EPISTEMOLOGY AND RADICALLY EXTENDED COGNITION

Episteme ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 459-478 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Jarvis
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Epistemology ◽  
Extended Cognition ◽  
David Chalmers ◽  
Duncan Pritchard ◽  
Andy Clark ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractThis paper concerns the relationship between epistemology and radically extended cognition. Radically extended cognition (REC) – as advanced by Andy Clark and David Chalmers – is cognition that is partly located outside the biological boundaries of the cognizing subject. Epistemologists have begun to wonder whether REC has any consequences for theories of knowledge. For instance, while Duncan Pritchard suggests that REC might have implications for which virtue epistemology is acceptable, J. Adam Carter wonders whether REC threatens anti-luck epistemology. In this paper, I argue that the possibility of REC has no systematic consequences for theorizing in epistemology. I suggest an alternative relationship between the two: epistemology can play a role in diagnosing cases of REC. Thus, by establishing that entities partially located outside biological boundaries don't play certain epistemic roles, one can establish that they don't play the related cognitive roles either. I conclude the paper by illustrating this last point.

Breaking the Waves

2019 ◽  
pp. 81-96
Author(s):  
Michael Wheeler
Keyword(s):  
Extended Cognition ◽  
Andy Clark ◽  
Mark Of The Cognitive ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Second Wave ◽  
The Waves

Andy Clark is the foremost architect of the extended cognition hypothesis (ExC), according to which the machinery of mind extends beyond the skull and skin. Advocates of ExC divide into several camps, the most prominent being the first-wave (parity-based) theorists and the second-wave (complementarity-based) theorists. These two groups are routinely at loggerheads. Given this, it is an intriguing fact that Clark’s work has been appealed to by both sides. By exploring Clark’s own treatment of the relationship between parity and complementarity, this chapter argues that neither of these phenomena can ground a compelling case for extended cognition, and neither can their simple conjunction. Against Clark, it argues that a better argument for extended cognition relies on the concept of a mark of the cognitive. This argument does not fit comfortably into either first-wave or second-wave ExC, although it is perhaps most naturally seen as a development of the former.

Extending Epistemic Virtue

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heather Battaly
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Virtue Epistemology ◽  
Extended Cognition ◽  
The Other ◽  
Epistemic Virtue ◽  
Virtue Responsibilism

What would happen if extended cognition (EC) and virtue-responsibilism (VR) were to meet? Are they compatible, or incompatible? Do they have projects in common? Would they, as it were, end their meeting early, or stick around but run out of things to say? Or, would they hit it off? This chapter suggests that VR and EC are not obviously incompatible, and that each might fruitfully contribute to the other. Although there has been an explosion of recent work at the intersection of virtue epistemology and EC, this work has focused almost exclusively on the reliabilist side of virtue epistemology. Little has been said about the intersection of VR and EC. This chapter takes initial steps toward filling that gap.

scholarly journals Sorte, Virtude, e Anulabilidade Epistêmica

2017 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 179
Author(s):  
João Rizzio Vicente Fett
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Epistemology ◽  
Theory Of Knowledge ◽  
Gettier Problem ◽  
Duncan Pritchard ◽  
Satisfactory Theory ◽  
Better Than ◽  
The Gettier Problem

http://dx.doi.org/10.5007/1808-1711.2016v20n2p179 Duncan Pritchard has suggested that anti-luck epistemology and virtue epistemology are the best options to solve the Gettier problem. Nonetheless, there are challenging problems for both of them in the literature. Pritchard holds that his anti-luck virtue epistemology puts together the correct intuitions from both anti-luck epistemology and virtue epistemology and avoids their problems. Contra Pritchard, we believe that there is already a satisfactory theory on offer, namely, the defeasibility theory of knowledge. In this essay we intend (i) to examine Pritchard’s anti-luck virtue epistemology, and (ii) to defend the defeasibility theory of knowledge as an alternative to Pritchard’s theory. We will provide the reader with reasons for believing that the defeasibility theory is better than Pritchard’s theory because the former is more economic and more ecumenical than the latter, since it goes without non-epistemic notions and remains neutral as for the internalism vs. externalism debate.

scholarly journals Thinking embodiment with genetics: epigenetics and postgenomic biology in embodied cognition and enactivism

