Daniel Dennett's distinction between personal and subpersonal explanations was fundamental in establishing the philosophical foundations of cognitive science. Since it was first introduced in 1969, the personal/subpersonal distinction has been adapted to fit different approaches to the mind. In one example of this, the 'Pittsburgh school' of philosophers attempted to map Dennett's distinction onto their own distinction between the 'space of reasons' and the 'space of causes'. A second example can be found in much contemporary philosophy of psychology, where Dennett's distinction has been presumed to be equivalent to Stephen Stich's distinction between doxastic and subdoxastic states. Both these interpretations of the personal/subpersonal distinctions, and also Dennett's own philosophical views of the mind, go beyond the personal/subpersonal distinction itself.They each involve supplementing the distinction between personal and subpersonal explanations with metaphysical claims about the relationship between the two kinds of explanation and the entities they posit.
The past twenty years have seen an increase in the importance of the body in psychology, neuroscience, and philosophy of mind. This 'embodied' trend challenges the orthodox view in cognitive science in several ways: it downplays the traditional 'mind-as-computer' approach and emphasizes the role of interactions between the brain, body, and environment. In this article, I review recent work in the area of embodied cognitive science and explore the approaches each takes to the ideas of consciousness, computation and representation. Finally, I look at the current relationship between orthodox cognitive science and the study of mental disorder, and consider the implications that the embodied trend could have for issues in psychopathology.
Extended cognition and the metaphysics of mind 0. IntroductionAdvocates of the 'extended mind' -the claim that cognitive processes can and do extend outside the head -have generally had little to say on the metaphysics of mind, preferring to concentrate on the explanatory role which extended cognition can play in empirical cognitive science research. Recently, however, claims have been made about the relationship between extended cognition and traditional functionalism in the philosophy of mind. In this paper I explore these claims and suggest a way of clarifying the debate. Sprevak (forthcoming), however, makes a much stronger claim regarding the relationship between extended cognition and functionalism. Sprevak argues not only that the proponents of the extended mind rely on functionalist principles, but also that functionalism actually entails extended cognition -and a version of extended cognition which is sufficiently radical as to be obviously false. In this paper I introduce the standard argument for extended cognition, and the principles and examples which are Zoe Drayson: Extended Cognition and the Metaphysics of MindPage 2 of 18 invoked to support it (section 1). I then review the basic tenets of functionalism and the intuitions behind it (section 2), before setting out Sprevak's claim that functionalism and extended cognition are more closely related than previously thought (section 3). I focus first on Sprevak's argument that the version of the extended mind entailed by functionalism is so radical as to be false (section 4), and I propose two ways one could defend a more moderate version of the extended mind (sections 5 and 6). I shall follow convention by using the terms 'extended cognition' and 'the extended mind' interchangeably throughout, until I explore the nature of the relationship between functionalism and the more moderate version of extended cognition/the extended mind (section 7). Here I will suggest that the original Clark and Chalmers argument considered by Sprevak is actually two separate arguments: one for extended cognition, and another for the extended mind. I will argue that the two positions bear different relationships to functionalism. Finally, I suggest that even if Sprevak's argument were correct, and he'd provided a reductio of functionalism, the proponent of extended cognition need not worry, as their argument does not rely on the truth of functionalism.
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