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Thinking, Values and Meaning in Changing Cognitive Ecologies

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Cognition Beyond the Brain

Abstract

In defence of the pluralism of Cognition Beyond the Brain, we propose a systemic view of cognition. We argue that this opens up the diversity of thinking by allowing persons to act as living subjects who also make routine use of collectively organised cognitive ecosystems (Hutchins 2014). To allow for the duality of human agency , one needs a methodological principle that links subjective concerns with collective control . The principle of cognitive separability (PCS) posits that people can dissociate extended causal processes from subject-centred actions . The systemic view offers three main claims about human cognition . First, language , problem solving , human-computer interaction , and many elaborate cognitive skills are based in sense-saturated coordination or interactivity . Second, interactivity prompts embrained bodies to develop the cognitive powers used in human performance . Third, human agents entwine brains, bodies and world as they use the PCS to manage multi-scalar dynamics. In this second edition of Cognition beyond the brain, we defend the principles by presenting the state of the art. The papers address, among other things, use of the internet, the fluid nature of self, the history of the Paris Commune , and computer aided design . In line with cognitive separability, the studies vary in the granularity used to pursue how bodies and artifacts shape thinking . Whereas some contributors invoke (putative) mental content , others take the radical view that thinking depends on non-localisable pattern . Yet, in all cases, experience of materiality is meshed with activity that involves the world beyond the body.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    ‘Relevance’ tends to be used when mainstream values and discourse are used to justify the parochial concerns of individuals, organizations and political bodies.

  2. 2.

    “Nevertheless, there remains a fundamental asymmetry in my view. I want to call a system cognitive because it produces cognitive outputs, but refuse to call it knowledgeable because it produces knowledge. For me, the latter makes as little sense as calling a system edible because it was designed to produce edibles” (Giere 2011: 397).

  3. 3.

    Douglas Adams (1979).

  4. 4.

    The hypothesis of extended mind Clark and Chalmers (1998) posits a parity principle that allows resources beyond the brain to be partly constitutive of cognition (qua function). For Sutton (2010), the question is better addressed in relation to how the external complements the psychological; for Rupert (2010), cognition is a ‘phenomenon’ whereby a person adverts to “a persisting, integrated set of mechanisms, capacities, abilities, etc.” There are many other views: indeed, even the dual control of the PCS has a bearing on these debates.

  5. 5.

    While this artificial kind of interactivity pertains to an individual’s thinking—not processes between people—it shows how a machine can sponsor human actions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Human Interactivity and the COMAC Cluster, University of Southern Denmark, Slagelse, Denmark

    Stephen J. Cowley

  2. Department of Psychology, School of Social and Behavioural Sciences, Kingston University, Kingston, England

    Frédéric Vallée-Tourangeau

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  1. Stephen J. Cowley
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  2. Frédéric Vallée-Tourangeau
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Correspondence to Stephen J. Cowley .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Language and Communication, University of Southern Denmark, Slagelse, Denmark

    Stephen J. Cowley

  2. Department of Psychology, Kingston University, Kingston upon Thames, United Kingdom

    Frédéric Vallée-Tourangeau

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Cowley, S.J., Vallée-Tourangeau, F. (2017). Thinking, Values and Meaning in Changing Cognitive Ecologies. In: Cowley, S., Vallée-Tourangeau, F. (eds) Cognition Beyond the Brain. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49115-8_1

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