Clive Gamble
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780197264522
- eISBN:
- 9780191734724
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197264522.003.0002
- Subject:
- Psychology, Evolutionary Psychology
Archaeological accounts of cognitive evolution have traditionally favoured an internal model of the mind and a search for symbolic proxies. This chapter argues for an external model of cognition and ...
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Archaeological accounts of cognitive evolution have traditionally favoured an internal model of the mind and a search for symbolic proxies. This chapter argues for an external model of cognition and uses this perspective to develop the understanding of Palaeolithic material culture as based on sensory experience. It explores ways of investigating the evolution of cognition by using the social brain model combined with a theory of distributed cognition. The emphasis is on social extension, which was a necessary step to a global distribution and which was achieved by mechanisms such as focused gaze that amplified the emotional content of bonds. The discussion examines the importance of these mechanisms through three aspects of social extension — ontological security, psychological continuity and extension of self.Less
Archaeological accounts of cognitive evolution have traditionally favoured an internal model of the mind and a search for symbolic proxies. This chapter argues for an external model of cognition and uses this perspective to develop the understanding of Palaeolithic material culture as based on sensory experience. It explores ways of investigating the evolution of cognition by using the social brain model combined with a theory of distributed cognition. The emphasis is on social extension, which was a necessary step to a global distribution and which was achieved by mechanisms such as focused gaze that amplified the emotional content of bonds. The discussion examines the importance of these mechanisms through three aspects of social extension — ontological security, psychological continuity and extension of self.
Miranda Anderson, Michael Wheeler, and Mark Sprevak
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781474438131
- eISBN:
- 9781474465236
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474438131.003.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind
The general introduction, which is replicated across all four volumes, aims to orientate readers unfamiliar with this area of research. It provides an overview of the different approaches within the ...
More
The general introduction, which is replicated across all four volumes, aims to orientate readers unfamiliar with this area of research. It provides an overview of the different approaches within the distributed cognition framework and discussion of the value of a distributed cognitive approach to the humanities. A distributed cognitive approach recognises that cognition is brain, body and world based. Distributed cognition is a methodological approach and a way of understanding the actual nature of cognition. The first section provides an overview of the various competing and sometimes conflicting theories that make up the distributed cognition framework and which are also collectively known as 4E cognition: embodied, embedded, extended and enactive cognition. The second section examines the ways in which humanities topics and methodologies are compatible with, placed in question or revitalised by new insights from philosophy of mind and the cognitive sciences on the distributed nature of cognition, and considers what the arts and humanities, in turn, offer to philosophy and cognitive science.Less
The general introduction, which is replicated across all four volumes, aims to orientate readers unfamiliar with this area of research. It provides an overview of the different approaches within the distributed cognition framework and discussion of the value of a distributed cognitive approach to the humanities. A distributed cognitive approach recognises that cognition is brain, body and world based. Distributed cognition is a methodological approach and a way of understanding the actual nature of cognition. The first section provides an overview of the various competing and sometimes conflicting theories that make up the distributed cognition framework and which are also collectively known as 4E cognition: embodied, embedded, extended and enactive cognition. The second section examines the ways in which humanities topics and methodologies are compatible with, placed in question or revitalised by new insights from philosophy of mind and the cognitive sciences on the distributed nature of cognition, and considers what the arts and humanities, in turn, offer to philosophy and cognitive science.
Miranda Anderson
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781474438131
- eISBN:
- 9781474465236
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474438131.003.0002
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind
The purpose of this chapter is to provide a background to current research in medieval and Renaissance studies on topics related to distributed cognition and to consider how the various chapters in ...
