Extended Cognition and Propositional Memory

Abstract

Abstract. The philosophical case for extended cognition is often made with reference to 'extended-memory cases' (e.g. Clark & Chalmers 1998); though, unfortunately, proponents of the hypothesis of extended cognition (HEC) as well as their adversaries have failed to appreciate the kinds of epistemological problems extended-memory cases pose for mainstream thinking in the epistemology of memory. It is time to give these problems a closer look. Our plan is as follows: in §1, we argue that an epistemological theory remains compatible with HEC only if its epistemic assessments do not violate what we call 'the epistemic parity principle'. In §2, we show how the constraint of respecting the epistemic parity principle stands in what appears to be a prima facie intractable tension with mainstream thinking about cases of propositional memory. We then outline and evaluate in §3 several lines of response.Keywords: Extended cognition; propositional memory; knowledge; cognitive ability §1 Extended Cognition and Epistemic Parity Consider the following case, due to Clark & Chalmers (1998):Inga: Inga relies on her biological memory in a way that is perfectly normal; new information she learns is stored in her biological memory, which is also what she consults when she needs some old information.Two obvious observations are in order. First, Inga's biological memory is part of the cognitive process she employs in the ordinary course of storing and retrieving information. Secondly, Inga's biological memory is intracranial in that it is seated within her skin-and-skull.But now imagine that Inga's biological memory were instead somewhere outside her skull and skin, e.g., enclosed in a brain-in-a-vat that she carries around with her, playing the same role vis-à-vis stored and retrieved information as it usually does, intracranially, in the default case.While this would be a strange sight, we would surely not hesitate to include her portable biological brain as part of the cognitive process she employs in remembering the kinds of things she remembered before; her biological memory is after all playing the very same functional 2 role-viz., the role of being that which stores the new information she learns and the old information she retrieves. It would just be doing so in a way that goes beyond her bodily boundary. So, mere location can't be what matters. What then about implementation? Imagine that part of Inga's biological memory, say her dorsal premotor cortex, is replaced in the same location with a silicon-chip device which plays the same functional role in terms of storing and retrieving information. Again, we would not be reluctant to include that artificial implant as part of the cognitive process that she uses in remembering events that occurred before the surgery.So, actual constitution can't be what matters either. But now consider a combined case where part of a cognitive process is both constituted non-biologically and occurs outwith the skin-andskull. Here is Clark & Chalmers's (1998) case of 'Otto':Otto: Otto suffers from...

The philosophy of memory technologies: Metaphysics, knowledge, and values

“…that can have a deleterious effect on the reliability of information stored exclusively in biomemory. This is, as Carter (2017) and Carter and Kallestrup (2016) have noted an epistemically relevant disanalogy between biomemory and extended memory which seems to speak in favor of the epistemic credentials of extended memory.…”

Collective and extended knowledge

“…13 The options here being just the debate between non-reductive and reductive views over what justified testimonial uptake, see Faulkner (2011). 14 See Bernecker (2010), andcompare Carter &Kallestrup (2016). 15 Compare Rupert (2004,p.319) 16 Farkas (2015) reaches the same conclusion-that knowledge but not belief is extended-from different premises.…”

“…Clark and Chalmers might object to the second elaboration of their case: doesn't it presuppose that the realizers of memories are narrowly psychological, what Martin and Deutscher call ‘memory traces’, and thereby that these realizers are not extended to include such things as notebooks? Thus, Carter and Kallestrup (2016) propose that Otto's notebook be conceived as containing ‘extra‐cranial traces’ and as thereby containing Otto's dispositional beliefs. So, this objection continues, possibility two simply fails to entertain the idea that “[f]or Otto, his notebook plays the role usually played by biological memory” (Clark & Chalmers, 1998, p. 12) since this is the idea that Otto's ‘notebook traces’ play the same functional role as Inga's ‘memory traces’.…”

Is searching the internet making us intellectually arrogant?

“…Fisher et al posit that the 'illusion of knowl-1 Increased cognitive outsourcing-or cognitive scaffolding-on extra-organismic parts of the world (e.g., the Internet, smartphones, Google Glass, tablets, etc.) has been a topic of recent interest in the literature on extended cognition in the philosophy of mind and cognitive science (e.g., Clark and Chalmers 1998), and also in the literature on the intersection of extended cognition and epistemology (e.g., Carter and Palermos 2015;Carter and Kallestrup 2016;Pritchard 2010).…”