Abstract
The present paper questions whether or not metatheoretical approaches to cognitive science that utilize dynamical systems theory (DST) require a definitive means of demarcating the cognitive from the non-cognitive. As more researchers utilize DST as means to describe relational properties that emerge in an organism’s interaction with its environment and then utilize relational properties as an account of cognition, we are forced to clearly specify (1) how relational properties differ from non-relational (i.e., intrinsic) properties, and (2) what, if any, roles the two types of properties play in constituting cognition. According to Wild Systems Theory (WST), this intrinsic-relational tension lies at the heart of current debates regarding extended cognition. WST asserts that if DST allows us to see cognitive phenomena in terms of relational properties, and not intrinsic properties, it might be the case that discovering the ‘bounds of cognition’ was never a problem in need of solving.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsReferences
Adams F, Aizawa K (2001) The bounds of cognition. Philos Psychol 14(1):43–64
Anderson ML, Rosenberg G (2008) Content and action: the guidance theory of representation. J Mind Behav 29(1, 2):55–86
Atmanspacher H (2007) Contextual emergence from physics to cognitive neuroscience. J Conscious Stud 14(1–2):18–36
Bauer W (2011) An argument for the extrinsic grounding of mass. Erkenntnis 74(1):81–99. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-010-9269-4
Bickhard MH (1993) Representational content in humans and machines. J Exp Theor Artif Intell 5:285–333
Bishop RC, Atmanspacher H (2006) Contextual emergence in the description of properties. Found Phys 36(12):1753–1777
Chalmers DJ (1996) The conscious mind: in search of a fundamental theory. Oxford University Press
Chemero A (2011) Radical embodied cognitive science. MIT Press
Dehmelt H (1989) Triton, electron, cosmon: an infinite regression? Proc Natl Acad Sci 86(22):8618–8619. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.88.4.1590a
Dretske F (1981) Knowledge and the flow of information. The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Dretske F (1986) Misrepresentation. In: Bogdan R (ed) Belief: form, content, and function. Oxford University Press, New York, pp 17–36
Dretske F (1988) Explaining behavior. The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Fodor J (1981) Representations: philosophical essays on the foundations of cognitive science. The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Fodor J (1987) Psychosemantics. The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Harman G (1982) Conceptual role semantics. Notre Dame J Form Log 23:242–256
Harman G (1987) (Nonsolipsistic) conceptual role semantics. In: LePore E (ed) Semantics of natural language. Academic Press, New York, pp 55–81
Harnad S (1990) The symbol grounding problem. Physica D 42(1–3):335–346
Harré R (1986) Varieties of realism: a rationale for the natural sciences. Blackwell, Oxford
Hebb DO (1949) The organization of behavior: a neuropsychological theory. Wiley, New York, NY
Hutchins E (2014) The cultural ecosystem of human cognition. Philos Psychol 27(1):34–49
Jammer M (2009) Concepts of mass in contemporary physics and philosophy. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ
Jordan JS (2008) Wild agency: nested intentionalities in cognitive neuroscience and archaeology. Philos Trans R Soc B: Biol Sci 363(1499):1981–1991
Jordan JS (2013) The wild ways of conscious will: what we do, how we do it, and why it has meaning. Front Psychol 4:574
Jordan JS, Cialdella VT, Dayer A, Langley MD, Stillman Z (2017) Wild bodies don’t need to perceive, detect, capture, or create meaning: they are meaning. Front Psychol 8:1149
Jordan JS, Day B (2015) Wild systems theory as a 21st century coherence framework for cognitive science. In: Metzinger T, Windt JM (eds) Open MIND: 21. MIND Group, Frankfurt am Main. https://doi.org/10.15502/9783958570191
Jordan JS, Ghin M (2006) (Proto-) consciousness as a contextually emergent property of self-sustaining systems. Mind Matter 4(1):45–68
Jordan JS, Heidenreich BA (2010) The intentional nature of self-sustaining systems. Mind Matter 8(1):45–62
Jordan JS, Vinson D (2012) After nature: on bodies, consciousness, and causality. J Conscious Stud 19(5–6):229–250
Kauffman S (1995) At home in the universe. Oxford University Press, New York, NY
Lemke J (2000) Across the scales of time: artifacts, activities, and meaning in eco-social systems. Mind Cult Act 7(4):273–290
Maturana HR, Varela FJ (1980) Problems in the neurophysiology of cognition. In: Autopoiesis and cognition. Springer, Dordrecht, pp 41–47
Metzinger T (2017) The problem of mental action: predictive control without sensory sheets. Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz
Odum HT (1988) Self-organization, transformity, and information. Science 242(4882):1132–1139. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.242.4882.1132
Prior E, Pargetter R, Jackson F (1982) Three theses about dispositions. Am Philos Q 19(3):251–257
Raja V, Biener Z, Chemero A (2017) From Kepler to Gibson. Ecol Psychol 29(2):146–160
Rosen R (1958) A relational theory of biological systems. Bull Math Biophys 20:245–260. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02478302
Rosen R (2000) Essays on life itself. Columbia University Press, New York
Schaffer J (2003) Is there a fundamental level? Noûs 37(3):498–517. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0068.00448
Schrödinger E (1944) What is life? The physical aspect of the living cell and mind. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Siewert C (2017) Consciousness and intentionality. In E. Zala’s (Ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2017/entries/consciousness-intentionality
Silberstein M, Chemero A (2011) Dynamics, agency and intentional action. Humana Mente 15:1–19
Silberstein M, Chemero A (2015) Extending neutral monism to the hard problem. J Conscious Stud 22(3–4):181–194
Skinner BF (1976) About behaviorism. Vintage Books, New York, NY
Smith LB, Thelen E (2003) Development as a dynamic system. Trends Cognit Sci 7(8):343–348
Streeck J, Jordan JS (2009) Communication as a dynamical self‐sustaining system: the importance of time‐scales and nested context. Commun Theory 19(4):445–464
Vandervert L (1995) Chaos theory and the evolution of consciousness and mind: a thermodynamic-holographic resolution to the mind–body problem. New Ideas Psychol 13(2):107–127. https://doi.org/10.1016/0732-118x(94)00047-7
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Jordan, J.S., Dayer, A., Mason, J., Cialdella, V. (2020). Wild Relationality: The Skin Is Not an Epistemic Border. In: Bertolotti, T. (eds) Cognition in 3E: Emergent, Embodied, Extended. Studies in Applied Philosophy, Epistemology and Rational Ethics, vol 56. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46339-7_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46339-7_4
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-46338-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-46339-7
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)