Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-ndw9j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-07T22:19:14.371Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Minds, materials and metaphors

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2020

Adam Toon
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

What is the relationship between mental states and items of material culture, like notebooks, maps or lists? The extended mind thesis (ExM) offers an influential and controversial answer to this question. According to ExM, items of material culture can form part of the material basis for our mental states. Although ExM offers a radical view of the location of mental states, it fits comfortably with a traditional, representationalist account of the nature of those states. I argue that proponents of ExM would do better to adopt a fictionalist approach to mental states. In so doing, I suggest, they could retain the important insights underlying the extended mind thesis, while avoiding its more problematic consequences.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy , Volume 96 , Issue 2 , April 2021 , pp. 181 - 203
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy, 2020

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

Adams, Fred & Aizawa, Ken, ‘The bounds of cognition’, Philosophical Psychology, 14 (2001), 43–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Adams, Fred & Aizawa, Ken, The Bounds of Cognition (Oxford: Blackwell, 2008).Google Scholar
Chalmers, David & Clark, Andy, ‘The Extended Mind’, Analysis, 58 (1998), 7–19.Google Scholar
Clark, Andy, Microcognition: Philosophy, Cognitive Science, and Parallel Distributed Processing (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1989).Google Scholar
Clark, Andy, Associative Engines: Connectionism, Concepts, and Representational Change (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1993).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, Andy, Supersizing the Mind: Embodiment, Action, and Cognitive Extension. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, Andy, ‘Memento's Revenge: The Extended Mind, Extended’, in Menary, Richard (ed.), The Extended Mind. (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2010a).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, Andy, ‘Coupling, Constitution, and the Cognitive Kind: A Reply to Adams and Aizawa’, in Menary, Richard (ed.), The Extended Mind. (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2010b).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Colombetti, Giovanna & Roberts, Tom. ‘Extending the extended mind: the case for extended affectivity’, Philosophical Studies, 172 (2015), 1243–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crane, Tim, The Mechanical Mind: A Philosophical Introduction to Minds, Machines and Mental Representation. 3rd edition. (Abingdon, Oxfordshire: Routledge, 2016).Google Scholar
Demeter, Tamás, (ed.). ‘Mental Fictionalism’ [Special Issue]. The Monist, 96(4) (2013).Google Scholar
Dennett, Daniel, The Intentional Stance (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1987).Google Scholar
Dennett, Daniel, ‘Real Patterns‘, The Journal of Philosophy 88(1) (1991), 27–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dennett, Daniel, Kinds of Minds: Toward an Understanding Of Consciousness (New York: Basic Books, 1996).Google Scholar
Dennett, Daniel, Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking (London: Penguin, 2013).Google Scholar
Di Paolo, Ezequiel, ‘Extended life’, Topoi, 28(1) (2009), 9–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Draaisma, Douwe, Metaphors of Memory: A History of Ideas about the Mind (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).Google Scholar
Farkas, Katalin, ‘Two Versions of the Extended Mind Thesis’, Philosophia, 40 (2012), 435–447.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fodor, Jerry, ‘Where is my mind?’, London Review of Books, 31(3) (2009), 13–15.Google Scholar
Giere, Ronald, Explaining Science: A Cognitive Approach (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Houghton, David, ‘Mental Content and External Representations’. The Philosophical Quarterly, 47(187) (1997), 159–177.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hutto, Daniel & Myin, Erik, Radicalizing Enactivism: Basic Minds without Content. (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2013).Google Scholar
Menary, Richard, (ed.). The Extended Mind. (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2010).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rupert, Robert, ‘Challenges to the Hypothesis of Extended Cognition’, The Journal of Philosophy, 101(8) (2004), 389–428.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ryle, Gilbert, The Concept of Mind. (London: Hutchinson, 1949).Google Scholar
Schwitzgebel, Eric, ‘Belief’. In Zalta, E. N. (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2015 edition). Retrieved from https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2015/entries/belief/Google Scholar
Sellars, Wilfrid, ‘Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind’, in Feigl, Herbert & Scriven, Michael (eds.) The Foundations of Science and the Concepts of Psychology and Psychoanalysis. Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. 1. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1956).Google Scholar
Sprevak, Mark, ‘Extended Cognition and Functionalism’, The Journal of Philosophy, 106 (2009), 503–527.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stich, Stephen & Warfield, Ted, (eds.) Mental Representation: A Reader. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1994).Google Scholar
Toon, Adam, ‘Fictionalism and the folk’. The Monist, 99 (2016), 280–295.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Toon, Adam, ‘Fictionalism and intentionality’. In Demeter, Tamás, Parent, Ted and Toon, Adam (eds.) Mental Fictionalism. (Abingdon, Oxfordshire: Routledge, forthcoming).Google Scholar
Varela, Francisco, Thompson, Evan & Rosch, Eleanor, The embodied mind: cognitive science and human experience. (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1991).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wallace, Meg, ‘Mental Fictionalism’. Unpublished manuscript, (2007).Google Scholar
Wallace, Meg, ‘Saving Mental Fictionalism from Cognitive Collapse’, Res Philosophica, 93(2) (2016), 405–424.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walton, Kendall, ‘Metaphor and Prop Oriented Make-Believe’, European Journal of Philosophy, 1 (1993)., 39–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weiskopf, Daniel, ‘Patrolling the Mind's Boundaries’, Erkenntnis, 68(2) (2008), 265–276.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wheeler, Michael, ‘In search of clarity about parity’, Philosophical Studies, 152 (2011), 417–425.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Philosophical Investigations (Oxford: Blackwell, 1953. Translated by Anscombe, G. E. M.).Google Scholar
Yablo, Stephen, ‘Does Ontology Rest on a Mistake?’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volumes, 72 (1998), 229–261.CrossRefGoogle Scholar