More
The purpose of this chapter is to provide a background to current research in medieval and Renaissance studies on topics related to distributed cognition and to consider how the various chapters in this volume represent, reflect and advance work in this area. The volume brings together 14 chapters by international specialists working in the period between the ninth and the seventeenth century in the fields of law, history, drama, literature, art, music, philosophy, science and medicine. The chapters revitalise our reading of medieval and Renaissance works by bringing to bear recent insights in cognitive science and philosophy of mind on the distributed nature of cognition. Together the chapters make evident the ways in which particular notions and practices of distributed cognition emerged from the particular range of sociocultural and technological contexts that existed during this period. This chapter attempts to put these contributions in their wider research context by examining how such topics have been approached by mainstream scholarship, earlier work in the cognitive sciences and by existing applications of distributed cognition theory. It draws out both more general features of distributed cognition and what was distinctive about medieval and Renaissance insights into (and superstitions about) the cognitive roles of the body and environment. Throughout this chapter, I reference the chapters in this volume that provide further information on topics covered or take forward the issues in question. In the concluding section, I turn to a fuller overview of the chapters themselvesLess
The purpose of this chapter is to provide a background to current research in medieval and Renaissance studies on topics related to distributed cognition and to consider how the various chapters in this volume represent, reflect and advance work in this area. The volume brings together 14 chapters by international specialists working in the period between the ninth and the seventeenth century in the fields of law, history, drama, literature, art, music, philosophy, science and medicine. The chapters revitalise our reading of medieval and Renaissance works by bringing to bear recent insights in cognitive science and philosophy of mind on the distributed nature of cognition. Together the chapters make evident the ways in which particular notions and practices of distributed cognition emerged from the particular range of sociocultural and technological contexts that existed during this period. This chapter attempts to put these contributions in their wider research context by examining how such topics have been approached by mainstream scholarship, earlier work in the cognitive sciences and by existing applications of distributed cognition theory. It draws out both more general features of distributed cognition and what was distinctive about medieval and Renaissance insights into (and superstitions about) the cognitive roles of the body and environment. Throughout this chapter, I reference the chapters in this volume that provide further information on topics covered or take forward the issues in question. In the concluding section, I turn to a fuller overview of the chapters themselves
Miranda Anderson, Michael Wheeler, and Mark Sprevak
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- May 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781474442244
- eISBN:
- 9781474491075
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474442244.003.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind
The general introduction, which is replicated across all four volumes, aims to orientate readers unfamiliar with this area of research. It provides an overview of the different approaches within the ...
More
The general introduction, which is replicated across all four volumes, aims to orientate readers unfamiliar with this area of research. It provides an overview of the different approaches within the distributed cognition framework and discussion of the value of a distributed cognitive approach to the humanities. A distributed cognitive approach recognises that cognition is brain, body and world based. Distributed cognition is a methodological approach and a way of understanding the actual nature of cognition. The first section provides an overview of the various competing and sometimes conflicting theories that make up the distributed cognition framework and which are also collectively known as 4E cognition: embodied, embedded, extended and enactive cognition. The second section examines the ways in which humanities topics and methodologies are compatible with, placed in question or revitalised by new insights from philosophy of mind and the cognitive sciences on the distributed nature of cognition, and considers what the arts and humanities, in turn, offer to philosophy and cognitive science.Less
The general introduction, which is replicated across all four volumes, aims to orientate readers unfamiliar with this area of research. It provides an overview of the different approaches within the distributed cognition framework and discussion of the value of a distributed cognitive approach to the humanities. A distributed cognitive approach recognises that cognition is brain, body and world based. Distributed cognition is a methodological approach and a way of understanding the actual nature of cognition. The first section provides an overview of the various competing and sometimes conflicting theories that make up the distributed cognition framework and which are also collectively known as 4E cognition: embodied, embedded, extended and enactive cognition. The second section examines the ways in which humanities topics and methodologies are compatible with, placed in question or revitalised by new insights from philosophy of mind and the cognitive sciences on the distributed nature of cognition, and considers what the arts and humanities, in turn, offer to philosophy and cognitive science.
Miranda Anderson, Michael Wheeler, and Mark Sprevak
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781474442282
- eISBN:
- 9781474476904
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474442282.003.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
The general introduction, which is replicated across all four volumes, aims to orientate readers unfamiliar with this area of research. It provides an overview of the different approaches within the ...
