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James Bond and the Barking Dog: Evolution and Extended Cognition

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Lawrence Shapiro
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Abstract

Prominent defenders of the extended cognition thesis have looked to evolutionary theory for support. Roughly, the idea is that natural selection leads one to expect that cognitive strategies should exploit the environment, and exploitation of the right sort results in a cognitive system that extends beyond the head of the organism. I argue that proper appreciation of evolutionary theory should create no such expectation. This leaves open whether cognitive systems might in fact bear a relationship to the environment that leads to their extension.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 77 , Issue 3 , July 2010 , pp. 400 - 418
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

‡

Elliott Sober provided me with helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article. I am grateful also to Fred Adams, Ken Aizawa, John Bickle, Carrie Figdor, Carl Gillett, Tom Polger, and Jackie Sullivan. Comments from an anonymous referee for this journal were especially valuable.

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