Who Supports Revolutionary EC 10?

“Instead, it [working memory] must be viewed as essentially hybrid, made up of two distinct components. In particular, the processes involved in working memory must be viewed as made up of both biological processes and processes of external manipulation of relevant information-bearing structures in the environment.” (Rowlands, 1999, p. 147)

Who Supports Revolutionary EC 8?

So, Sutton, et al. have (probably) never denied that cognitive processes take place in the brain:

“We are entirely happy to treat study of ‘the kinds of processes that take place in the brain’ as scientifically valid, and to accept intracranial cognition: we have never argued otherwise, and nor to our knowledge has Clark.”

But, there is a fairly robust group of 4EA type philosophers who have.  This includes Haugeland, Hurley, Menary, Rowlands, and Thompson.  In particular, Clark has, at least at times, rejected intracranial cognition.  Here is one point.

“I’d encountered the idea that we were all cyborgs once or twice before, but usually in writings on gender or in postmodernist (or post postmodernist) studies of text. What struck me in July 1997 was that this kind of story was the literal and scientific truth. The human mind, if it is to be the physical organ of human reason, simply cannot be seen as bound and restricted by the biological skinbag. In fact, it has never been thus restricted and bound, at least not since the first meaningful words were uttered on some ancestral plain. But this ancient seepage has been gathering momentum with the ad-vent of texts, PCs, co evolving software agents, and user-adaptive home and office devices. The mind is just less and less in the head.”  Clark, Natural Born Cyborgs, p. 4

Now, I know that in Supersizing Clark has been happy to talk about a "cognitive core",  but here is a case where he appears to deny this. It's probably possible to read this as not denying intracranial cognition (it's hard to really pin an unwanted view on a philosopher), but then again it is also plausible to read this as denying intracranial cognition. 

Who Supports Revolutionary EC? 7

Thompson and Stapleton:

What goes on strictly inside the head never as such counts as a cognitive process.  It counts only as a participant in a cognitive process that exists as a relation between the system and its environment.  (Thompson and Stapleton, 2010, p. 26).

Given that Thompson and Stapleton are, or at least appear to be, revolutionaries regarding any kind of intracranial cognition.  We should expect an argument that there is none such.  Tune in tomorrow...

Rowlands vs. Menary (Revolutionary EC)

In a recent paper, Rowlands claims that

It is possible to understand EM as asserting a necessary truth about the composition of mental processes: that, necessarily, some mental processes are partly constituted by processes of environmental manipulation, etc. It is possible, but inadvisable. (Rowlands, 2009b, p. 54)

But, this seems to be a direct assault on Revolutionary EC, as articulated by, for example, Menary:

The manipulation of external vehicles is importantly different from the manipulation of internal vehicles and their integration is the unit of cognitive analysis. We are not just coupling artifacts to pre-existing cognitive agents; the organism becomes a cognitive agent by being coupled to the external environment. (Menary, 2006, p. 342) 

It looks like Menary is defining cognition or offering a theory of what cognition is which makes it a necessary truth the cognition is extended.

Same goes if you read Clark and Chalmers as offering a definition, or theoretical account, of active externalism, (rather than a reason for it) in this passage:

We advocate a very different sort of externalism: an active externalism, based on the active role of the environment in driving cognitive processes (Clark & Chalmers, 1998, p. 7)

Haugeland's Approach to Revolutionary EC

I noted that one reason to distinguish revolutionary and supplementary EC is that they bear different explanatory burdens.  So, recall one way that Haugeland argues for revolutionary EC.  He argues that the brain is not a component of the cognitive system, since there is no interface between the brain, body, and world.  So, this is revolutionary ...  rejecting intracranial cognition.

As an aside, one might think that, if your theory of what a system is tells you that the brain is not a component of the cognitive system, then you should check your theory of what a system is.  One person's modus ponens is another's modus tollens, after all.

Who Supports Revolutionary EC? 6

Alva Noë:

Meaningful thought arises only for the whole animal dynamically engaged with its environment, or so I contend. (Noë, 2009, p. 8)

Who Supports Revolutionary EC? 5

Evan Thompson:

Our mental lives involve our body and the world beyond the surface membrane of our organism, and therefore cannot be reduced simply to brain processes inside the head. (Thompson, 2007, p. ix)

Who Supports Revolutionary EC? 4

Mark Rowlands:

I shall argue that there is no theoretically respectable reason for separating the mind off from the world in the way the internalist picture tells us we should.  There is, in other words, no theoretically respectable reason for thinking of cognitive processes as purely and exclusively internal items.  And to say there is no theoretically respectable reason, here, simply means that there is no reason that can be derived from psychological theory as such.  The parsing of the realm of cognition into, on the one hand, cognitive processes that are conceived of as purely internal items and, on the other, external causes, stimuli, orcues of these internal items is not something that is demanded by our theorizing about the mind, but an optional extra.  It is a pre-theoretical picture we use to interpret our explicit theorizing, not something mandated by that theorizing.  It is, in short, a mythology. 
(Rowlands, 1992, pp. 12-13)

Who Supports Revolutionary EC? 3

Richard Menary

The alleged fallacy assumes something like the following picture: an external object/ process X is causally coupled to a cognitive agent Y. The Otto example fits this picture: a notebook coupled to a discrete cognitive agent, whereby the notebook becomes part of the memory system of that agent because it is coupled to the agent. Cognitive integrationists should resist this picture. It is a residual form of internalism, because it assumes a discrete, already formed, cognitive agent. And this is precisely the picture we are arguing against. If we accept the picture of a cognitive agent as implementing a discrete cognitive system, before they ever encounter an external vehicle, then we will have accepted the very picture of cognition we set out to reject.  (Menary, 2006, p. 333)

The manipulation of external vehicles is importantly different from the manipulation of internal vehicles and their integration is the unit of cognitive analysis. We are not just coupling artifacts to pre-existing cognitive agents; the organism becomes a cognitive agent by being coupled to the external environment. (Menary, 2006, p. 342) 

Who Supports Revolutionary EC? 2

Probably Susan Hurley:

Mycroft is a human being, not a machine.  But his brain was programmed by a Martian philosopher who abandoned him when she no longer had a use for him.  Most of his ‘thinking’ is done from his armchair.  On the other hand, Marlowe’s network was trained in part by a linguistic upbringing and education and is continuously tuned by his robust sensori-motor interactions with his environment,
…
Marlowe’s title to genuine thought is more secure than Mycroft’s, anchored precisely by his ongoing interactions with his environment.  If either, it is Mycroft who is the mere mimicker of thought, the appropriate object of zombie or marionette worries.
(Hurley, 1998, p. 4).

Who Supports Revolutionary EC? 1

Who supports the view that there is no intracranial cognition, only transcranial cognition?  Actually, a surprising number of folks.  Apparently, John Haugeland for one:

Intelligence, then, is nothing other than the overall interactive structure of meaningful behavior and objects. … Perhaps the basic idea can be brought out this way.  Intelligence is the ability to deal reliably with more than the present and the manifest.  (Haugeland, 1998, p. 230)

Two Types of EC: Supplementary and Revolutionary

Here is a distinction among types of EC that seems to be worth considering, if for no other reason than that they bring with them distinct argumentative burdens.

Supplementary EC proposes that, in addition to the intracranial cognition that has been studied in the past, there is also transcranial cognition that is "just like" intracranial cognition.  (The qualifier "just like"covers a multitude of issues.)

Revolutionary EC proposes that there is no intracranial cognition, only transcranial cognition.