The affectively extended self: A pragmatist approach

In this paper we suggest an understanding of the self within the conceptual framework of situated affectivity, proposing the notion of an affectively extended self and arguing that the construction, diachronic re-shaping and maintenance of the self is mediated first by affective interactions. We initially consider the different variations on the conception of the extended self that have been already proposed in the literature (Clark & Chalmers 1998; Heersmink 2017, 2018; Krueger 2018; Wilson, Lenart 2015). We then propose our alternative, contextualising it within the current debate on situated affectivity. While the idea that we exploit the external environment in order to manage our affective life is now rather widespread among philosophers (e.g. Colombetti & Krueger 2015, Piredda 2019), its potential consequences for and connections with the debate on the self remain underexplored. Drawing on James’ intuition of the “material self”, which clearly connects the self and the emotions in agency, and broadly envisioning an extension of the self beyond its organismic boundaries, we propose our pragmatist conception of the self: an affectively extended self that relies on affective artifacts and practices to construct its identity extended beyond skin and skull

Collaborative memory knowledge: A distributed reliabilist perspective

Collaborative remembering, in which two or more individuals cooperate to remember together, is an ordinary occurrence. Ordinary though it may be, it challenges traditional understandings of remembering as a cognitive process unfolding within a single subject, as well as traditional understandings of memory knowledge as a justified memory belief held within the mind of a single subject. Collaborative memory has come to be a major area of research in psychology, but it has so far not been investigated in epistemology. In this chapter, we attempt an initial exploration of the epistemological implications of collaborative memory research, taking as our starting point the “extended knowledge” debate which has resulted from the recent encounter between extracranialist theories of cognition and externalist theories of knowledge (Carter et al., 2014; Carter et al., forthcoming). Various forms of socially and technologically augmented memory have played important roles in the extended knowledge debate, but the debate has so far not taken collaborative memory, in particular, into account. We will argue that collaborative memory supports a novel externalist theory of knowledge: distributed reliabilism. Distributed reliabilism departs in two important respects from both traditional reliabilism (Goldman, 2012) and updated theories such as extended (Goldberg, 2010) and social reliabilism (Goldman, 2014). First, it acknowledges that belief-forming processes may extend extracranially to include processing performed both by other subjects and by technological artifacts. Second, it acknowledges that distributed sociotechnical systems themselves may be knowing subjects. Overall, then, the main aim of the chapter is to draw out the philosophical implications of psychological research on collaborative memory. But our argument will also suggest that it may be useful to broaden the standard conception of collaborative memory to include not only the sorts of direct interactions among subjects that have been the focus of psychological research so far but also a range of more indirect, technology-supported and -mediated interactions, and it thus has implications for psychology as well

The Sound of Music: Externalist Style

Philosophical exploration of individualism and externalism in the cognitive sciences most recently has been focused on general evaluations of these two views (Adams & Aizawa 2008, Rupert 2008, Wilson 2004, Clark 2008). Here we return to broaden an earlier phase of the debate between individualists and externalists about cognition, one that considered in detail particular theories, such as those in developmental psychology (Patterson 1991) and the computational theory of vision (Burge 1986, Segal 1989). Music cognition is an area in the cognitive sciences that has received little attention from philosophers, though it has relatively recently been thrown into the externalist spotlight (Cochrane 2008, Kruger 2014, Kersten forthcoming). Given that individualism can be thought of as a kind of paradigm for research on cognition, we provide a brief overview of the field of music cognition and individualistic tendencies within the field (sections 2 and 3) before turning to consider externalist alternatives to individualistic paradigms (section 4-5) and then arguing for a qualified form of externalism about music cognition (section 6)

Introduction: Memory, embodied cognition, and the extended mind

I introduce the seven papers in this special issue, by Andy Clark, Jerome Dokic, Richard Menary, Jenann Ismael, Sue Campbell, Doris McIlwain, and Mark Rowlands. This paper explains the motivation for an alliance between the sciences of memory and the extended mind hypothesis. It examines in turn the role of worldly, social, and internalized forms of scaffolding to memory and cognition, and also highlights themes relating to affect, agency, and individual differences.9 page(s

Psicolinguística Aplicada: Uma Ciência na Encruzilhada da Cognição e da Linguagem

