Cet article a pour point de départ un double constat. D’une part, on observe la forte présence d’un imaginaire apocalyptique dans la culture occidentale contemporaine, de la climatologie à l’histoire politique, en passant par l’anthropologie philosophique. D’autre part, dans la littérature hispanoaméricaine des XXe et XXIe siècles, la référence apocalyptique est à la fois massive, variable et difficile à appréhender: de là, l’intérêt d’établir une typologie des réécritures littéraires dont l’Apocalypse a fait l’objet. L’on s’efforcera de distinguer des catégories de (...) textes caractérisées à la fois par le quoi de la réécriture apocalyptique et le comment. (shrink)

The starting point of this study is the observation of a new importance of philosophy « in the post-metaphysical era » (according to the expression of J.-L. Schlegel) in the analysis of the religious fact and the significance of the Bible in Western culture, including the most contemporary. The recent Chilean film El Cristo ciego/Blind Christ by director Christopher Murray (2016) offers an emblematic example of the problems posed by the interpretation of a work that questions the mystery of transcendence (...) in a context marked both by the radical immanence of the characters’ experience and by the explicit and massive reference to the New Testament. The short narratives of the main character will be analyzed as parables (exegetic approach) and will be interpreted in the light of the Christology of liberation (cf. Jon Sobrino) and the philosophy of deconstruction (cf. J.-L. Nancy), which will lead to the question of the epistemological coherence of the proposed analysis. (shrink)

Este artículo indaga en la naturaleza de la experiencia religiosa tal y como está plasmada en la cultura latinoamericana contemporánea. En esta perspectiva, presenta el estudio de dos películas chilenas recientes protagonizadas por dos personajes dotados de características crísticas. Ambas películas son ambivalentes frente al fenómeno religioso: por un lado invalidan la posibilidad del milagro y por ende de la fe; por otro lado, mantienen abierta la posibilidad de una irrupción de lo “divino” en la vida de personajes que se (...) han vuelto incrédulos. La tensión entre visión y palabra es clave para articular esta ambivalencia en el lenguaje fílmico. Se interpreta el resultado del análisis a la luz de la evolución religiosa de Chile y América Latina tal como está descrita en varios estudios de sociología de la religión. (shrink)

Research in evolutionary biology and philosophy of biology and cognition strongly suggests that human organisms modify their environment through active processes of niche construction. Recently, proponents of the free-energy principle and variational active inference have argued that their approach can deepen our understanding of the reciprocal causal relationship between organisms and their niche on various scales. This paper examines the feasibility and scope of variational formalisations and conceptualisations of the organism-niche nexus with a particular focus on the extended active inference (...) account. I will draw a conceptual distinction between selective niche construction, developmental niche construction, and organism-niche coordination dynamics and argue that these notions capture different causal patterns, each of which with a distinct scope. Against this background, I will analyse and discuss the extended active inference account and its strategy to integrate variational active inference with work on extended cognition. The proponents of extended active inference assume that their account can provide an explanation of selective niche construction, developmental niche construction, and organism-niche coordination dynamics. However, my key claim will be that this account has the potential to elucidate the workings of organism-niche coordination dynamics, but does not adequately capture the causal patterns of selective niche construction and developmental niche construction. (shrink)

Many of our cognitive capacities are the result of enculturation. Enculturation is the temporally extended transformative acquisition of cognitive practices in the cognitive niche. Cognitive practices are embodied and normatively constrained ways to interact with epistemic resources in the cognitive niche in order to complete a cognitive task. The emerging predictive processing perspective offers new functional principles and conceptual tools to account for the cerebral and extra-cerebral bodily components that give rise to cognitive practices. According to this emerging perspective, many (...) cases of perception, action, and cognition are realized by the on-going minimization of prediction error. Predictive processing provides us with a mechanistic perspective that helps investigate the functional details of the acquisition of cognitive practices. The argument of this paper is that research on enculturation and recent work on predictive processing are complementary. The main reason is that predictive processing operates at a sub-personal level and on a physiological time scale of explanation only. A complete account of enculturated cognition needs to take additional levels and temporal scales of explanation into account. This complementarity assumption leads to a new framework—enculturated predictive processing—that operates on multiple levels and temporal scales for the explanation of the enculturated predictive acquisition of cognitive practices. Enculturated predictive processing is committed to explanatory pluralism. That is, it subscribes to the idea that we need multiple perspectives and explanatory strategies to account for the complexity of enculturation. The upshot is that predictive processing needs to be complemented by additional considerations and conceptual tools to realize its full explanatory potential. (shrink)

