Cognitive Systems and the Extended Mind

Abstract

This book surveys philosophical issues raised by the situated movement in cognitive science—the treatment of cognitive phenomena as the joint product of brain, body, and environment. The book focuses specifically on the hypothesis of extended cognition, according to which human cognitive processes literally comprise elements beyond the boundary of the human organism. A systems-based approach is held to provide the only plausible criterion distinguishing what is cognitive from what is not. In most human cases, this system appears within the boundary of the human organism. It is argued that the systems-based view explains the existing successes of cognitive psychology and cognate fields in a way that extended conceptions of cognition do not and, furthermore, that once the systems-based view has been adopted, it is especially clear how extant arguments in support of the extended view go wrong. Additional aspects of the situated program, including the embedded and embodied views, are also examined. The book considers whether plausible incarnations of such views depart from orthodox, computational cognitive science, especially with regard to the role of representation and computation. It is argued that the embedded and embodied views do not constitute radical shifts in perspective. For instance, properly understood, the embodied view does not offer a new role for the nonneural body, different in principle from the one presupposed by orthodox cognitive science.