More
The general introduction, which is replicated across all four volumes, aims to orientate readers unfamiliar with this area of research. It provides an overview of the different approaches within the distributed cognition framework and discussion of the value of a distributed cognitive approach to the humanities. A distributed cognitive approach recognises that cognition is brain, body and world based. Distributed cognition is a methodological approach and a way of understanding the actual nature of cognition. The first section provides an overview of the various competing and sometimes conflicting theories that make up the distributed cognition framework and which are also collectively known as 4E cognition: embodied, embedded, extended and enactive cognition. The second section examines the ways in which humanities topics and methodologies are compatible with, placed in question or revitalised by new insights from philosophy of mind and the cognitive sciences on the distributed nature of cognition, and considers what the arts and humanities, in turn, offer to philosophy and cognitive science.Less
The general introduction, which is replicated across all four volumes, aims to orientate readers unfamiliar with this area of research. It provides an overview of the different approaches within the distributed cognition framework and discussion of the value of a distributed cognitive approach to the humanities. A distributed cognitive approach recognises that cognition is brain, body and world based. Distributed cognition is a methodological approach and a way of understanding the actual nature of cognition. The first section provides an overview of the various competing and sometimes conflicting theories that make up the distributed cognition framework and which are also collectively known as 4E cognition: embodied, embedded, extended and enactive cognition. The second section examines the ways in which humanities topics and methodologies are compatible with, placed in question or revitalised by new insights from philosophy of mind and the cognitive sciences on the distributed nature of cognition, and considers what the arts and humanities, in turn, offer to philosophy and cognitive science.
Miranda Anderson and Michael Wheeler (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781474438131
- eISBN:
- 9781474465236
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474438131.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind
This collection brings together 14 essays by international specialists in medieval and Renaissance culture and provides a general and a period-specific introduction to distributed cognition and the ...
More
This collection brings together 14 essays by international specialists in medieval and Renaissance culture and provides a general and a period-specific introduction to distributed cognition and the cognitive humanities. The essays revitalise our reading of medieval and Renaissance works in the fields of literature, philosophy, art, music, law, science, medicine and material culture, by bringing to bear recent insights in cognitive science and philosophy of mind on the ways in which cognition is distributed across brain, body and world. This volume explores how medieval and Renaissance practices and ideas make evident earlier expressions of distributed cognition. As many of the texts and practices have influenced later Western European societies and cultures, this book reveals vital stages in the historical development of our attempts to comprehend and optimise the distributed nature of cognition.Less
This collection brings together 14 essays by international specialists in medieval and Renaissance culture and provides a general and a period-specific introduction to distributed cognition and the cognitive humanities. The essays revitalise our reading of medieval and Renaissance works in the fields of literature, philosophy, art, music, law, science, medicine and material culture, by bringing to bear recent insights in cognitive science and philosophy of mind on the ways in which cognition is distributed across brain, body and world. This volume explores how medieval and Renaissance practices and ideas make evident earlier expressions of distributed cognition. As many of the texts and practices have influenced later Western European societies and cultures, this book reveals vital stages in the historical development of our attempts to comprehend and optimise the distributed nature of cognition.
Peter Garratt
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- May 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781474442244
- eISBN:
- 9781474491075
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474442244.003.0002
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind
The purpose of this chapter is to provide a background to current research in Victorian and modernist studies on topics related to distributed cognition. The first section of this introductory ...
More
The purpose of this chapter is to provide a background to current research in Victorian and modernist studies on topics related to distributed cognition. The first section of this introductory chapter by Peter Garratt reflects on current research, while the second section by Miranda Anderson considers how the various chapters in this volume advance work in this area, and the role and potential of distributed cognition in studies of Victorian culture and modernism.Less
The purpose of this chapter is to provide a background to current research in Victorian and modernist studies on topics related to distributed cognition. The first section of this introductory chapter by Peter Garratt reflects on current research, while the second section by Miranda Anderson considers how the various chapters in this volume advance work in this area, and the role and potential of distributed cognition in studies of Victorian culture and modernism.
Miranda Anderson, George Rousseau, and Michael Wheeler (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781474442282
- eISBN:
- 9781474476904
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474442282.003.0002
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
The purpose of this chapter is to provide a background to current research in Enlightenment and Romantic studies on topics related to distributed cognition. The first section of this introductory ...
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The purpose of this chapter is to provide a background to current research in Enlightenment and Romantic studies on topics related to distributed cognition. The first section of this introductory chapter by George Rousseau reflects on current research in Enlightenment and Romantic studies on topics related to distributed cognition, while the second section by Miranda Anderson considers how the various chapters in this volume advance work in this area. The thought-world of the long eighteenth century involves notions of flux between mind, body and world, mind-life and subject-object structural couplings, sympathetic circulations, mind metamorphoses and manacles, and texts, performances and artefacts as cognitive aids or modes of access to other minds and past phenomenologies.Less
The purpose of this chapter is to provide a background to current research in Enlightenment and Romantic studies on topics related to distributed cognition. The first section of this introductory chapter by George Rousseau reflects on current research in Enlightenment and Romantic studies on topics related to distributed cognition, while the second section by Miranda Anderson considers how the various chapters in this volume advance work in this area. The thought-world of the long eighteenth century involves notions of flux between mind, body and world, mind-life and subject-object structural couplings, sympathetic circulations, mind metamorphoses and manacles, and texts, performances and artefacts as cognitive aids or modes of access to other minds and past phenomenologies.