Arithmetical cognition is the result of enculturation. On a personal level of analysis, enculturation is a process of structured cultural learning that leads to the acquisition of evolutionarily recent, socio-culturally shaped arithmetical practices. On a sub-personal level, enculturation is realized by learning driven plasticity and learning driven bodily adaptability, which leads to the emergence of new neural circuitry and bodily action patterns. While learning driven plasticity in the case of arithmetical practices is not consistent with modularist theories of mental architecture, (...) it can be enriched by the theory of neural reuse. According to neural reuse, cerebral regions are reused to contribute to multiple neural circuits in functionally constrained ways throughout ontogeny. By hypothesis, learning driven plasticity is complemented by learning driven bodily adaptability, which suggests that there is an interesting functional relationship between finger gnosis, finger counting, and arithmetical practices. The emerging perspective on enculturated arithmetical cognition will be complemented by considerations on associated developmental and acquired disorders, namely developmental dyscalculia and acquired acalculia. The upshot is that we need to take the cerebral, extra-cerebral bodily, and socio-cultural dimensions of enculturation into account in order to arrive at a better understanding of the phylogenetic and ontogenetic conditions of arithmetical cognition. (shrink)

Many of our cognitive capacities are the result of enculturation. Enculturation is the temporally extended transformative acquisition of cognitive practices in the cognitive niche. Cognitive practices are embodied and normatively constrained ways to interact with epistemic resources in the cognitive niche in order to complete a cognitive task. The emerging predictive processing perspective offers new functional principles and conceptual tools to account for the cerebral and extra-cerebral bodily components that give rise to cognitive practices. According to this emerging perspective, many (...) cases of perception, action, and cognition are realized by the on-going minimization of prediction error. Predictive processing provides us with a mechanistic perspective that helps investigate the functional details of the acquisition of cognitive practices. The argument of this paper is that research on enculturation and recent work on predictive processing are complementary. The main reason is that predictive processing operates at a sub-personal level and on a physiological time scale of explanation only. A complete account of enculturated cognition needs to take additional levels and temporal scales of explanation into account. This complementarity assumption leads to a new framework—enculturated predictive processing—that operates on multiple levels and temporal scales for the explanation of the enculturated predictive acquisition of cognitive practices. Enculturated predictive processing is committed to explanatory pluralism. That is, it subscribes to the idea that we need multiple perspectives and explanatory strategies to account for the complexity of enculturation. The upshot is that predictive processing needs to be complemented by additional considerations and conceptual tools to realize its full explanatory potential. (shrink)

Marr’s seminal distinction between computational, algorithmic, and implementational levels of analysis has inspired research in cognitive science for more than 30 years. According to a widely-used paradigm, the modelling of cognitive processes should mainly operate on the computational level and be targeted at the idealised competence, rather than the actual performance of cognisers in a specific domain. In this paper, we explore how this paradigm can be adopted and revised to understand mathematical problem solving. The computational-level approach applies methods from (...) computational complexity theory and focuses on optimal strategies for completing cognitive tasks. However, human cognitive capacities in mathematical problem solving are essentially characterised by processes that are computationally sub-optimal, because they initially add to the computational complexity of the solutions. Yet, these solutions can be optimal for human cognisers given the acquisition and enactment of mathematical practices. Here we present diagrams and the spatial manipulation of symbols as two examples of problem solving strategies that can be computationally sub-optimal but humanly optimal. These aspects need to be taken into account when analysing competence in mathematical problem solving. Empirically informed considerations on enculturation can help identify, explore, and model the cognitive processes involved in problem solving tasks. The enculturation account of mathematical problem solving strongly suggests that computational-level analyses need to be complemented by considerations on the algorithmic and implementational levels. The emerging research strategy can help develop algorithms that model what we call enculturated cognitive optimality in an empirically plausible and ecologically valid way. (shrink)

La recherche à l’origine de ce texte vise la description et la compréhension de l’engagement d’enseignantes et d’enseignants dans l’écriture d’un journal de bord quotidien. À partir d’entretiens biographiques et de leurs analyses, ce texte décrit cette activité et son évolution, identifie les facteurs d’engagement. Cette activité d’écriture impliquée et réflexive se dévoile plurielle et évolutive. L’engagement s’explique par un jeu d’influences réciproques entre facteurs personnels, facteurs exogènes et facteurs énactifs. Cet article présente des recommandations pour accompagner et reconnaître l’écriture (...) diaire dans le champ de la formation comme dans l’espace du travail. (shrink)

