Habit and the Extended Mind: Fleshing Out the Extended Mind Theory with Merleau-Pontian Phenomenology
Phenomenology and Mind November 26, 2016 Richard Charles Strong
The extended mind thesis holds that cognitive processes can extend beyond the brain into tools and the environment. This essay argues that the body itself plays a nontrivial role in such extended cognition, particularly through the acquisition of habits. Drawing on Merleau-Ponty's concept of the body schema and Clark and Chalmers' extended mind hypothesis, the author contends that incorporating new habits into one's body schema meaningfully improves behavioral competence, systemic performance, and the endorsement and invocation of external components. Habitualization of the body to its environment is not always central or necessary, but it can make a meaningful difference in how well a coupled cognitive system functions, highlighting that enhanced cognitive performance relies on the body and its organs together with mind and thing.