Wednesday, August 18, 2010

"Defending the Bounds of Cognition" Revisited 4

DtBoC repeats what I now think is an insufficiently tight formulation of the non-derived content condition.  (I've posted on this before, but it is perhaps worth repeating.)  It has,
In Adams & Aizawa, (2001), we proposed that “A first essential condition on the cognitive is that cognitive states must involve intrinsic, non-derived content” (Adams & Aizawa, 2010, p. 69)
Andy Clark has observed (somewhere) that there our view is that there are mental representations in the head that apparently have non-derived content, so that when Otto manipulates his notebook that overarching notebook manipulating process does involve intrinsic, non-derived content.  

I think the better, and stronger, formulation requires that the vehicles of content must bear non-derived content.

Defending the Bounds of Cognition (with Fred Adams).  (2010) In Menary, R., (Ed.). The Extended Mind, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.  (pp.  67-89).

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