Major depression is a prevalent mental disorder that leads to persistent negative mood and tremendous suffering in affected individuals. However, the biological realization of this disorder and associated symptom clusters remain poorly understood. Recently, phenomenological accounts of major depressive disorder and contributions to the emerging predictive processing account have provided valuable insights into the phenomenological and neuro-functional components that lead to manifestations of major depressive episodes. The purpose of this paper is to weave together these different strands of research to (...) develop a predictive processing account of major depressive disorder. In doing so, I will relate personal-level descriptions of associated phenomenal experiences to a sub-personal-level predictive processing account of the functional realization of major depression. I will argue that pervasive symptoms of the disorder, which include a diminished sense of agency, fatigue, social withdrawal, and rumination, are integrated by existential feelings of loss and impossibility. These phenomenal experiences, I will argue, are associated with dysfunctional processes of prediction error minimization, which are characterized by an overall decrease of the causal contributions of active inference and by distorted precision estimates. The emerging account promises to contribute to a better understanding of the complex processes that give rise to depressive experiences. (shrink)

Recent work on enculturation suggests that our cognitive capacities are significantly transformed in the course of the scaffolded acquisition of cognitive practices such as reading and writing. Phylogenetically, enculturation is the result of the co-evolution of human organisms and their socio-culturally structured cognitive niche. It is rendered possible by evolved cerebral and extra-cerebral bodily learning mechanisms that make human organisms apt to acquire culturally inherited cognitive practices. In addition, cultural learning allows for the intergenerational transmission of relevant knowledge and skills. (...) Ontogenetically, enculturation is associated with neural plasticity and the development of new motor routines and action schemas. It relies on scaffolded learning that structures novice-teacher interactions. The acquisition of reading and writing are paradigm examples of enculturation. Based on an empirically informed analysis of the components of enculturation, I will apply the emerging account of enculturated cognition to narrative practices. To date, research on the impact of narratives on the constitution of the self and our understanding of folk psychology has not paid much attention to the question how narratives are influenced by cumulative cultural evolution and our capacity to acquire reading and writing during ontogeny. I will argue that textual narratives, above and beyond oral narratives, provide genuinely new ways of narration. Therefore, the enculturated interaction with textual narratives has the potential to contribute to a better understanding of ourselves and other cognitive agents. (shrink)

Cognitive innovation has shaped and transformed our cognitive capacities throughout history. Until recently, cognitive innovation has not received much attention by empirical and conceptual research in the cognitive sciences. This paper is a first attempt to help close this gap. It will be argued that cognitive innovation is best understood in connection with cumulative cultural evolution and enculturation. Cumulative cultural evolution plays a vital role for the inter-generational transmission of the products of cognitive innovation. Furthermore, there are at least two (...) important functions of enculturation for cognitive innovation. First, enculturation is responsible for the ontogenetic acquisition of cognitive practices governing the interaction with innovative products. Second, successful processes of enculturation provide opportunities for subsequent innovative processes. The trans-generational trajectory of calculation from mathematical symbol systems to the first digital computers will serve as a paradigm example of the delicate interplay of cognitive innovation, cumulative cultural evolution, and enculturation. (shrink)

This paper proposes to analyze the significant methodological adjustments which were brought to a collaborative research project in response to specific contextual constraints. The research issues which emerged from this context and led the research team to a methodological reconceptualization are presented along with the emerging methodological model. Outcomes of the methodological changes including participant empowerment, are discussed and lead the authors to postulate that an ecocollaborative approach, based upon horizontal relationships and taking into account the complexity of systems, appears (...) as a means to critically reevaluate teachers and researchers’ work in order to reduce institutional constraints, push back against limits to professional action, and consequently build a common emancipatory culture. (shrink)

This new edition of Genevieve Lloyd's classic study of the maleness of reason in philosophy contains a new introduction and bibilographical essay assessing the ..

