The Extended Mind: State of the Question

Abstract

It has been twenty years since Clark and Chalmers published “The Extended Mind.” In the present article I review the development of the extended mind hypothesis across what some proponents have defined as three theoretical “waves.” From first‐wave extended mind theory, based on the parity principle, to second‐wave complementarity, to the third wave, characterized as an uneasy integration of predictive processing and enactivist dynamics, extended mind theorists have faced and solved a number of problems along the way. The fact that the hypothesis continues to spark debate and to generate both new insights and new objections suggests that it continues to play a productive role in contemporary philosophy of mind.

Overcoming the Past-endorsement Criterion: Toward a Transparency-Based Mark of the Mental

“…As noted before, a full-blown criticism of the criterion was later developed by Rupert (2004). In the further literature, the criterion was at times mentioned, at times it was missing (Menary, 2010, p. 424; see Clark, 2010b, p. 50;Gallagher, 2018), while in Clark (2008) the fourth criterion was treated as problematic, but nevertheless relevant: "the 'past conscious endorsement' criterion looks too 2 Interestingly, Clark has explicitly defended internalism regarding consciousness (see Clark, 2009Clark, , 2012. The debate about extended consciousness is still open (e.g., Lycan, 2002;Vold, 2015;Kirchoff and Kiverstein, 2018;Chalmers, 2019;Manzotti, 2019), and the possibility of extending consciousness would bring completely different solutions to the problem solved by the past-endorsement criterion.…”

“…In the further literature on extended mind, Clark and Chalmers have been criticized for this attitude, defined as "too Cartesian, " which would be entailed-according to many-by the parity principle (cf. Sutton, 2010, in Gallagher, 2018Wheeler, 2010).…”

“…Following a by now well-established interpretation of the literature on the topic, it is possible to individuate at least three different “waves” in the development of the extended mind theory ( Menary, 2010 ; Gallagher, 2018 ): the first—in the original version by Clark and Chalmers (1998) —is based on the parity principle 1 ; the second—championed by Menary (2007 , 2010) and Sutton (2010) —is built around the concepts of integration and complementarity; and the third—still in lively development—starts with enactivism and is connected to the model of the mind inspired by predictive processing framework ( Hohwy, 2013 ; Clark, 2016 ; Kirchoff and Kiverstein, 2018 ).…”

“…As we have seen, the problematic status of this criterion was promptly acknowledged by Clark and Chalmers (p. 17), who, after warning the reader, left the criterion in a sort of “theoretical limbo.” As noted before, a full-blown criticism of the criterion was later developed by Rupert (2004) . In the further literature, the criterion was at times mentioned, at times it was missing ( Menary, 2010 , p. 424; see Clark, 2010b , p. 50; Gallagher, 2018 ), while in Clark (2008) the fourth criterion was treated as problematic, but nevertheless relevant: “the ‘past conscious endorsement’ criterion looks too strong. On the other hand, to drop this requirement opens the floodgates to […] an unwelcome explosion of potential dispositional beliefs” (p. 96).…”

Social-Computation-Supporting Kinds

“…In philosophy, the existence of social computation is usually implied by even stronger cognitive claims. Theories of the extended mind conceive of smartphones as extensions of human cognition because they are integrated in one computational process (Hutchins 1995;Clark and Chalmers 1998;Gallagher 2018). For example, the cognitive process of geographical orientation happens partially through the extension of Google maps.…”