Extended Circularity: A New Puzzle for Extended Cognition

Carter, J. Adam; Kallestrup, Jesper

doi:10.1093/oso/9780198769811.003.0003

Cited by 2 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…It might be argued that trust is not enough. Thus, Carter and Kallestrup (2018, p. 53) argue that Otto needs to rationally endorse the reliability of the notebook. Similarly, Record and Miller (2018) argue that the uptake of knowledge requires responsibility and not mere trust 13 .…”

Section: Extended Knowledgementioning

confidence: 99%

Collective and extended knowledge

Faulkner

2022

Philosophical Issues

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As individuals we know things. The epistemological investigation of knowledge then naturally starts from the assumption that knowledge is some state of an individual's mind with the most common assumption being that knowledge is a species of belief-the justified and true. This individualistic epistemic approach has then been criticised along the following two fronts. First, it has been argued that knowledge can be collectively achieved, and this requires recognizing that an individual's knowing things can depend on a collective knowing things (Hardwig, 1985(Hardwig, , 1991Hutchins, 1995). Second it has been argued that belief is not merely an individual matter because belief can extend beyond an individual's 'skull and skin Clark & Chalmers, 1998;Menary, 2010). Knowledge can be collective and belief can be extended, and on the supposition that knowledge is a species of belief, it follows that there can be collective belief and extended knowledge too. 1 Thus both epistemic and metaphysical challenges have been raised to the individualistic assumptions common in epistemology.This paper hopes to show a connection between these two criticisms of individualistic epistemology. More precisely, it hopes to rehearse a claim previously made that an adequate account of collective knowledge requires a certain non-individualistic conception of knowledge. And this same non-individualistic conception also offers a basis for arguing that knowledge is extended. However, the non-individualistic conception of knowledge in operation here is one that is largely compatible with an individualist approach to epistemology; it involves no more than a commonplace shift in epistemological perspective. Thus, it is proposed that an account can be given of both collective and extended knowledge that does not undermine the individualist epistemological paradigm. Some shift in epistemic theory is required but not the radical shift away from epistemological individualism that has been canvassed.The paper proceeds as follows. It starts with the recognition that some knowledge is collectively held, and the question this raises is what explains an individual's possession of this collective knowledge? Section one rehearses arguments for a previous answer, (Faulkner, 2006(Faulkner, , 2011(Faulkner, , 2018. Collective knowledge, it will be claimed in this section, is best understood in terms that roughlyThis is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.

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Section: Extended Knowledgementioning

confidence: 99%

Collective and extended knowledge

Faulkner

2022

Philosophical Issues

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“…This difference might be epistemically significant since in the first instance but not the second the individual might retain the ability to check occasionally the reliability of the technology when deciding to rely on it. Hence, for instance whatever its merits, Carter and Kallestrup's (2018) argument that Otto's belief about the location of MOMA falls short of knowledge does not generalise to many ordinary cases because that argument is based on Otto's inability to independently check whether the notebook is a reliable source of information.…”

Section: IIImentioning

confidence: 99%

Scaffolding knowledge

Tanesini

2022

Philosophical Issues

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In this article I argue that often propositional knowledge is acquired and retained by extensive reliance on physical and social scaffolds that create an environment or niche conducive to knowledge. It is incumbent on epistemologists to subject these aids to epistemic assessments. I show that several of the activities involved in the creation of niches within which inquiry can thrive are carried out by whole cultures. New generations benefit from inheriting these niches whilst being able to improve upon them to the advantage of their descendants. Finally, I highlight that the growth of human epistemic achievements is often due to increased outsourcing of cognitive effort and epistemic powers onto impersonal physical and social structures so that human beings can succeed more by contributing less to the solution of problems.Reality is messy. Other people can be hard to fathom. A striking feature of the way in which human beings figure things out is their tendency to manipulate their physical and social surroundings to facilitate the task of finding answers to their questions. Nowhere is this phenomenon more apparent than in laboratory science (Hacking, 1992). Experimental scientific research always requires creating the kind of laboratory conditions that "clean up" reality by screening off external influences and other kinds of confounders, and by making simplifying assumptions. In short, reality must be shaped, changed, and manipulated to be amenable to being known in the ways that are characteristic of Western experimental science. Further, if that knowledge is to be useful outside the confines of the laboratory, our everyday surroundings need to be modified so as to resemble in the relevant aspects the laboratory conditions (Rouse, 1987). Thus, for example, the advances This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.

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Extended Circularity: A New Puzzle for Extended Cognition

Cited by 2 publications

References 17 publications

Collective and extended knowledge

Collective and extended knowledge

Scaffolding knowledge

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