Epistemology and Extended Cognition Workshop

This workshop is hosted by the Department's Epistemology and the Mind & Cognition Research Groups and funded by The Leverhulme Trust. There is no registration fee and all are welcome. The first four sessions will take place in room 4.33 of the Informatics Forum (with lunch nearby), while the last two sessions will take place in room G.06 of the Dugald Stewart Building (campus maps). Any inquiries about this event should directed to the organiser, Prof Duncan Pritchard. There is no registration fee for this event and all are welcome.

Speakers

Programme

• 9.45 - 10.00am Tea, coffee & biscuits
• 10.00 - 11.00am Krist Vaesen (Eindhoven)

  'The Epistemic Significance of Cognitive Artefacts'

Abstract: I explain that the thesis of extended cognition challenges contemporary accounts of knowledge in two ways. First, I show that a cognizer's dependence on a cognitive artefact may be so profound, that knowledge is no longer the achievement of the cognizer, but creditable to the artefact and its designer. This undermines attempts of discriminating knowledge and lucky true belief on grounds of epistemic credit. Second, I argue that an epistemic agent S may be coupled so tightly to a cognitive artefact, that she may be said to know that p, even though not having a belief concerning p, and this, in virtue of the artefact possessing the information that p. For example, S may be said to know the time, just in virtue of wearing a reliable and accessible wristwatch---that is, even given S's currently not entertaining a time belief. In the third part of the paper, I sketch a solution (mainly to the second challenge). If information (not belief) is crucial to knowledge attribution, information (not belief) should become the focus of our theorizing about knowledge. I argue, in particular, that the concept of knowledge flags sources of information exhibiting four qualities: (i) S's information must be true, and reliably so; (ii) S's information must be informative, non-trivial; (iii) S must be able to easily retrieve the information; and (iv) S's information must be available in a suitable representational format.

• 11.00 - 12.00pm Tom Roberts (Exeter)

  'Varieties of Integration'

Abstract: The talk explores the notion of an integrated cognitive system, as it occurs in both the epistemological and philosophy of mind literature, and considers its influence on our intuitions concerning knowledge and mindedness.

• 12.00 - 1.00pm Lunch
• 1.00 - 1.45pm Evan Butts (Edinburgh)

  'Is Mentalism Internalism?'

Abstract: Earl Conee and Richard Feldman famously advance a form of epistemic internalism called Mentalism which claims that what is relevantly internal for epistemic theorizing are mental states. Specifically, the claim is that duplicates with respect to mental states are duplicates with regard to justification. Interestingly, this thesis appears to be compatible by-the-letter with some form of externalism about mental states (i.e., the vehicles of mental contents). But can Mentalism properly be called a variety of internalism, in the spirit Conee and Feldman intend, if it is compatible with a radical form of externalism about the vehicles of mental content? I propose to explore this issue and bring to light any ramifications relevant to the nature of the internalism/externalism debate in epistemology.

• 1.45 - 2.30pm Orestis Palermos (Edinburgh)

  'Belief-Forming Processes, Extended'

Abstract: We very often grant that a person can gain knowledge on the basis of epistemic artifacts such as telescopes, microscopes and so on. However, this intuition threatens to undermine virtue reliabilism according to which one knows that p if and only if one’s believing the truth that p is the product of a reliable cognitive belief-forming process; in an obvious sense epistemic artifacts are not parts of one’s overall cognitive system. This is so, unless the extended cognition hypothesis (HEC) is true. According to HEC when parts of the environment become properly coupled to the agent’s brain then they too can be considered constitutive parts of the overall cognitive mechanism –i.e. cognition potentially extends to the world surrounding the agent. Interestingly, HEC and the broader framework of virtue reliabilism share some intriguing similarities, which render these two views mutually supportive. Making these similarities explicit provides a principled account of the way in which our knowledge-conducive cognitive characters may extend beyond our natural cognitive capacities by incorporating epistemic artifacts.

• 2.30 - 3.00pm Tea, coffee & biscuits
• 3.00 - 4.00pm Chris Kelp (Leuven)

  'Extended Cognition and Robust Virtue Epistemology'

Abstract: Duncan Pritchard and Krist Vaesen have recently argued that robust virtue epistemology does not square with the extended cognition hypothesis that has enjoyed an increasing degree of popularity in recent philosophy of mind. This paper shows that their arguments fail. The relevant cases of extended cognition pose no new problem for robust virtue epistemology. It is shown that Pritchard’s and Vaesen’s cases can be dealt with in familiar ways by a number of virtue theories of knowledge.

• 4.00 - 5.00pm Richard Menary (Wollongong)

  'Cognitive Practices and Cognitive Character'
  

Abstract: Recently Duncan Pritchard has argued that the extended mind thesis is compatible with recent work in epistemology (Pritchard 2010). He argues that a weak notion of cognitive agency suffices to account for extended cases of reliable belief formation – such as the now classic case of Otto and his notebook (Clark & Chalmers 1998). As long as Otto is "integrating this information resource into his cognitive character" then extended cognitive processes can count towards Otto's genuine cognitive abilities. (Pritchard 2010, p. 145) In this paper I will focus on this issue of the extended nature of cognitive character. I shall do this by showing that the process of integrating information that is internally and externally stored is governed by learned or acquired cognitive practices (Menary 2007). These practices often require careful and active structuring and retrieval of information from our environments (and as such are not found exclusively 'under the skin'). Otto is epistemically (or cognitively) virtuous because he diligently maintains the quality and reliability of the information in his notebook. This practice of epistemic diligence is part of Otto's cognitive character, or so I will argue. Consequently, notebooks, personal computers and so on are certainly resources, but it is the active manipulation of the information stored in the resource that constitutes the cognitive process and which can count towards a genuine cognitive ability.

• 5pm Workshop end

The first four sessions will take place in room 4.33 of the Informatics Forum (with lunch nearby), while the last two sessions will take place in room G.06 of the Dugald Stewart Building (campus maps).