According to Thomas Metzinger, many human cognitive processes in the waking state are spontaneous and are deprived of the experience of epistemic agency. He considers mind wandering as a paradigm example of our recurring loss of epistemic agency. I will enrich this view by extending the scope of the concept of epistemic agency to include cases of depressive rumination and creative cognition, which are additional types of spontaneous cognition. Like mind wandering, they are characterized by unique phenomenal and functional properties (...) that give rise to varying degrees of epistemic agency. The main claim of this paper will be that the experience of being an epistemic agent within a certain time frame is a relational phenomenon that emerges from the organism’s capacity to interact with its cognitive niche. To explore this relation, I develop a new framework that integrates phenomenological considerations on epistemic agency with a functional account of the reciprocal coupling of the embodied organism with its cognitive niche. This account rests upon dynamical accounts of strong embodied and embedded cognition and recent work on cognitive niche construction. Importantly, epistemic agency and organism-niche coupling are gradual phenomena ranging from weak to strong realizations. The emerging framework will be employed to analyze mind wandering, depressive rumination, and creative cognition as well as their commonalities and differences. Mind wandering and depressive rumination are cases of weak epistemic agency and organism-niche coupling. However, there are also important phenomenological, functional, and neuronal differences. In contrast, creative cognition is a case of strong epistemic agency and organism-niche coupling. By providing a phenomenological and functional analysis of these distinct types of spontaneous cognition, we can gain a better understanding of the importance of organism-niche interaction for the realization of epistemic agency. (shrink)

On many occasions, irony is used to communicate emotions, to criticise or to tease other people. Irony comprehension consists in identifying an utterance as ironical and detecting its implied meaning. Existing research has investigated irony comprehension as a pragma-linguistic phenomenon, which has led to several theoretical accounts and interesting empirical results. However, given that irony comprehension is situated in a social context and has the purpose to communicate the mental states of the speaker/writer indirectly, it is reasonable to assume that (...) social cognition and emotional processes play an important role. Until very recently, this has been largely overlooked by research in the field. Furthermore, an overarching framework that can integrate theoretical insights and empirical data on the component processes of irony comprehension is still lacking. The purpose of this paper is to help close this gap. The positive proposal is that the predictive processing framework provides the theoretical resources and conceptual tools to describe relevant aspects of irony comprehension. According to predictive processing, perception, action, cognition, and emotion can be described as a continuous attempt to minimise prediction error. Irony comprehension, I will show, can be depicted as a special case of prediction error minimisation. The neuro-functional mechanism postulated by predictive processing is apt to account for the realisation of the pragma-linguistic, social, and emotional processes that jointly give rise to irony comprehension. The emerging perspective can elucidate why and how people comprehend ironical utterances. (shrink)

Richard Heersmink argues that self‐narratives are distributed across embodied organisms and their environment, given that their building blocks, autobiographical memories, are distributed. This argument faces two problems. First, it commits a fallacy of composition. Second, it relies on Marya Schechtman's narrative self‐constitution view, which is incompatible with the distributed cognition framework. To solve these problems, this article develops an alternative account of self‐narratives. On this account, we actively connect distributed autobiographical memories through distributed conversational and textual self‐narrative practices. This account (...) enhances our understanding of the memory–narrative nexus and has implications for philosophical conceptions of self. (shrink)

El presente artículo tratará un aspecto de la confrontación de Heidegger con Nietzsche. En particular, se analizarán unos cursos de Heidegger de los finales de 1930 y la conferencia del semestre de primavera de 1937, junto con uno de los manuscritos inéditos de Heidegger: los Aportes a la filosofía. El argumento que desarrollaré es que la confrontación con Nietzsche obliga a Heidegger a repensar el problema del sentido, y sobre todo el problema del sentido del ser, que es el tema (...) más importante de la ontología de Heidegger en Ser y Tiempo. La interpretación del pensamiento de Nietzsche sumió de hecho a Heidegger en una crisis, tanto filosófica como existencial. Heidegger saldrá de esa crisis desarrollando la experiencia del “acontecimiento” y la actitud ética del “abandono”. Al final del trabajo se exponen algunas observaciones críticas sobre la solución de Heidegger. (shrink)

In a recent article, Ratcliffe and Byrne (2022) propose a multifactorial phenomenological account of the influence of narrative on grief. Specifically, they argue that certain kinds of narrative can help navigate and negotiate the phenomenological disturbance of practical identity associated with bereavement. In this critical note, I identify and discuss two problems of their account. First, Ratcliffe and Byrne’s (2022) considerations rest on conceptually ambiguous distinctions between different narrative categories (the conceptual ambiguity problem). Second, their account appears to neglect the (...) variability of both grief experiences and different kinds of narrative engagement (the variability problem). These problems need to be resolved to make progress in understanding the influence (if any) of narrative engagements on the phenomenology of grief. (shrink)

This new edition of Genevieve Lloyd's classic study of the maleness of reason in philosophy contains a new introduction and bibliographical essay assessing the book's place in the explosion of writing and gender since 1984.

