Abstract
In this paper, we describe causal powers realism as a conjunction of four claims: causal powers are not reducible to counterfactuals; they are empirically-discoverable; they manifest effects in conjunction with partners; and their manifestations empower further manifestations. We describe four challenges to extended mind theory and for each show how an ontology of causal powers realism either avoids or dissolves the problem. We close by suggesting that causal powers realism isn’t a competitor with extended mind theory but rather a new way to understand what it means for minds to be extended.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
We think directions to the grocery store would be more useful but to each their own.
Patently absurd because we have lots of evidence that the brain is an important part of any human cognitive system.
Superficially, this is a problem because Fodor et al. commit themselves to some version of the claim that thinking is the manipulation of intrinsically meaningful symbols and external props are not intrinsically meaningful symbols. A deeper problem discussed by Adams and Aizawa is that an infinite regress looms large if there aren’t internal, intrinsically meaningful symbols by which extrinsically meaningful symbols inherit their meaning. See Adams and Aizawa (2008) for discussion.
An interesting ontological question lingers near the surface here: in articulating the concept of manifestation partners, do causal powers realists take a relational view of objects and properties (see, e.g., Manzotti 2019, 63–75). In a word: no. Yet in two words: it’s complicated. Why ‘no’? According to causal powers realists, causal powers are intrinsic properties of objects, and therefore not relational. But why is it ‘complicated’? Because powers are individuated in terms of their past and potential manifestation partners (see footnote 6). So while powers are intrinsic, they are individuated relationally. The precise ontology here is worth exploring further. Thanks to an anonymous reviewer for bringing this to our attention.
There’s a related question about how to individuate causal powers. One view that we find appealing is that powers are individuated by their potential future manifestations (cf. Heil, 2003 and Jaworski 2016), though we believe that this point is made more powerful by the insight that potential future manifestations are the result of previous manifestations, mentioned briefly in Lassiter and Vukov (2021).
Elsewhere (Vukov & Lassiter, 2020, forthcoming; Lassiter & Vukov 2021) we show some of the assets of causal powers realism, including an intuitive way to bring causal pluralism on board, a way to accommodate the role of culture in cognition, and an ontology that’s a powerful rival to representationalist accounts of cognition. There are other extensions to the theory developed in Jaworski (2011, 2016). As with any story about Nature’s furniture, there are plot holes. For instance, much of the work of identifying and individuating powers gets passed to the sciences, so causal powers realism is of necessity open-ended without a final answer to the question of how to parse out X’s. That’s all to say, causal powers realism doesn’t pin down mechanisms in the way that, say, connectionism or representationalism does. But that’s ok. Given the sum total of assets and liabilities, we still think causal powers realism is one of the better theories about the metaphysics of mind out there.
Even if we think it does.
See Smart (2017) for an overview of discussion on extended mind theory and the Internet.
This isn’t quite how Adams & Aizawa (2010) put their worries about cognitive bloat. They worry that extended mind theory ascribes cognitive functioning to some of the props of cognition. They quip, “Question: Why did the pencil think that 2 + 2 = 4?, Clark’s Answer: Because it was coupled to the mathematician.” Put this way, the objection is a strawman because no extended mind theorist has ever said that the props of cognition think on their own. A more plausible worry is that objects that have no business being part of a mature cognitive science are embraced as mechanisms of the mind.
For one example, consider Wegner’s research on transactive memory systems (Wegner et al., 1991): pairs of people in which one is able to remember more details about a past event because of the promptings of the other person.
Sort of. Semmelweis actually thought infection was the result of the vapors coming from the hands of the doctors. The calcium hypochlorite effectively got rid of the cadaverous smell but also killed harmful bacteria. The germ theory of disease was still many years away from widespread acceptance and Semmelweis described the causes using the conceptual resources available at the time.
Thanks to Ben Shuman for feedback on this example.
Our position meshes well with Manzotti’s mind-object identity theory — namely, that our experiences of objects just are the objects themselves. The motley in this case is the object and the experiencing agent. Exactly what the motleys are that underpin consciousness will require sustained work by both scientists and philosophers. Thanks to an anonymous reviewer for pointing out this connection to us.
Historically, cultural psychologists have thought about cultures along the lines of collectivism-individualism. But further research suggests that there are some important features that collectivist and individualist cultures share that one would predict they wouldn’t, and important features they don’t share that one would predict they would. Cf. Gelfand (2018).
Intentionality as the mark of the mental is not without its objectors. As Searle points out, there are some mental phenomena that are non-intentional, like general anxiety. And just what is meant by “intentional inexistence” is up for interpretation (cf. Crane, 1998). Be that as it may, we follow the lead of philosophers like Searle and Fodor (cf. 1987) in understanding ‘intentionality’ as the aboutness of thoughts.
