Cognitive ability and the extended cognition thesis

This paper explores the ramifications of the extended cognition thesis in the philosophy of mind for contemporary epistemology. In particular, it argues that all theories of knowledge need to accommodate the ability intuition that knowledge involves cognitive ability, but that once this requirement is understood correctly there is no reason why one could not have a conception of cognitive ability that was consistent with the extended cognition thesis. There is thus, surprisingly, a straightforward way of developing our current thinking about knowledge such that it incorporates the extended cognition thesis. 0. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS One of the most interesting proposals in the recent literature in the philosophy of mind has been the suggestion that there is no in principle bar to cognitive processes extending beyond the skin of the agent. As one of the foremost exponents of this thesis has expressed the matter, “cognitive processes are not located exclusively inside the skin of cognizing organism” (Rowlands 1999, p22). This is the so-called extended cognition thesis. This thesis poses a radical challenge to our normal theorising about cognition which largely takes it as given that cognitive processes take place exclusively under the skin of the agent. Indeed, insofar as one treats cognitive processes as mental processes, then the extended cognition thesis generates a more radical conclusion stillviz., that the mind can extend beyond the skin of the agent too (the extended mind thesis). Even so, there does seem to be some very strong support available for the extended cognition thesis, and so it is a proposal that must be taken seriously, not only by philosophers but also by anyone working in a research field