Abstract: Applied Psycholinguistics is a science that engages many others: experimental psychology, cognitive and neurocognitive sciences, linguistics, psychology of language and literacy, and educational and remediation sciences. The present paper’s objective is to show Science is itself a changing combination of ever-changing sciences without close boundaries, which implies the necessity of crossing domains in both research and learning. After a reminder of several topics of relevance to applied psycholinguistics, which concern mental processing, how cognition relates to the brain and to language, and how cognition and language engendered literacy, I argue that research in the corresponding sciences needs to be opened to other dimensions, such as society, culture, and politics. Finally, I evoke the history of the ideas regarding the isolationism of individualized sciences vs. their unification, taking, as examples of the latter, the early Marxism, and the International Movement for the Unity of Science from the fourth decade of the 20th century.   Keywords: Applied Psycholinguistics; literacy as product of cognition and language; concept of Science; history of scientific ideas; permeability of science to culture and politics.Resumo: A Psicolinguística Aplicada é uma ciência que envolve muitas outras: psicologia experimental, ciências cognitivas e neurocognitivas, linguística, psicologia da linguagem e da literacia, e ciências da educação e da remediação. O objetivo do presente artigo é mostrar que a Ciência é, mais exatamente, uma combinação em constante mudança de ciências sem fronteiras fechadas, o que implica a necessidade de cruzar domínios tanto na pesquisa quanto na aprendizagem. Depois de relembrar vários tópicos de relevância para a psicolinguística aplicada, que dizem respeito ao processamento mental, a como a cognição se relaciona com o cérebro e a linguagem e a como a cognição e a linguagem engendram a literacia, defendo que a pesquisa nas ciências correspondentes precisa ser aberta a outras dimensões tais como a sociedade, a cultura e a política. Por fim, evoco a história das ideias no que respeita ao isolacionismo das ciências individualizadas versus a sua unificação, tomando como exemplos desta última o marxismo inicial e o Movimento Internacional pela Unidade da Ciência na quarta década do século XX.   Palavras-chave: Psicolinguística Aplicada; literacia como produto da cognição e da linguagem; conceito de Ciência; história das ideias científicas; permeabilidade da ciência à cultura e à política

Past and Future in the Construction of Communal Identity: Collective Memory and Mythical Narratives

This article relates to the question of whether or to what extent identity is wholly constructed through language by engaging in a discussion of how the use of the past enters into the construction of communal identity. It argues that in order to understand why collective memory and the mythical narrativisation of the past which it frames are such powerful elements in the construction of collective identities, it must be distinguished from the science of historiography. But neither can collective memory be thought of as a communal analogue to the individual mental process of remembering. Rather it is a specific kind of discourse whose subject-position is endowed with a number of distinct privileges (different from those in the discourse of modern historiography) and through which a community can approach and articulate its past in mythical narratives whose ‘validity’ in fact has little to do with the extent to which they mirror ‘historical reality’

Culture, Wellness, and World “PEaCE”: An Introduction to Person-Environment-and-Culture-Emergence Theory

Human experience cannot be separated from culture. Yet, distance remains between psychology’s acknowledgement of the importance of culture, and its consistent integration into psychological theory, research, and practice. Person-Environment-and-Culture-Emergence (PEaCE) Theory, an integrative, complex systems approach, is introduced to facilitate conceptualization of individual and collective wellness outcomes. It draws primarily upon cultural and community psychologies in the context of a broad humanistic orientation that holds the dignity, humanity, and interconnectedness of all persons of the world as its core value. The “Being-in-Culture-in-the-World” Transactional Field represents the infinite and complex interrelationships between multidimensional biopsychorelational (person), socioecological (environment), and cultural systems that are in ongoing and dynamic transaction. Positive (e.g., thriving, well-being) and negative (e.g., dysfunction, disease) wellness outcomes are conceptualized as emergent properties of the activity of the transactional field. PEaCE Theory is informed by a large and diverse body of conceptual and empirical literature, both within and outside of psychology (e.g., public health, cultural studies), that converge in their insistence on the critical role of culture and context for understanding human experience and improving the health of persons, relationships, communities, and nations. PEaCE Theory will require ongoing testing and refinement towards its aim of transdisciplinary and global relevance