Recent Trends in the Philosophy of Mind

Standard philosophical approaches to mind and cognition make individualistic and internalistic assumptions about locus and nature of the mind. Current trends in philosophy of mind has been able to convincingly question the assumption that cognition happens solely in the head. Non-Cartesian trends in philosophy of mind and cognitive science argue that mind and cognition extends well beyond the head and individual body.

This is an introductory course providing students with information about research programs developed in philosophy of mind during last two decades under the umbrella of situated cognition. We will discuss various branches of situated cognition such as: embodied mind (Gallagher), extended mind (Clark and Chalmers, Sautton, Menary), distributed cognition (Hutchins, Zhang, Norman, Kirsh), enactivism (Hutto, Noe). Following questions will be discussed: What are theoretical sources of situated cognition? What are distinctive features of situated cognition framework? What is new about the metaphysical idea of mind developed in extended, enacted, embodied, embedded framework (sometimes dubbed as 4E cognition)? What does it mean that cognitive processes extends beyond biological organism? What is the mechanics of cognitive enhancement in problem solving and decision making?

* Student knows current trends in philosophy of mind

* Student distinguish various levels of embodiment

* Student understand the mechanism of distribution of cognition between individual and environment

* Student describes examples of empirical research on situated cognition