Miranda Anderson, George Rousseau, and Michael Wheeler (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781474442282
- eISBN:
- 9781474476904
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474442282.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
This collection brings together eleven essays by international specialists in Romantic and Enlightenment culture and provides a general and a period-specific introduction to distributed cognition and ...
More
This collection brings together eleven essays by international specialists in Romantic and Enlightenment culture and provides a general and a period-specific introduction to distributed cognition and the cognitive humanities. The essays revitalise our reading of Romantic and Enlightenment works in the fields of archaeology, history, drama, literature, art, philosophy, science and medicine, by bringing to bear recent insights in cognitive science and philosophy of mind on the ways in which cognition is distributed across brain, body and world. The volume makes evident the ways in which the particular range of sociocultural and technological contexts that existed during the long eighteenth century periods fostered and reflected particular notions of distributed cognition.Less
This collection brings together eleven essays by international specialists in Romantic and Enlightenment culture and provides a general and a period-specific introduction to distributed cognition and the cognitive humanities. The essays revitalise our reading of Romantic and Enlightenment works in the fields of archaeology, history, drama, literature, art, philosophy, science and medicine, by bringing to bear recent insights in cognitive science and philosophy of mind on the ways in which cognition is distributed across brain, body and world. The volume makes evident the ways in which the particular range of sociocultural and technological contexts that existed during the long eighteenth century periods fostered and reflected particular notions of distributed cognition.
Miranda Anderson, Peter Garratt, and Mark Sprevak (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- May 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781474442244
- eISBN:
- 9781474491075
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474442244.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind
This book brings together 11 essays by international specialists in Victorian culture and modernism. The volume opens with a general introduction to distributed cognition that also sets out its ...
More
This book brings together 11 essays by international specialists in Victorian culture and modernism. The volume opens with a general introduction to distributed cognition that also sets out its relevance to the humanities, followed by a period-specific introduction.
The essays revitalise our reading of Victorian and modernist works in the fields of literature, art, philosophy, material culture and the history of science and technology by bringing to bear recent insights in cognitive science and philosophy of mind on the ways in which cognition is distributed across brain, body and world.Less
This book brings together 11 essays by international specialists in Victorian culture and modernism. The volume opens with a general introduction to distributed cognition that also sets out its relevance to the humanities, followed by a period-specific introduction.
The essays revitalise our reading of Victorian and modernist works in the fields of literature, art, philosophy, material culture and the history of science and technology by bringing to bear recent insights in cognitive science and philosophy of mind on the ways in which cognition is distributed across brain, body and world.
E. T. Troscianko
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- May 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781474442244
- eISBN:
- 9781474491075
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474442244.003.0012
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind
Nietzsche’s writing and thought about the mind challenge some of the same Cartesian dichotomies that the more recent frameworks of 4E and distributed cognition do. Zur Genealogie der Moral (On the ...
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Nietzsche’s writing and thought about the mind challenge some of the same Cartesian dichotomies that the more recent frameworks of 4E and distributed cognition do. Zur Genealogie der Moral (On the Genealogy of Morals), a highpoint in Nietzsche’s project of the ‘Umwertung aller Werte’ (revaluation of all values), is a proclamation of perspectivism: there is no objective perception and nothing objectively to be perceived, only perspectives on objects. This thesis is expressed through evocations of space and movement that, the chapter argues, promote and depend on readerly cognition in which embodied and enactive imagining is central. In these same passages, however, the equivocations underlying the whole perspectivist enterprise are exposed: the supposed discovery of a new extra-textual moral reality through philosophical agility is undermined by rhetorical structures that turn out to merely simulate movement, and so ask readers’ imaginations not to be too enactive. This equivocation has important consequences for readers’ engagement with the interplay of rhetorical form and conceptual content. Cognitive analysis thus gets us to the heart of a grand paradox of Nietzschean philosophy – absolute assertion of the relativity of language – while also shedding light on current questions about action-based distributed cognition as an intellectual force.Less
Nietzsche’s writing and thought about the mind challenge some of the same Cartesian dichotomies that the more recent frameworks of 4E and distributed cognition do. Zur Genealogie der Moral (On the Genealogy of Morals), a highpoint in Nietzsche’s project of the ‘Umwertung aller Werte’ (revaluation of all values), is a proclamation of perspectivism: there is no objective perception and nothing objectively to be perceived, only perspectives on objects. This thesis is expressed through evocations of space and movement that, the chapter argues, promote and depend on readerly cognition in which embodied and enactive imagining is central. In these same passages, however, the equivocations underlying the whole perspectivist enterprise are exposed: the supposed discovery of a new extra-textual moral reality through philosophical agility is undermined by rhetorical structures that turn out to merely simulate movement, and so ask readers’ imaginations not to be too enactive. This equivocation has important consequences for readers’ engagement with the interplay of rhetorical form and conceptual content. Cognitive analysis thus gets us to the heart of a grand paradox of Nietzschean philosophy – absolute assertion of the relativity of language – while also shedding light on current questions about action-based distributed cognition as an intellectual force.
