Abstract

The coupling/constitution fallacy has been a persistent annoyance if not a stumbling block for some proponents of externalist conceptions of mind (Menary 2010). It has been charged, namely, that anything to be accounted for by way of a conception of mind as being extended outside of the head—as being constituted in part by things external to the body—can just as well be accounted for by way of a more standard inside-the-head conception—with minds being tightly coupled to but not therefore constituted by the body’s external environs. It is alleged that some if not much of what has been written in favor of cognitive externalism has tended to slide unwittingly from examples and discussions of coupling to claims of constitution without clear justification for such a move. Everett (2012) finds a response to this challenge in John Dewey’s early work (in particular, Dewey 1896). The present paper will outline how Everett’s way of addressing the coupling/constitution fallacy in the philosophy of mind might bear on Mead’s social-psychological conception of mind.