaping activities of the cognising organisms themselves.
Whether developmental systems theory or environmental constructivism or
niche constructivism or teleofunctionalism or theories of extended cognition are
concerned, they appear to share a leitmotif introduced into modern Anglo-Saxon
philosophy by John Dewey (especially in 1929).
13
In critical reaction to Herbert
Spencer’s self-styled Darwinian conception of the organism-environment relation
and in accordance with a different lesson drawn from Darwin, Dewey considers
the distinction between organism and environment artificial to begin with. Presuming that distinction to be ontologically grounded creates many of the problems
that most accounts of the adaptive efforts of an organism keep struggling with.
To live plainly is a particular way of being related to one’s environment. It also
is an interactive, environment-shaping relation, and it is continuous with being a
cognitive system, in terms of the evolved function of cognition to help an organism cope with a complex and continuously changing environment. On this view, it
will be difficult to find cognitive processes that do not incorporate features of the
environment. At root, all cognition is extended, and only some of the historically
most recent cognitive traits allow for a notable degree of decoupling. The mind is
not extended into but over the environment.
Notes
1 For systematic mappings of that debate, see Menary (2010b) and Wilson and Clark
(2009). Hurley (2010) embeds her account in a broader taxonomy of externalist positions in the philosophy of mind. A useful commented bibliography on extended cognition is provided by Kiverstein et al. (2013).
2 This concern is shared by the main critics of extended cognition, Adams and Aizawa
(2001), Rupert (2004) and Sprevak (2009).
3 See, for example Wheeler and Clark (2008), where evolutionary and developmental considerations play a major role in an argument for dynamic interactions among genetic,
organismic and cultural factors; or Wilson and Clark (2009), where an explicit and positive
reference is made to evolutionary accounts of biological functions; or Rowlands (2004,
224–227), who refers to Millikan-style proper functions and their aetiological credentials.
4 Other statements of this paradigm include Godfrey-Smith (1994), Neander (1991a,
1991b), Papineau (1987) and Price (2001); see also the anthology by Macdonald and
Papineau (2006).