Pieter Present
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781474438131
- eISBN:
- 9781474465236
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474438131.003.0016
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind
This chapter compares Robert Hooke’s views on the use of writing as an external memory with contemporary notions of extended and distributed cognition. The aim is not to portray Hooke as a proponent ...
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This chapter compares Robert Hooke’s views on the use of writing as an external memory with contemporary notions of extended and distributed cognition. The aim is not to portray Hooke as a proponent of these views avant la lettre, but to highlight certain interesting structural similarities and differences. Hooke believed that cognition could be externalised through the use of an external ‘repository’. In this case, cognition takes place through the manipulation of written material. This externalisation of memory makes it possible for other people to access, supplement, and organise the same ‘repository’, which allows for a cognitive division of labour. It is further shown how the Royal Society, of which Hooke was a member, is presented by Thomas Sprat as an enterprise aimed precisely at this kind of cognitive division of labour. The chapter concludes with a concrete example of an ‘external repository’ designed by Hooke, analysing the way it puts into practice Hooke’s ideas on individually and socially extended cognition.Less
This chapter compares Robert Hooke’s views on the use of writing as an external memory with contemporary notions of extended and distributed cognition. The aim is not to portray Hooke as a proponent of these views avant la lettre, but to highlight certain interesting structural similarities and differences. Hooke believed that cognition could be externalised through the use of an external ‘repository’. In this case, cognition takes place through the manipulation of written material. This externalisation of memory makes it possible for other people to access, supplement, and organise the same ‘repository’, which allows for a cognitive division of labour. It is further shown how the Royal Society, of which Hooke was a member, is presented by Thomas Sprat as an enterprise aimed precisely at this kind of cognitive division of labour. The chapter concludes with a concrete example of an ‘external repository’ designed by Hooke, analysing the way it puts into practice Hooke’s ideas on individually and socially extended cognition.
Werner Schäfke
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781474438131
- eISBN:
- 9781474465236
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474438131.003.0003
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind
This chapter examines the medieval Icelandic law book Grágás as it is contained in the medieval manuscripts Staðarhólsbók (AM 334 fol.) and Konungsbók (GKS 1157 fol.), and explores in what ways the ...
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This chapter examines the medieval Icelandic law book Grágás as it is contained in the medieval manuscripts Staðarhólsbók (AM 334 fol.) and Konungsbók (GKS 1157 fol.), and explores in what ways the two manuscripts can be considered to function as external tools of legal cognition. The aim of the chapter is to explore how the modern concept of distributed cognition can aid us in understanding historical phenomena, in this case, the function of two medieval Icelandic codices containing collections of laws. The chapter outlines what lines of thought and reasoning the examined medieval codices support when used for finding relevant legal norms or charting applicable law. In order to clarify the relation of the historical development of distributed legal cognition and its textual tools, the chapter’s conclusion compares the Grágás manuscripts to an early modern Icelandic legal manuscript (AM 60 8vo), and to modern statute collections. This comparison shows how the distribution of legal cognition to textual tools slowly developed within the textual culture of a formerly predominantly oral society without a significant domestic administrative literacy.Less
This chapter examines the medieval Icelandic law book Grágás as it is contained in the medieval manuscripts Staðarhólsbók (AM 334 fol.) and Konungsbók (GKS 1157 fol.), and explores in what ways the two manuscripts can be considered to function as external tools of legal cognition. The aim of the chapter is to explore how the modern concept of distributed cognition can aid us in understanding historical phenomena, in this case, the function of two medieval Icelandic codices containing collections of laws. The chapter outlines what lines of thought and reasoning the examined medieval codices support when used for finding relevant legal norms or charting applicable law. In order to clarify the relation of the historical development of distributed legal cognition and its textual tools, the chapter’s conclusion compares the Grágás manuscripts to an early modern Icelandic legal manuscript (AM 60 8vo), and to modern statute collections. This comparison shows how the distribution of legal cognition to textual tools slowly developed within the textual culture of a formerly predominantly oral society without a significant domestic administrative literacy.
