Tracing the Extended Mind
Religions February 6, 2025 Timothy Stanley
The essay evaluates the concept of the trace within extended mind (EM) theory, starting by distinguishing Andy Clark's complementarity model from competing views. It shows how an undeveloped notion of the trace emerges in Clark's debate with internalist critics, then introduces Paul Ricoeur's metaphor of the imprint from Memory, History, Forgetting. The recent debate about the plastic trace is applied to this context, rehabilitating Jacques Derrida's legacy. The essay concludes that EM offers renewed promise for modeling deliberations between religiously diverse people.