Cognitive niche construction is the process whereby organisms create and maintain cause–effect models of their niche as guides for fitness influencing behavior. Extended mind theory claims that cognitive processes extend beyond the brain to include predictable states of the world. Active inference and predictive processing in cognitive science assume that organisms embody predictive (i.e., generative) models of the world optimized by standard cognitive functions (e.g., perception, action, learning). This paper presents an active inference formulation that views cognitive niche construction as (...) a cognitive function aimed at optimizing organisms' generative models. We call that process of optimization extended active inference. (shrink)

Expertise is usually thought of as an individual achievement. The expert is a receptacle for knowledge and skills. The knowledge and skills required for expertise are usually thought of as residing...

Bruineberg and colleagues' critique of Friston blankets relies on what we call the “literalist fallacy”: the assumption that in order for Friston blankets to represent real boundaries, biological systems must literally possess or instantiate Markov blankets. We argue that it is important to distinguish a realist view of Friston blankets from the literalist view of Bruineberg and colleagues’ critique.

This paper explores several paths by which the extended cognition thesis may overcome the coupling-constitution fallacy. In so doing, I address a couple of shortcomings in the contemporary literature. First, on the dimension of first-wave EC, I argue that constitutive arguments based on functional parity suffer from either a threat of cognitive bloat or an impasse with respect to determining the correct level of grain in the attribution of causal-functional roles. Second, on the dimension of second-wave EC, I argue that (...) especially the complementarity approach suffers from a similar sort of dilemma as first-wave EC: an inability to justify just what entails the ontological claim of EC over the scaffolding claim of weaker approaches in cognitive science. In this paper I show that two much more promising explanations by which to ground the ontological claim of EC are available, both starting from an exploration of the coordination dynamics between environmental resources and neural resources. On the one hand, I argue that second-wave EC based on cognitive integration, with its focus on bodily manipulations constrained by cognitive norms, is capable of resolving the coupling-constitution fallacy. On the other hand, I argue that the framework of cognitive integration can be supplemented by philosophical accounts of mechanistic explanation, because such accounts enable us to explain the emergence of higher-level cognitive properties due to a system's organization-dependent structure. (shrink)

This chapter questions the causal-constitution fallacy raised against the extended mind. It does so by presenting our signature temporal thesis about how to understand constitutive relations in the context of the extended mind, and with respect to dynamical systems, more broadly. We call this thesis diachronic constitution. We will argue that temporalising the constitution relation is not as remarkable (nor problematic) as it might initially seem. It is (arguably) inevitable, given local interactions between microscale and macroscale states of (coupled) dynamical (...) systems. We focus primarily on the metaphysics of the extended mind in this paper. However, we also show how our account of diachronic constitution has important implications for the metaphysics of dependence relations more generally as well as an emerging literature on inter-level explanations in the mechanistic framework applied to the discussion over extended, enactive and embodied cognition. (shrink)

Most philosophical accounts of emergence are based on supervenience, with supervenience being an ontologically synchronic relation of determination. This conception of emergence as a relation of supervenience, I will argue, is unable to make sense of the kinds of emergence that are widespread in self-organizing and nonlinear dynamical systems, including distributed cognitive systems. In these dynamical systems, an emergent property is ontological and diachronic.

We are grateful to Facchin and Negro (henceforth F&N) for their rich and generous engagement with our arguments for the hypothesis of the extended conscious mind (ECM). They offer a careful and insightful reconstruction of the key arguments from our 2019 monograph (Kirchhoff & Kiverstein, 2019a). In the end however they are not persuaded by the arguments of our book and raise a number of intriguing and puzzling challenges. We deal with each of their challenges and conclude that these challenges (...) pose no problems for our arguments for the ECM in Kirchhoff & Kiverstein (2019a). (shrink)

It is often argued that constitution and causation are different kinds of metaphysical relations. Constitution, like other grounding relations, is assumed to be synchronic, while causation is diachronic. It is this synchronic-diachronic division that, more than other difference-makers, is argued to distinguish grounding relations such as constitution from causation. This paper develops an account of a species of constitution that happens over time. We call this type of constitution, diachronic constitution. We show how diachronic constitution is a consequence of a (...) common type of causation, often ignored in metaphysical discussions of causation: continuous reciprocal causation. Hence, constitution is not only sometimes like causation; it can also be a form of causation. We argue that temporalising the constitution relation is neither as remarkable nor as problematic as it might initially seem. It is inevitable, given local interactions between microscale and macroscale states in dynamical systems. (shrink)

The discussion of extended cognition is premised on a metaphysical distinction between causation and constitution. For example, Rowlands (2009) notes that “EM [extended mind] is a claim about the composition or constitution of (some) mental processes” (2009, p. 54). Or, as Wheeler puts it: “Bare causal dependency of mentality on external factors […] is simply not enough for genuine cognitive extension. What is needed is constitutive dependence” (2010, p. 246). In this sense, Krickel (this volume) rightly notes that the current (...) disagreement between friends and foes of extended cognition turns on a metaphysical dispute about what is constitutive of mentality and how to locate those constituents. Krickel (this volume) argues that our account of diachronic constitution fails to provide a convincing answer to the metaphysical dispute about ‘what is constitutive’ of mentality and ‘how to locate’ the relevant constituents. The central reason is that diachronic constitution fails the so-called ‘co-location condition,’ which Krickel argues is a necessary condition that an account of constitution must meet in the discussion over the extended mind. The co-location condition asserts that ‘cognition is located where and only where its constituents are located.’ We expose an ambiguity in the co-location condition, and show why this condition is no threat to our account of diachronic constitution. We conclude that the co-location condition is not a necessary condition that an account of constitution in the discussion over the extended mind must adhere to. (shrink)