Julie E. Cumming and Evelyn Tribble
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781474438131
- eISBN:
- 9781474465236
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474438131.003.0012
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind
The feats of skill exhibited by early modern actors, singers, and dancers can best be approached through the lens of distributed cognition. Complex assemblages of material, social, bodily, and neural ...
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The feats of skill exhibited by early modern actors, singers, and dancers can best be approached through the lens of distributed cognition. Complex assemblages of material, social, bodily, and neural resources enabled and constrained the work of early modern performers. Skilled performers were expected not simply to reproduce material; improvisation and spontaneity were more highly valued than rote memorisation. To be a performer was to be an improviser. Improvisation always involved interaction with other performers and with a given text, whether a score, a choreography, or a play text. This chapter analyses a variety of assemblages underpinning the work of a range of early modern performance practice. These include improvised polyphonic music performed in ecclesiastical settings; improvisation in Renaissance dance; the early modern English theatre, and the notation systems used for part-singing. Each of these operates within a specific cognitive ecology, and each places different demands upon the particular assemblages of embodied expertise, environments, and skilled practice. Distributed cognition provides an analytic framework for understanding these accomplishments.Less
The feats of skill exhibited by early modern actors, singers, and dancers can best be approached through the lens of distributed cognition. Complex assemblages of material, social, bodily, and neural resources enabled and constrained the work of early modern performers. Skilled performers were expected not simply to reproduce material; improvisation and spontaneity were more highly valued than rote memorisation. To be a performer was to be an improviser. Improvisation always involved interaction with other performers and with a given text, whether a score, a choreography, or a play text. This chapter analyses a variety of assemblages underpinning the work of a range of early modern performance practice. These include improvised polyphonic music performed in ecclesiastical settings; improvisation in Renaissance dance; the early modern English theatre, and the notation systems used for part-singing. Each of these operates within a specific cognitive ecology, and each places different demands upon the particular assemblages of embodied expertise, environments, and skilled practice. Distributed cognition provides an analytic framework for understanding these accomplishments.
Jennifer Anna Gosetti-Ferencei
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- May 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781474442244
- eISBN:
- 9781474491075
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474442244.003.0007
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind
Contemporary views of consciousness, long anticipated by phenomenology, suggest that cognition includes a distribution across motoric and perceptual experience and is in important ways interwoven ...
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Contemporary views of consciousness, long anticipated by phenomenology, suggest that cognition includes a distribution across motoric and perceptual experience and is in important ways interwoven with the surrounding environment. This paper takes up implications for aesthetics, demonstrating how such an understanding of consciousness is expressed in analogous ways in modern poetry and painting, particularly in works that have been the object of phenomenological study. An aesthetics of embodied cognition can illuminate the common resources of vital human intentionality in artworks across different media, including Cézanne’s painting and Rilke’s poetry and poetics, and both can be conceived not only as aesthetic but as cognitive artefacts. Merleau-Ponty’s claim that philosophy, visual art, and poetry share a common aim and the poetic inspiration Rilke took from Cézanne and other visual artists can be better understood by considering art and literature from a cognitive standpoint.Less
Contemporary views of consciousness, long anticipated by phenomenology, suggest that cognition includes a distribution across motoric and perceptual experience and is in important ways interwoven with the surrounding environment. This paper takes up implications for aesthetics, demonstrating how such an understanding of consciousness is expressed in analogous ways in modern poetry and painting, particularly in works that have been the object of phenomenological study. An aesthetics of embodied cognition can illuminate the common resources of vital human intentionality in artworks across different media, including Cézanne’s painting and Rilke’s poetry and poetics, and both can be conceived not only as aesthetic but as cognitive artefacts. Merleau-Ponty’s claim that philosophy, visual art, and poetry share a common aim and the poetic inspiration Rilke took from Cézanne and other visual artists can be better understood by considering art and literature from a cognitive standpoint.
