
The extended mind hypothesis: an anti-metaphysical vaccine
Author(s) -
G. Airoldi
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
sofia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2317-2339
DOI - 10.47456/sofia.v8i1.23751
Subject(s) - metaphysics , epistemology , consciousness , philosophy of mind , dual (grammatical number) , cognitive science , philosophy , constitution , ontology , focus (optics) , psychology , linguistics , physics , optics , political science , law
Discussions about the extended mind have ‘extended’ in various directions in the last decades. While applied to other aspects of human cognition and even consciousness, the extended-mind hypothesis has also been criticized, as it questions fundamental ideas such as the image of a dual world, divided between an external and an internal domain by the border of ‘skin and skull’, the idea of a localized and constant decision center, and the role of internal representations. We suggest that the main virtue of the hypothesis is not as a theory per se, but as a vaccine against persistent metaphysical prejudices about the mind’s structure, functions and borders. Being an hypothesis about the most efficient ways to combine resources and problems, and not a theory about the mind’s a-priori constitution, the extended mind view moves the focus from ontology to pragmatics and helps purify philosophy of mind from metaphysical remainders.