Synthese ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maurizio Meloni ◽  
Jack Reynolds
Keyword(s):  
Embodied Cognition ◽  
Life Sciences ◽  
The Body ◽  
Precise Nature ◽  
Andy Clark ◽  
4E Cognition ◽  
Genomic Biology ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Epigenetic Research

AbstractThe role of the body in cognition is acknowledged across a variety of disciplines, even if the precise nature and scope of that contribution remain contentious. As a result, most philosophers working on embodiment—e.g. those in embodied cognition, enactivism, and ‘4e’ cognition—interact with the life sciences as part of their interdisciplinary agenda. Despite this, a detailed engagement with emerging findings in epigenetics and post-genomic biology has been missing from proponents of this embodied turn. Surveying this research provides an opportunity to rethink the relationship between embodiment and genetics, and we argue that the balance of current epigenetic research favours the extension of an enactivist approach to mind and life, rather than the extended functionalist view of embodied cognition associated with Andy Clark and Mike Wheeler, which is more substrate neutral.

Is “Education” a Thick Epistemic Concept?

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harvey Siegel
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Epistemology ◽  
Philosophy Of Education ◽  
Epistemic Virtue ◽  
Philosophical Thinking ◽  
The Relationship

Is “education” a thick epistemic concept? The answer depends on the viability of the “thick/thin” distinction, as well as the degree to which education is an epistemic concept at all. I concentrate mainly on the latter, and argue that epistemological matters are central to education and our philosophical thinking about it. Insofar, education is indeed rightly thought of as an epistemic concept. In laying out education’s epistemological dimensions, I hope to clarify the degree to which it makes sense to regard the concept as “thick.” I also discuss the relationship between philosophy of education and virtue epistemology, as well as the sense in which being educated might itself be thought to be an epistemic virtue. Finally, I urge virtue epistemologists in particular, and epistemologists generally, to turn their attention to questions of education, to further both the philosophy of education and epistemology itself.

scholarly journals Extended Cognitive System and Epistemic Subject

2015 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 111-128 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Trybulec
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Extended Mind ◽  
Cognitive System ◽  
Cognitive Integration ◽  
Epistemic Practices ◽  
David Chalmers ◽  
Andy Clark ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Second Wave

Abstract The concept of an extended cognitive system is central to contemporary studies of cognition. In the paper I analyze the place of the epistemic subject within the extended cognitive system. Is it extended as well? In answering this question I focus on the differences between the first and the second wave of arguments for the extended mind thesis. I argue that the position of Cognitive Integration represented by Richard Menary is much more intuitive and fruitful in analyses of cognition and knowledge than the early argument formulated by Andy Clark and David Chalmers. Cognitive Integration is compatible with virtue epistemology of John Greco’s agent reliabilism. The epistemic subject is constituted by its cognitive character composed of an integrated set of cognitive abilities and processes. Some of these processes are extended, they are a manipulation of external informational structures and, as such, they constitute epistemic practices. Epistemic practices are normative; to conduct them correctly the epistemic subject needs to obey epistemic norms embedded in the cultural context. The epistemic subject is not extended because of the casual coupling with external informational artifacts which extend his mind from inside the head and into the world. Rather, cognitive practices constitute the subject’s mind, they transform his cognitive abilities, and this is what makes the mind and epistemic subject “extended”.

How far can Extended Knowledge be Extended?

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. Brad Wray
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Ability ◽  
Collaborative Research ◽  
Extended Cognition ◽  
Duncan Pritchard ◽  
Knowledge Based

Duncan Pritchard (2010) has developed a theory of extended knowledge based on the notion of extended cognition initially developed by Clark and Chalmers (1998). Pritchard’s account gives a central role to the notion of creditability, which requires the following two conditions to be met: (i) beliefs must be attributable to the cognitive ability of the agent; and (ii) the agent must take responsibility for her beliefs. This chapter argues that difficulties arise when this notion of creditability is applied to situations where one’s cognition is extended by a second knowing agent rather than by an artifact, like a notebook or telescope. The chapter illustrates this by applying Pritchard’s account of extended knowledge to collaborating scientists. The beliefs acquired through collaborative research cannot satisfy both of Pritchard’s conditions of creditability. Further, there is evidence that scientists are not prepared to take responsibility for the actions of the scientists with whom they collaborate.

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