Ben Morgan
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- May 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781474442244
- eISBN:
- 9781474491075
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474442244.003.0013
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind
The chapter uses Walter Benjamin’s engagement with Soviet developmental psychologist Lev Vygotsky, and Max Horkheimer’s with the work of American pragmatist John Dewey to suggest a productive path ...
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The chapter uses Walter Benjamin’s engagement with Soviet developmental psychologist Lev Vygotsky, and Max Horkheimer’s with the work of American pragmatist John Dewey to suggest a productive path not taken by the Frankfurt School in the 1930s and 1940s as they considered the empirical study of human beings’ ‘mimetic’, i.e. pre-conscious and visceral interactions with others and with the world. Their analyses suggests positive ways of re-thinking the relation between norms and ‘primary intersubjectivity’ if we abandon their unnecessarily stark distinction between mimetic and goal-oriented forms of behaviour. The result is an understanding of how the basis of primary subjectivity, imitation, is itself necessarily distributed and ethically inflected, adding a 5th E to embedded, embodied, enactive and extended cognition.Less
The chapter uses Walter Benjamin’s engagement with Soviet developmental psychologist Lev Vygotsky, and Max Horkheimer’s with the work of American pragmatist John Dewey to suggest a productive path not taken by the Frankfurt School in the 1930s and 1940s as they considered the empirical study of human beings’ ‘mimetic’, i.e. pre-conscious and visceral interactions with others and with the world. Their analyses suggests positive ways of re-thinking the relation between norms and ‘primary intersubjectivity’ if we abandon their unnecessarily stark distinction between mimetic and goal-oriented forms of behaviour. The result is an understanding of how the basis of primary subjectivity, imitation, is itself necessarily distributed and ethically inflected, adding a 5th E to embedded, embodied, enactive and extended cognition.
Bryce Huebner
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199926275
- eISBN:
- 9780199347193
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199926275.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind, General
We live in an age of scientific collaboration, popular uprisings, failing political parties, and increasing corporate power. Many of these kinds of collective action derive from the decisions of ...
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We live in an age of scientific collaboration, popular uprisings, failing political parties, and increasing corporate power. Many of these kinds of collective action derive from the decisions of intelligent and powerful leaders, and many others emerge as a result of the aggregation of individual interests. But genuinely collective mentality remains a seductive possibility. This book develops a novel approach to distributed cognition and collective intentionality. It is argued that genuine cognition requires the capacity to engage in flexible goal-directed behavior, and that this requires specialized representational systems that are integrated in a way that yields fluid and skillful coping with environmental contingencies. In line with this argument, it is claimed that collective mentality should be posited where and only where specialized subroutines are integrated to yields goal-directed behavior that is sensitive to the concerns that are relevant to a group as such. Unlike traditional claims about collective intentionality, this approach reveals that there are many kinds of collective minds: some groups have cognitive capacities that are more like those that we find in honeybees or cats than they are like those that we find in people. Indeed, groups are unlikely to be ‘believers’ in the fullest sense of the term, and understanding why this is the case sheds new light on questions about collective intentionality and collective responsibility.Less
We live in an age of scientific collaboration, popular uprisings, failing political parties, and increasing corporate power. Many of these kinds of collective action derive from the decisions of intelligent and powerful leaders, and many others emerge as a result of the aggregation of individual interests. But genuinely collective mentality remains a seductive possibility. This book develops a novel approach to distributed cognition and collective intentionality. It is argued that genuine cognition requires the capacity to engage in flexible goal-directed behavior, and that this requires specialized representational systems that are integrated in a way that yields fluid and skillful coping with environmental contingencies. In line with this argument, it is claimed that collective mentality should be posited where and only where specialized subroutines are integrated to yields goal-directed behavior that is sensitive to the concerns that are relevant to a group as such. Unlike traditional claims about collective intentionality, this approach reveals that there are many kinds of collective minds: some groups have cognitive capacities that are more like those that we find in honeybees or cats than they are like those that we find in people. Indeed, groups are unlikely to be ‘believers’ in the fullest sense of the term, and understanding why this is the case sheds new light on questions about collective intentionality and collective responsibility.
