Abstract
This paper will defend the cognitivist view of cognition against recent challenges from Andy Clark and Richard Menary. It will also indicate the important theoretical role that cognitivism plays in understanding some of the core issues surrounding the hypothesis of extended cognition.
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Notes
It is, of course, true that many advocates of extended cognition reject cognitivism. See, for example, Haugeland (1998), Thompson (2007), Wallace (2007), and Gomila and Calvo (2008). Yet, the fact that there is this disagreement does not mean that an appeal to cognitivism in making a case against extended cognition begs the question against extended cognition. One begs the question when one assumes, without argument, what one is trying to prove. But, cognitivism is not assumed without argument. The case for cognitivism lies in its success in explaining various features of cognition. Were the mere existence of different views of P sufficient to guarantee that one side or the other is begging the question, then every debate would have to involve begging the question.
Sutton (2004) proposes “an integrated framework within which different memory-related phenomena might be understood” (p. 188). Such an integrated framework may or may not be a science.
Some philosophers have been worried by our term “intrinsic representations.” How, they ask, can anything be intrinsically a representation? But, in this context, “intrinsic” means only that the representation does not get its content from any prior existing content. In other words, for us, it means just the same thing as “non-derived representations.” We do not draw any theoretical differences between “intrinsic representations” and “non-derived representations.”
Exactly the same point can be made about the example of Robert Wilson (2004) of playing a children’s board game called “Rush Hour.”
Clark (2005) lists three problems for intrinsic content. These are that it is unclear that it exists, that it is not necessarily limited to brains, and that its existence would not compromise the case for extended cognition. Since Clark does not argue for the first of these claims, and since we do not think that intrinsic content is necessarily limited to brain, we here limit ourselves to addressing Clark’s third claim beginning at Clark (2005, p. 5). For further elaboration on these three points, see Adams and Aizawa (2008).
Clark apparently assumes that the items in Fig. 2 represent the items in Fig. 1. For present purposes, we can abide by that assumption. Of course, it is also possible that Fig. 2 does not represent Fig. 1, but instead both Figs. 2 and 1 have the same content, namely, the same social conventions. We can abide by that assumption as well. Given our observations above that the derived/non-derived distinction is orthogonal to the specific content an item bears, it is fine if both figures have the same content and that one has derived content and the other non-derived content.
See Adams and Aizawa (2010).
It is unclear to us just how Menary would tell a plausible story about why we use tools, if it is not that we are more cognitively limited without them.
Indeed, Adams and Aizawa are on the books arguing that Fodor’s theory does not work. See, for example, Adams and Aizawa (1994).
For some reason, Menary seems to have presented the same dilemma twice in succession. We do not really see the difference between these two dilemmas.
Of course, one does not always speak one’s mind. One might say that “Bill Clinton was the greatest president of the twentieth century” because one thinks that Bill Clinton was the greatest president of the twentieth century or because one does not think this, but is being sarcastic. Nevertheless, there could often enough be enough usefulness in having a close matching between what one thinks and what one says to sustain a match.
As an aside, some advocates of extended cognition have embraced this idea and have employed it for yet another argument, a “complementarity argument,” for extended cognition. To put it crudely, the brain, body, and environment carry out complementary processes, so all of them are cognitive. Aside from the prima facie implausibility of this kind of argument, there is a prima facie tension between the coupling-constitution arguments that try to argue for the sameness of processes, where the complementarity arguments are predicated on the differences among processes.
See Adams and Aizawa (2008) Chapter 7.
It is, of course, an oversimplification to say that the whole of the brain realizes cognitive processes, since there may well be glial cells or blood vessels or other such structures that do not, but it is an oversimplification we tolerate merely for the sake of simplifying the exposition.
The distinction we are here drawing between hippocampal processing and extra-hippocampal processing is, in important respects, analogous to the distinct Clark recognizes between vision for action and vision for perceptual experience. See Clark (2008), Chapter 8. Hippocampal and extra-hippocampal processing will differ at the psychological level as do visual processing for action and visual processing for perceptual experience. Moreover, they will be localized in different parts of the brain, just as visual processing for action is localized in the dorsal stream, where visual processing for perceptual experience is localized in the ventral stream.
In addition to the complementarity reply, there is also the suggestion that we should not look at fine-grained similarities between Inga and Otto; we should instead look at coarse-grained similarities. There is also the suggestion that we should not look for scientific regularities, but instead “common sense” regularities. See Clark (2008), p. 88. These will not be addressed here merely for lack of space.
Sutton (2010) explores this position in terms of a move from “first wave” extended mind to “second wave.”
Like Menary, Wilson and Clark (2009), p. 13, also relate complementarity and the idea of accomplishing cognitive task: “In most cases where we are tempted to speak of cognitive augmentation, the same rule of thumb seems to apply: we find cognitive augmentation where new resources help accomplish a recognizable cognitive task in an intuitively appropriate manner, e.g., by enabling the faster or more reliable processing of information required by some goal or project.”
For further discussion of this, see Adams and Aizawa (2008) chapter 5.
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Adams, F., Aizawa, K. The value of cognitivism in thinking about extended cognition. Phenom Cogn Sci 9, 579–603 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-010-9184-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-010-9184-9