The Mind beyond the Head: Two Arguments in Favour of Embedded Cognition

Abstract

In this paper I defend situated approaches of cognition, and the idea that mind, body and external world are inseparable. In the first section, I present some anti–Cartesian approaches of cognition and discuss the intuition they share that there is a constitutive interaction between mind, body and external environment. In the second section, I present the fallacy of the Cartesian theater of the mind and explain its theoretical premises. In the third section, I present a spatial argument against it, and argue that some case studies could give support to the idea of the mind stretching over the boundaries of the skull. In the fourth section, I present a temporal argument, and argue that even in this case the idea of an interaction between our cognitive life and the external world has at least a very strong intuitive palatability.

U ovom radu branim situirane pristupe kogniciji i ideju da su duh, telo i spoljašnji svet nerazdvojivi. U prvom odeljku predstavljam nekoliko anti-kartezijanskih pristupa razumevanju kognicije i ispitujem deljenu intuiciju da postoji konstitutivna interakcija između duha, tela i spoljašnje sredine. U drugom odeljku predstavljam logičku grešku kartezijanskog teatra i objašnjavam njene teorijske pretpostavke. U trećem odeljku predstavljam prostorni argument protiv kartezijanskog teatra i pokazujem da neke studije slučajeva mogu da daju potporu ideji da se duh proteže izvan granica lobanje. U četvrtom odeljku predstavljam vremenski argument i pokazujem da čak i u ovom slučaju ideja o interakciji između našeg kognitivnog života i spoljašnjeg sveta ima barem veoma snažnu intuitivnu prihvatljivost.