In recent years, philosophers of mind have explored the relationship between lived embodied experiences and self-narratives in bringing about a sense of self. This relationship has been vividly debated, with no consensus in the field. While some have argued that lived embodied experiences influence, but are not influenced by, self-narratives, others have maintained that lived embodied experiences and self-narratives influence each other across time. However, the very concept of ‘self-narrative’ and its scope of application has remained underspecified. The debate, I (...) will argue, can only be resolved if we arrive at a better theoretical understanding of self-narrative. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to develop a conceptual account of the notion of ‘self-narrative’ and a descriptive account of its scope of application. It will then be shown how these accounts can pave the way towards resolving the debate on the experience-narrative nexus. (shrink)

Inspired by Marcelo Dascal's theory of controversies, this volume includes studies in the theory of controversies, studies of the history of controversy forms and their evolution, and case-studies of particular historical and current controversies. The purpose of this volume is to identify a taxonomy of controversies and also to sense a line of development for the phenomenon of controversies itself. At the same time, we want to ask ourselves about the impact and the spread of controversies in the contemporary world, (...) eminently intended as a heuristic element facilitating knowledge. For all these reasons, the fundamental aim of the volume is to provide the reader with a selection of current theoretical and practical perspectives on controversies, and to offer a broad picture of the complex range of definitions, meanings and practices connected to them. (shrink)

La production philosophique et littéraire de Giordano Bruno (1548-1600) est traversée par un questionnement constant sur les relations réciproques entre texte et lecteur — l’un se construisant systématiquement par rapport à l’autre. Dans cet article, nous nous concentrerons en particulier sur la comédie italienne Chandelier (1582) et sur le traité mnémotechnique Cantus Circæus (1582) pour montrer comment le rapport texte/lecteur est essentiel pour saisir les implications philosophiques des deux textes. À la Renaissance, la lecture est un véritable exercice d’assimilation et (...) l’ars memoriæ se configure comme un outil pour agir sur l’âme humaine. À travers un lien très étroit avec le lecteur, les œuvre de Bruno visent ainsi à renouveler l’être humain et à conformer son intellect à l’opus magnum de l’univers. (shrink)

The burden of difference: pluralist justice and the public sphere -- Moral conversations and democratic hermeneutics -- Particularism versus universalism: a false debate? -- Secularism, culture, and critique -- Laïcité and the memory of public culture -- The ties that bind: public culture and the debt to the past -- Normative solidarity and public hermeneutics -- From intersubjectivity to encounter -- Exit of religion, debt of meaning.

Situé dans une approche interactionniste du développement du langage, l’article propose une démarche méthodologique pour étudier l’étayage dans sa dynamique dialogique, pour laquelle le recours à un corpus s’avère indispensable. L’article comprend plusieurs parties : sont présentées d’une part les différentes facettes de l’étayage d’un point de vue théorique, d’autre part la construction d’un outil opérationnel sous la forme d’une grille d’analyse des conduites étayantes des adultes et des réactions des enfants. Enfin, quelques résultats issus d’une recherche sur les interactions (...) mère-enfant, à titre illustratif de la démarche, montrent la façon dont les activités effectuées par les participants façonnent leurs conduites. La discussion se focalise sur les apports d’une analyse de corpus (données de type naturel tout autant que contrôle de certains facteurs, comparaison de données qualitatives et quantitatives, etc.). (shrink)

“Modern slavery,” a term used to describe severe forms of labor exploitation, is beginning to spark growing interest within business and society research. As a novel phenomenon, it offers potential for innovative theoretical and empirical pathways to a range of business and management research questions. And yet, development into what we might call a “field” of modern slavery research in business and management remains significantly, and disappointingly, underdeveloped. To explore this, we elaborate on the developments to date, the potential drawbacks, (...) and the possible future deviations that might evolve within six subdisciplinary areas of business and management. We also examine the value that nonmanagement disciplines can bring to research on modern slavery and business, examining the connections, critiques, and catalysts evident in research from political science, law, and history. These, we suggest, offer significant potential for building toward a more substantial subfield of research. (shrink)

Hoerl & McCormack claim that the temporal updating system only represents the world as present. This generates puzzles regarding the phenomenology of temporal experience. We argue that recent models of reinforcement learning suggest that temporal updating must have a minimal temporal structure; and we suggest that this helps to clarify what it means to experience the world as temporally structured.

