The Mark of the Cognitive

In recent discussions on the notion of embodied/extended cognition and the extended mind hypothesis, the idea of a ‘mark of the cognitive’ has received quite some attention. Both among the proponents and among the critics of Extended Mind, many authors agree that the project of formulating a principled demarcation for what is to count as cognitive is imperative, not only with respect to this specific debate but more generally as a fundamental question for the philosophy of cognitive science. A few dissident voices, however, have considered the possibility of this question being neither crucial nor answerable, for example by relying on anti-essentialist conceptions of cognition.  

Against this background, the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Groningen is hosting a one-day workshop to discuss the very idea of the mark of the cognitive, in particular but not exclusively with respect to the concept of embodied/extended cognition. How should the question be formulated? Is it a matter of stipulating a definition, or are we after a substantive theory of what cognition is? Is 'the cognitive' a natural kind? How important is it to delineate a mark of the cognitive for different projects in philosophy of mind and cognitive science? These and other questions will be addressed during the talks and discussions at the workshop.

If you wish to participate, send a message to cdutilhnovaes [[ ]] yahoo.com no later than May 2nd.

Schedule

10.00 - 10.15 Opening and introduction to the topic by Kenneth Aizawa

10.15 – 11.30 Kenneth Aizawa: Operationalism Gives the Mark of the Cognitive?

11.30 – 11.45 Break

11.45 - 13.00 Fred Keijzer: Why there should be a mark of something that we should call cognitive  

13.00 – 14.15 Lunch  

14.15 - 15.30 Catarina Dutilh Novaes: Second-wave extended mind does not need a mark of the cognitive

15.30 – 15.45 Break

3.45 - 5.15 Julian Kiverstein: Intentionality as the mark of the cognitive 

Abstracts

Operationalism Gives the Mark of the Cognitive?

Ken Aizawa (Centenary College)  

This talk will examine a proposal that sometimes emerges in the extended cognition debate, namely, a proposal to operationalize the cognitive.  This examination will have five parts.  Section 1 will rehearse some methodological preliminaries regarding the project of providing a mark of the cognitive.  Section 2 will present Clark and Wheeler’s theory of cognitive systems along with Rupert’s revision.  Section 3 will argue that Rupert’s theory implicitly commits him to a form of operationalism.  Section 4 will provide reasons to think that Rupert’s conditions are too weak to characterize what he takes to be the target of cognitive psychological theorizing.  Finally, Section 5 will provide reasons to think that Rupert’s conditions are too strong to characterize what he takes to be the target of cognitive psychological theorizing.  Rupert’s theory merits so much attention here, since it is the most detailed version of operationalism in the extended cognition literature.  

Why there should be a mark of something that we should call cognitive

Fred Keijzer (University of Groningen)  

While the phrase “mark of the cognitive” derives from discussions on the extended mind, the idea that the notion of cognition requires clarification and clearer criteria is shared much more widely. From a cognitive science perspective it is embarrassing that its domain is as open-ended and intuitively demarcated as it is. In 1967, Ulric Neisser famously wrote, while thinking about human beings: “The term ‘cognition’ refers to all processes by which the sensory input is transformed, reduced, elaborated, stored, recovered, and used.” However, it has become clear that this description applies widely across the whole animal kingdom and even far beyond. While it is possible to come with additional constraints to keep the term ‘cognition’ limited to humans, the issue remains that scientifically important forms of intelligent functioning are widely dispersed across the biological domain. Calling these forms of intelligent dealing with an environment ‘biocognition’ it becomes important to clarify biocognition and turn it into a tractable scientific domain. Given the notion of biocognition, it can be further argued that this should apply as well to the human case and those processes that we currently know as cognitive.  

Second-wave extended mind does not need a mark of the cognitive

Catarina Dutilh Novaes (University of Groningen)  

M. Rowlands (2009) has argued that the different objections to the extended mind hypothesis can all be reduced to the issue of a 'mark of the cognitive', and thus can be successfully rebutted if such a mark can be found. In my talk, I argue that the framework known as second-wave extended mind (2EM), exemplified by the work of Sutton and Menary, does not need a mark of the cognitive. What's more, I argue that an overly rigid conception of cognition is inimical to the 2EM project which, by emphasizing the principle of complementarity over the principle of parity, is interested precisely in the transformations in human cognition caused by the interaction with bits and pieces of the environment, and thus in novel, possibly unexpected, kinds of cognitive phenomena. For 2EM, cognition is an inherently dynamic concept. I illustrate my claims with a case study: the cognitive impact of reasoning with notations and formalisms in mathematics.  

Intentionality as the mark of the cognitive

Julian Kiverstein (University of Amsterdam)  

Ken Aizawa and Fred Adams have appealed to original intentionality as among the marks of the cognitive that extended cognitive systems fail to satisfy.  They’ve argued that a mark of the cognitive is necessary to distinguish cases in which some external element of a cognitive system is making a causal contribution to cognition from cases in which the external element is a constituent component of a cognitive system, and so counts as cognitive in its own right.  Only if we have a mark of the cognitive can we settle the question of whether an external element is making a merely causal contribution or whether it qualifies as cognitive in its own right.  I am going to go along with the spirit of this argument that a mark of the cognitive is necessary, and I will also be agreeing with Aizawa and Adams that intentionality is among the defining features of the cognitive.  I take intentionality to be among the defining features of the mental, and talk of the “cognitive” is, I will suppose, a part of a broader “cognitivist” theory of the mental.  I will argue however that conceding this much doesn’t settle matters in favour of an embedded or internalist view of the cognitive of the kind favoured by Aizawa and Adams.  To see why not, we need to know more about the nature of intentionality or meaning.  I will argue that at least in the case of situated action (and this is what we are interested in when we discuss extended cognition) external, environmental resources have original intentionality or meaning that is located in social and cultural practice.  Thus my aim in this talk will be to give a novel twist to Putnam’s famous externalist slogan that meaning ain’t in the head.  Of course the version of externalism about meaning I will be arguing for is not Putnam’s – it owes more to pragmatist readings of Heidegger.  I’ll argue however that this is the best way to understand the intentionality that characterizes situated action.  Moreover, once we accept that meaning is not in the head but is in the world, we ought to say the same for cognition.