Metaphysics and Mind
Metaphysics and Mind
This chapter focuses on the intracranialist/transcranialist (individualist/externalist) debate in philosophy of mind. It begins by differentiating embodied, embedded and extended cognition (Extended Mind) emphasising the distinct metaphysical baggage of extended cognition. This construes the vehicles of cognition as extending beyond the skin and skull of the cognising agent; intracranialists strenuously deny this. Intracranialists accept that much of cognition is heavily scaffolded by extracranial resources but deny that they can be constitutive of cognitive systems. Indeed, they allege that transcranialists fallaciously conflate causal coupling with constitution in cognitive systems and that mind always extends unidirectionally, that is, as extending into world. Using Wilson’s (2004) views on context-sensitive realisation, both of these allegations are refuted. The chapter concludes with a comparative analysis of Rupert’s (2004) Hypothesis of Extended Cognition and Hypothesis of Embedded Cognition to press the transcranialist case.
Keywords: Intracranialism, Transcranialism, Metaphysical realisation, Extended mind
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