Brentano’s student Husserl adopted the former’s notion of intentionality but developed it in a different direction than analytic philosophy of mind: cf. Moran, 2012, Smith and McIntyre (1982). Here, when we use ‘Brentano-intentionality’ we mean it to refer to its characterization in Searle (1983), among other places.
thanks in particular to Marcin Milkowski for suggesting we address this issue
Extended mind theorists recruiting resources from the New Mechanists are also optimists. Kaplan (2012) argues that there is a necessary condition by which an extra-cranial resource counts as a part of a cognitive system: mutual manipulability. The heart of the mutual manipulability account, which Craver (2007) argues is in line with actual neuroscientific practice, is that each component takes on a particular value in an intervention that depends on the values produced by the other component. Regardless of the efficacy of this strategy (see Krickel 2020 for criticism and amendment), it’s clear that extended mind theory plus New Mechanism is an optimistic outlook.
Though, it should be noted, Clark does say that embedded cognition can obscure facts about cognition that are revealed by extended mind theory and hence extended mind is the better theory because it produces better science. So perhaps it is better to say that the stance of principled indifference is Clark-inspired, if not actually advocated by Clark.
We’re grateful for feedback on this draft from Marcin Milkowski, Michael Kirchoff, Abram Capone, and anonymous reviewers. Special thanks to Julia Taylor for research assistance and talking through examples.
Bibliography
Adams, F., & Aizawa, K. (2001). The bounds of cognition. Philosophical Psychology, 14, 43–64
Adams, F. & Aizawa, K. (2008). The bounds of cognition. Malden, MA: Blackwell
Adams, F., & Aizawa, K. (2009). “Why the mind is still in the head. ” in The Cambridge Handbook of Situated Cognition, ed. Philip Robbins and Murat Aydede (pp. 78–95). New York: Cambridge University Press
Adams, F., & Aizawa, K. (2010). “Defending the bounds of cognition. In R. Menary (Ed.), ” The Extended Mind (pp. 67–80). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press
Anscombe, G. E. M. (1951/2000). Intention. Harvard University Press,
Block, N. (2005). Review of Action in Perception. The Journal of Philosophy, 102, 259–272
Boyd, R. & Richerson, P. (1988). Culture and the evolutionary process. Chicago: University of Chicago Press
Brentano, F. (1960). “The Distinction Between Mental and Physical Phenomena. In R. Chisholm (Ed.), ” Realism and the Background of Phenomenology (pp. 39–61). Atascadero: Ridgeview Publishing Company. 1874
Carabotti, M., Scirocco, A., Maselli, M. A., & Carola Severi. (2015). The gut-brain axis: interactions between enteric microbiota, central and enteric nervous systems. Annals of gastroenterology: quarterly publication of the Hellenic Society of Gastroenterology, 28, 203–209
Chiao, J. Y., & Blizinsky, K. D. (2010). Culture–gene coevolution of individualism–collectivism and the serotonin transporter gene. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences, 277(1681), 529–537
Clark, A. (2008). Supersizing the mind: Embodiment, action, and cognitive extension. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Clark, A. (2010). “Coupling, constitution, and the cognitive kind: A reply to Adams and Aizawa,”. In R. Menary (Ed.), The Extended Mind (pp. 81–100). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press
Clark, A. (2011). Supersizing the mind: Embodiment, action, and cognitive extension. New York, Oxford University Press:
Clark, A., & Chalmers, D. (1998). The extended mind. Analysis, 58, 7–19
Crane, T. (1998). “Intentionality as the mark of the mental. In O. H. Anthony (Ed.), ” Contemporary Issues in the Philosophy of Mind (pp. 229–252). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Darley, J. M., & Batson, D. C. (1973). ’From Jerusalem to Jericho’: A study of situational and dispositional variables in helping behavior. Journal of personality and social psychology, 27, 100–108
Fodor, J. (1987). Psychosemantics: The problem of meaning in the philosophy of mind. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press
Gallagher, S. (2018). Enactivist interventions. New York: Oxford University Press
Gelfand, M. (2018). Rule makers, rule breakers: How tight and loose cultures wire our world. New York: Scribner
Heil, J. (2003). From an Ontological Point of View. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Heine, S. (2015). Cultural Psychology, 3rd ed. New York: WW Norton & Co, 2015
Jaworski, W. (2011). Philosophy of mind: A comprehensive introduction. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell
Jaworski, W. (2016). Structure and the Metaphysics of Mind: How Hylomorphism Solves the Mind-Body Problem. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Johnston, M. (1992). How to Speak of the Colors. Philosophical Studies, 68, 221–263