Georg Theiner
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780262019552
- eISBN:
- 9780262314787
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262019552.003.0009
- Subject:
- Biology, Evolutionary Biology / Genetics
My goal in this chapter is to show that Kirsh and Maglio’s (1994) distinction between pragmatic and epistemic action can be generalized from the level of individuals to that of groups. The concept of ...
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My goal in this chapter is to show that Kirsh and Maglio’s (1994) distinction between pragmatic and epistemic action can be generalized from the level of individuals to that of groups. The concept of a collective epistemic action refers to ways in which groups actively change the structure of their social organization to improve their epistemic performance as collective agents. By emphasizing the interactions among people, rather than between people and their tools, I reconnect the “extended mind” thesis with complementary areas of social-scientific research in which groups are analyzed as the seats of action and cognition in their own right.Less
My goal in this chapter is to show that Kirsh and Maglio’s (1994) distinction between pragmatic and epistemic action can be generalized from the level of individuals to that of groups. The concept of a collective epistemic action refers to ways in which groups actively change the structure of their social organization to improve their epistemic performance as collective agents. By emphasizing the interactions among people, rather than between people and their tools, I reconnect the “extended mind” thesis with complementary areas of social-scientific research in which groups are analyzed as the seats of action and cognition in their own right.
Neil Levy
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- December 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780192895325
- eISBN:
- 9780191916144
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780192895325.003.0002
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Metaphysics/Epistemology, Political Philosophy
What kind of being are we? This of course is one of the oldest questions in philosophy. In earlier eras, answers were often non-naturalistic (we are animals with souls, for instance). Today, one of ...
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What kind of being are we? This of course is one of the oldest questions in philosophy. In earlier eras, answers were often non-naturalistic (we are animals with souls, for instance). Today, one of the oldest answers is also one of the most popular: with Aristotle, we often think we are distinguished from other animals by our rationality. This chapter suggests that another answer is at least as defensible: we are epistemically social animals. In making the case for this answer, it provides some of the background for the account of belief formation developed in the book. It highlights evidence from cultural evolution for our epistemic dependence on one another. Cultural evolution shows how human flourishing is due to cultural knowledge that escapes the grasp of individuals and that is the product of evolutionary processes. The chapter then turns to our central paradigm of a successful epistemic enterprise: modern science. It argues that science, too, owes its success to the way in which cognition is distributed across agents, groups, and even artifacts.Less
What kind of being are we? This of course is one of the oldest questions in philosophy. In earlier eras, answers were often non-naturalistic (we are animals with souls, for instance). Today, one of the oldest answers is also one of the most popular: with Aristotle, we often think we are distinguished from other animals by our rationality. This chapter suggests that another answer is at least as defensible: we are epistemically social animals. In making the case for this answer, it provides some of the background for the account of belief formation developed in the book. It highlights evidence from cultural evolution for our epistemic dependence on one another. Cultural evolution shows how human flourishing is due to cultural knowledge that escapes the grasp of individuals and that is the product of evolutionary processes. The chapter then turns to our central paradigm of a successful epistemic enterprise: modern science. It argues that science, too, owes its success to the way in which cognition is distributed across agents, groups, and even artifacts.
Alexander Bird
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- January 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199665792
- eISBN:
- 9780191748615
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199665792.003.0003
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Metaphysics/Epistemology
In this chapter, three questions are posed: (i) When does a collection of individuals form an entity that is more than just the mereological sum of its constituent persons? (ii) Given that there is a ...
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In this chapter, three questions are posed: (i) When does a collection of individuals form an entity that is more than just the mereological sum of its constituent persons? (ii) Given that there is a group of this sort, under what conditions does it know (or believe etc.)? (iii) When we talk of, for example, ‘the growth of scientific knowledge’, can we regard this scientific knowledge as an epistemic state of some social entity? Drawing upon ideas from distribution cognition and Durkheimian sociology, responses are provided to the first and second questions and thereby a positive answer is given to the third.Less
In this chapter, three questions are posed: (i) When does a collection of individuals form an entity that is more than just the mereological sum of its constituent persons? (ii) Given that there is a group of this sort, under what conditions does it know (or believe etc.)? (iii) When we talk of, for example, ‘the growth of scientific knowledge’, can we regard this scientific knowledge as an epistemic state of some social entity? Drawing upon ideas from distribution cognition and Durkheimian sociology, responses are provided to the first and second questions and thereby a positive answer is given to the third.