Tools as “petrified memes”: A duality

Tools are generated by defined steps, fulfill distinct uses, and elicit affordances or mental representations. When the latter are recombined, they are perceived as “technical reasoning,” resulting in novel tools when executed. They can be exchanged, varied, and selected between individuals in a cumulative social process. Tools are materialized, “petrified” memes forming a duality within the framework of active externalism.

Semiosis is cognitive niche construction

Here we describe Peircean post-1903 semiosis as a processualist conception of meaning, and relate it to contemporary active externalism in Philosophy of Cognitive Science, especially through the notion of cognitive niche construction. In particular, we shall consider the possibility of integrating (a) the understanding of “semiosis as process” within Peirce’s mature semiotics with (b) an elaboration of the concept of cognitive niche from the point of view of niche construction theory and process biology research.

Emerging Digital Technologies

This chapter explores the cognitive and epistemic implications of emerging digital technologies from the standpoint of two philosophical positions: active externalism and virtue reliabilism. Emerging digital technologies (especially those associated with the Internet and World Wide Web) are important because they help to highlight issues that are not so easily revealed by the rather mundane and technologically low-grade examples favored by the philosophical community. The present analysis suggests that the general thrust of technology design is largely consistent with the criteria that have been used to evaluate putative cases of cognitive extension. In addition, the present analysis suggests that active externalism and virtue reliabilism are broadly compatible when it comes to the notion of extended knowledge. Despite this, a consideration of both the properties of emerging digital technologies and the requirements for extended knowledge reveals something of an unexpected tension between our prospective status as extended cognizers and extended knowers.