Extended Cognitive System and Epistemic Subject
Studies in Logic, Grammar and Rhetoric August 26, 2015 Trybulec Barbara
The paper analyzes where the epistemic subject—the knower—fits within an extended cognitive system. It contrasts two waves of the extended mind thesis: the early coupling-constitution argument by Clark and Chalmers and the Cognitive Integration view defended by Richard Menary. The author argues that Cognitive Integration, which is compatible with John Greco's agent reliabilism in virtue epistemology, offers a more intuitive and fruitful account. On this view, the epistemic subject is constituted by an integrated set of cognitive abilities and processes, some of which involve manipulating external informational structures as normative epistemic practices. The mind and subject are extended not by causal coupling with external artifacts, but because cognitive practices transform the subject's abilities.