Inspired by Marcelo Dascal's theory of controversies, this volume includes studies in the theory of controversies, studies of the history of controversy forms and their evolution, and case-studies of particular historical and current controversies. The purpose of this volume is to identify a taxonomy of controversies and also to sense a line of development for the phenomenon of controversies itself. At the same time, we want to ask ourselves about the impact and the spread of controversies in the contemporary world, (...) eminently intended as a heuristic element facilitating knowledge. For all these reasons, the fundamental aim of the volume is to provide the reader with a selection of current theoretical and practical perspectives on controversies, and to offer a broad picture of the complex range of definitions, meanings and practices connected to them. (shrink)

This article is an introduction to the Symposium on Alexander Anievas and Kerem Nişancıoğlu’sHow the West Came to Rule. It summarises the main arguments of the book, as well as the critiques levied by the contributors to the Symposium.

This new edition of Genevieve Lloyd's classic study of the maleness of reason in philosophy contains a new introduction and bibliographical essay assessing the book's place in the explosion of writing and gender since 1984.

The burden of difference: pluralist justice and the public sphere -- Moral conversations and democratic hermeneutics -- Particularism versus universalism: a false debate? -- Secularism, culture, and critique -- Laïcité and the memory of public culture -- The ties that bind: public culture and the debt to the past -- Normative solidarity and public hermeneutics -- From intersubjectivity to encounter -- Exit of religion, debt of meaning.

Sendo a fenomenologia um modo não-especulativo de pensar, o artigo põe a questão sobre a possibilidade de descrever a metafísica em regime de redução fenomenológica, ou seja, a partir de uma atitude que não pretende discursar sobre o ser enquanto ser, mas sim a partir dos diferentes “modos de aparecer” dos principais “objetos” da metafísica: alma, mundo e Deus. Neste caso, que sentido deverá possuir, para o modo fenomenológico de pensar, o metá, presente na palavra metafísica?

What is the relationship between the concepts of the predictive processing theory of brain functioning and the everyday concepts with which people conduct and explain their mental lives? To answer this question, we focus on predictive processing explanations of mental disorder that appeal to false inference. After distinguishing two concepts of false inference, we survey four ways of understanding the relationship between explanations of mental phenomena at the personal and sub-personal level. We then argue that if predictive processing accurately accounts (...) for psychological and socio-cultural dynamics, then personal and sub-personal concepts must display a looping relationship that can impact the nature of at least some mental phenomena. In particular, explaining the phenomenon of delusion in terms of the sub-personal concept of false inference should change the nature of delusional experiences themselves. (shrink)

Smartphone use plays an increasingly important role in our daily lives. Philosophical research that has used first wave or second wave theories of extended cognition in order to understand our engagement with digital technologies has focused on the contribution of these technologies to the completion of specific cognitive tasks (e.g., remembering, reasoning, problem-solving, navigation).However, in a considerable number of cases, everyday smartphone use is task-unrelated. In psychological research, these cases have been captured by notions such as absent-minded smart-phone use (Marty-Dugas (...) et al., 2018) or smartphone-related inattentiveness (Liebherr et al., 2020).Given the prevalence of these cases, we develop a conceptual framework that can accommodate the functional and phenomenological characteristics of task-unrelated smartphone use. To this end, we will integrate research on second wave extended cognition with mind-wandering research and introduce the concept of ‘extended mind-wandering’. Elaborating the family resemblances approach to mind-wandering (Seli, Kane, Smallwood, et al., 2018), we will argue that task-unrelated smartphone use shares many characteristics with mind-wandering. We will suggest that an empirically informed conceptual analysis of cases of extended mind-wandering can enrich current work on digitally extended cognition by specifying the influence of the attention economy on our cognitive dynamics. (shrink)

In recent years, philosophers have developed accounts of cognitive and affective scaffolding to describe the contribution of environmental resources to the realization of mental abilities. However, an integrative account, which captures scaffolding relations in general terms and across domains, is currently lacking. To close this gap, this paper proposes a pattern theory of scaffolding. According to this theory, the functional and causal role of an environmental resource for an individual agent or a group of agents concerning a mental ability in (...) a situational context can be specified by multiple conditions that a scaffold can satisfy. On this view, scaffolds can be described in terms of patterns of relevance-weighted, gradually satisfied scaffolding conditions. The resulting theory will be applied to cases of mathematical cognition to demonstrate its plausibility and feasibility. The pattern theory of scaffolding, it will be shown, has important implications for research on embodied, embedded, extended, and enactive (4E) cognition. (shrink)