Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gvvz8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T23:17:47.107Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

EPISTEMOLOGY AND RADICALLY EXTENDED COGNITION

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2015

Benjamin Jarvis
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This 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.

Type
Articles
Information
Episteme , Volume 12 , Issue 4 , December 2015 , pp. 459 - 478
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Adams, F. and Aizawa, K. 2010. The Bounds of Cognition. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Aizawa, K. 2012. ‘Distinguishing Virtue Epistemology and Extended Cognition.’ Philosophical Explorations, 15: 91–106.Google Scholar
Burge, T. 2007. Philosophical Essays, Volume 2: Foundations of Mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burge, T. 2010. Origins of Objectivity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Carter, J. A. 2013. ‘Extended Cognition and Epistemic Luck.’ Synthese, doi 10.1007/s11229-013-0267-3.Google Scholar
Carter, J. A. unpublished. ‘Epistemic Luck and Propositional Memory.’Google Scholar
Carter, J. A. and Pritchard, D. Forthcoming. ‘Extended Entitlement.’ In Graham, P. and Pedersen, N. (eds), Epistemic Entitlement. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Christensen, D. 2004. Putting Logic in its Place: Formal Constraints on Rational Belief. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, A. 2008. Supersizing the Mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Clark, A. and Chalmers, D. J. 1998. ‘The Extended Mind.’ Analysis, 58: 7–19.Google Scholar
Comesaña, J. 2006. ‘A Well-Founded Solution to the Generality Problem.’ Philosophical Studies, 129: 27–47.Google Scholar
Conee, E. 1992. ‘The Truth Connection.’ Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 52: 657–99.Google Scholar
Conee, E. and Feldman, R. 1998. ‘The Generality Problem for Reliabilism.’ Philosophical Studies, 89: 1–29.Google Scholar
Cosmides, L. and Tooby, J. 1992. ‘Cognitive Adaptations for Social Exchange.’ In Barkow, J., Cosmides, L., and Tooby, J. (eds), The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture, pp. 163–228. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Feldman, R. and Conee, E. 2001. ‘Internalism Defended.’ American Philosophical Quarterly, 38: 1–18.Google Scholar
Fodor, J. A. 2000. The Mind Doesn't Work That Way: The Scope and Limits of Computational Psychology. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Foley, R. 1993. ‘What I am to Believe?’ In Wagner, S. and Warner, R. (eds), Naturalism: A Critical Appraisal. Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame University Press.Google Scholar
Goldman, A. 1976. ‘Discrimination and Perceptual Knowledge.’ Journal of Philosophy, 73: 771–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldman, A. 1979. ‘What Is Justified Belief?’ In Pappas, G. (ed.), Justification and Knowledge. Dordrecht: Reidel.Google Scholar
Greco, J. 2003. ‘Knowledge as Credit for True Belief.’ In DePaul, M. and Zagzebski, L. (eds), Intellectual Virtue: Perspectives from Ethics and Epistemology, pp. 111–34. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Greco, J. 2010. Achieving Knowledge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hare, R. M. 1952. The Language of Morals. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Horwich, P. 2006. ‘The Value of Truth.’ Noûs, 40: 347–60.Google Scholar
Ichikawa, J. J. and Jarvis, B. 2013. The Rules of Thought. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Jarvis, B. 2013. ‘Knowledge, Cognitive Achievement, and Environmental Luck.’ Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 94: 529–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jarvis, B. 2014. ‘Evaluating the Extended Mind.’ Philosophical Issues, 24: 208–28.Google Scholar
Kelp, C. 2013. ‘Extended Cognition and Robust Virtue Epistemology.’ Erkenntnis, 78: 245–52.Google Scholar
Kirchoff, M. D. and Newsome, W. 2012. ‘Distributed Cognitive Agency in Virtue Epistemology.’ Philosophical Explorations, 15: 165–80.Google Scholar
Koksvik, O. Unpublished. ‘Intuition, Belief, and Rational Criticisability.’Google Scholar
Lynch, M. 2004. ‘Minimalism and the Value of Truth.’ Philosophical Quarterly, 54: 497–517.Google Scholar
Lynch, M. 2009. Truth as One and Many. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nozick, R. 1974. Anarchy, State, and Utopia. New York, NY: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Pritchard, D. 2005. Epistemic Luck. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pritchard, D. 2010. ‘Cognitive Ability and the Extended Cognition Thesis’, Synthese, 175: 133–51.Google Scholar
Putnam, H. 1975. ‘The Meaning of “Meaning”.’ Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, 7: 131–93.Google Scholar
Quine, W. V. O. 1953. ‘Two Dogmas of Empiricism.’ In From a Logical Point of View. New York, NY: Harper and Row.Google Scholar
Rowlands, M. 1999. The Body in Mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Rupert, R. D. 2009. Cognitive Systems and the Extended Mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shapiro, L. 2011. Embodied Cognition. New York, NY: Routledge.Google Scholar
Sosa, E. 2003. ‘The Place of Truth in Epistemology.’ In DePaul, M. and Zagzebski, L. (eds), Intellectual Virtue: Perspectives from Ethics and Epistemology, pp. 155–80. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Sosa, E. 2007. A Virtue Epistemology: Apt Belief and Reflective Knowledge, Vol. 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sosa, E., Kim, J., Fantl, J., and McGrath, M. (eds). 2008. Epistemology: An Anthology. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.Google Scholar
Sutton, J., Harris, C. B., Keil, P. G., and Barnier, A. J. 2010. ‘The Psychology of Memory, Extended Cognition, and Socially Distributed Remembering.’ Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 9: 521–60.Google Scholar
Vaesen, K. 2014. ‘Dewey on Extended Cognition and Epistemology.’ Philosophical Issues, 24: 426–38.Google Scholar
Wason, P. C. (1966). ‘Reasoning.’ In Foss, B. (ed.), New Horizons in Psychology, pp. 135–51. Harmondsworth: Penguin.Google Scholar
Wilson, R. 1994. ‘Wide Computationalism.’ Mind, 103: 351–72.Google Scholar
Wheeler, M. 2010. ‘In Defense of Extended Functionalism.’ In Menary, R. (ed.), The Extended Mind, pp. 245–70. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Whiting, D. 2012. ‘Does Belief Aim (Only) at the Truth?’ Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 93: 279–300.Google Scholar
Whiting, D. 2013. ‘The Good and the True (or the Bad and the False).’ Philosophy, 88: 219–42.Google Scholar
Williamson, T. 2002. Knowledge and its Limits. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zagzebski, L. 1994. ‘The Inescapability of Gettier Problems.’ Philosophical Quarterly, 44: 65–73.Google Scholar
Zangwill, N. 2005. ‘The Normativity of the Mental.’ Philosophical Explorations, 8: 1–19.Google Scholar
Zangwill, N. 2010. ‘Normativity and Metaphysics of Mind.’ Australasian Journal of Philosophy 88: 21–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar