Feeling Extended
August 16, 2013 Douglas Robinson
The extended-mind thesis (EMT) holds that cognitive processes can include external tools like pencils and computers. Douglas Robinson's book "Feeling Extended" accepts EMT but argues that the usual debate—whether mind really extends or only seems to—is oversimplified. He proposes that when mind feels as if it extends, what actually extends is feeling itself, and mind arises from that feeling. Robinson examines affect and conation as intermediate realms between physical body and mind, arguing that affective-becoming-conative sociality is the primary area where body-becoming-mind extends. He draws on philosophy from Hegel to Derrida, social psychology, and sociological theories of face, ritual, and habitus.