Kagan, A., & Lassiter, C. (2013). Much ado about nothing: The coupling-constitution fallacy. Pragmatics & Cognition, 21, 178–192
Kaplan, D. M. (2012). How to demarcate the boundaries of cognition. Biology & Philosophy, 27(4), 545–570
Kitcher, P. (1990). “The division of cognitive labor.” The journal of philosophy 87, no. 1 : 5–22
Krickel, B. (2020). Extended cognition, the new mechanists’ mutual manipulability criterion, and the challenge of trivial extendedness. Mind & Language, 35(4), 539–561
Lassiter, C., & Vukov, J. (2021). In Search of an Ontology for 4E Theories: From New Mechanism to Causal Powers Realism. Synthese, 199, 9785–9808
Lewis, D. (1983). New Work for a Theory of Universals. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 61, 343–377
Liang, S., Wang, T., Hu, X., Luo, J., Li, W., Wu, X. … Jin, F. (2015). “Administration of Lactobacillus helveticus NS8 improves behavioral, cognitive, and biochemical aberrations caused by chronic restraint stress.“ Neuroscience 310 : 561–577
Liang, S., Wu, X. & Jin F. (2018) “Gut-Brain Psychology: Rethinking psychology from the microbiota–gut–brain axis.“ Frontiers in integrative neuroscience 12
Manzotti, R. (2019). “Mind-Object Identity. A Solution to the Hard-Problem of Consciousness.” Frontiers in Psychology 10 (2019): 63–75.
Marr, D. (1982). Vision: A computational investigation into the human representation and processing of visual information. San Francisco: W.H. Freeman
Menary, R. (2010). “Cognitive Integration and the Extended Mind. In R. Menary (Ed.), ” The Extended Mind (pp. 227–244). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press
Moran, D. (2012). Husserl’s Crisis of the European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology: An Introduction. New York: Cambridge University Press
Oddie, G. (1982). Armstrong on the Eleatic Principle and Abstract Entities. Philosophical Studies, 41(2), 285–295
Palermos, S. O. (2014). Loops, constitution, and cognitive extension. Cognitive Systems Research, 27, 25–41
Prior, E., Pargetter, R., & Jackson, F. (1982). Three Theses about Dispositions. American Philosophical Quarterly, 19, 251–257
Richerson, P., & Boyd, R. (2005). Not by genes alone: How culture transformed human evolution. Chicago: University of Chicago Press
Rowlands, M. (2010). The new science of the mind: From extended mind to embodied phenomenology. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press
Sarkar, A., Lehto, S. M., Siobhán Harty, T. G., Dinan, J. F., Cryan, & Philip, W. J. (2016). “Psychobiotics and the manipulation of bacteria–gut–brain signals. Trends in neurosciences, 39(11), 763–781
Searle, J. (1983). Intentionality. New York: Cambridge University Press
Smart, P. (2017). Extended Cognition and the Internet: A Review of Current Issues and Controversies. Philosophy & Technology, 30, 357–390
Smith, D.W. & McIntyre, R. (1982). Husserl and intentionality: A study of mind, meaning, and language (154 vol.). Springer Science & Business Media
Sprevak, M. (2010). Inference to the hypothesis of extended cognition. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, Part A, 41(4), 353–362
Sterelny, K. (2010). “Minds: extended or scaffolded? Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 9, 465–481
Stich, S. P. (1983). From folk psychology to cognitive science: The case against belief. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press
Vukov, J., & Lassiter, C. (2020). How to Power Encultured Minds. Synthese, 129, 3507–3534
Vukov, J. & Lassiter, C. “Thinking, Faster and Slower: Towards a Dynamic View of Organizational Cognition.” In Organizational Cognition, edited by Rasmus Gahrn-Andersen, Stephen J. Cowley, and Davide Secchi. Routledge: forthcoming
Wegner, D., Erber, R., & Raymond, P. (1991). Transactive memory in close relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 61, 923–929
Weisberg, M., & Muldoon, R. (2009). Epistemic landscapes and the division of cognitive labor. Philosophy of science, 76(2), 225–252
Zupko, J. (2015). “On the several senses of ‘intentio’ in Buridan. In G. Klima (Ed.), ” Intentionality, Cognition, and Mental Representation in Medieval Philosophy (pp. 251–272). New York Fordham University Press
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest/Competing Interests
The authors do not have any conflicts of interest or competing interests.
Additional information
Publisher’s note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Authors listed in decreasing order of number of encounters with Kevin Bacon. Both authors contributed equially.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Lassiter, C., Vukov, J. New Ontological Foundations for Extended Minds: Causal Powers Realism. Phenom Cogn Sci (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-022-09817-7
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-022-09817-7