See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/257636892

Extended cognition and fixed properties: Steps to a third-wave version of

extended cognition

Article  in  Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences · June 2011

DOI: 10.1007/s11097-011-9237-8

CITATIONS READS

22 127

1 author:

Michael Kirchhoff
University of Wollongong
29 PUBLICATIONS   248 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE

All content following this page was uploaded by Michael Kirchhoff on 19 July 2016.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

Phenom Cogn Sci (2012) 11:287–308
DOI 10.1007/s11097-011-9237-8

Extended cognition and fixed properties: steps

to a third-wave version of extended cognition

Michael David Kirchhoff

Published online: 18 October 2011

# Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011

Abstract This paper explores several paths a distinctive third wave of extended
cognition might take. In so doing, I address a couple of shortcomings of first- and
second-wave extended cognition associated with a tendency to conceive of the
properties of internal and external processes as fixed and non-interchangeable. First,
in the domain of cognitive transformation, I argue that a problematic tendency of the
complementarity model is that it presupposes that socio-cultural resources augment
but do not significantly transform the brain’s representational capacities during
diachronic development. In this paper I show that there is available a much more
dynamical explanation—one taking the processes of the brain’s enculturation into
patterned practices as transforming the brain’s representational capacities. Second, in
the domain of cognitive assembly, I argue that another problematic tendency is an
individualistic notion of cognitive agency, since it overlooks the active contribution
of socio-cultural practices in the assembly process of extended cognitive systems. In
contrast to an individualistic notion of cognitive agency, I explore the idea that it is
possible to decentralize cognitive agency to include socio-cultural practices.

Keywords Extended cognition . Fixed-properties . Dynamical properties . Cognitive

transformation . Cognitive assembly

Introduction

In philosophy of mind and cognition, the model known as extended cognition (EC)
expresses the view that many of our genuinely cognitive processes are composed of
physical vehicles running on machinery distributed across parts of the brain, body,
and material–cultural environment (Clark 2011; Menary 2010a, b, c; Rowlands
2010; Sutton 2010; Wheeler 2010). My independent aim in this paper is to explore

M. D. Kirchhoff (*)
Department of Philosophy, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, Australia
e-mail: michael.kirchhoff@students.mq.edu.au
288 M.D. Kirchhoff

an issue that I do not believe has been pursued elsewhere in the literature on EC,
namely the relationship between EC and, what I shall call, the “fixed-properties view
of internal and external processes” (FP). Throughout this paper, I hope to show that
it is possible to move EC along both faithfully and fruitfully by downplaying this
tendency to treat the properties of the “internal” and “external” as fixed and instead
explore an alternative route to EC.
To get an understanding of FP, we can contrast FP with what I call the “dynamical
properties view” (DP). Unlike FP, DP holds that the plastic brain gets enculturated
through development in socio-cultural practices (Roepstorff et al. 2010, p. 1052).
This is the first part of DP. The second part is as follows. Unlike FP, DP does not
assume, when having to explain the integration/assembly of cognitive systems, that
the individual organism is the most active element. DP implies that the assembly of
cognitive systems is the result of richly dynamical and distributed elements, where
there is no collapse into individualism like in FP. To flesh out DP in more detail, I
focus on two domains.
The first of these domains is sometimes referred to as cognitive transforma-
tion (Menary 2010b), where I focus on the transformation of neuronal
representational capacities as a result of enculturation. To make sense of this, I
discuss three examples: (1) Näätänen et al.’s (1997) study on phoneme perception
suggesting a diachronically mediated re-shaping of certain cortical areas of the
brain by “the brain’s” participation in structured socio-cultural practices; (2)
Dehaene’s (2005) neuronal recycling hypothesis suggesting that our uniquely
human capacity for exact mathematical reasoning is partly biologically inherited
and partly a result of enculturation into socio-cultural practices; and (3) Wheeler’s
(2004) philosophical work on language and off-line cognition, where Wheeler
argues that the brain must “recapitulate” certain structural features of language in
order for humans to engage in off-line cognition. The second domain is the
construction of cognitive systems typically referred to as cognitive assembly
(Clark 2008; Hutchins 2008, 2011a; Kirchhoff and Newsome 2011; Sterelny
2010). I want to signpost a couple of important issues here. First, unlike
individualist approaches to cognitive assembly (Clark 2008), addressing cognitive
assembly via DP implies a non-individualistic conception of cognitive agency.
Second, unlike synchronic perspectives on cognitive assembly (Clark 2008), DP
aims to explain synchronic assembly (in part) from diachronic considerations.
Thus, in contrast to DP, FP is the view that the properties of biological processes
and the properties of socio-cultural processes remain non-interchangeable, both
diachronically and synchronically.

Scope of the critical exploration and strategy

Nothing of what I have to say in this paper will undermine the credibility of the EC
research program, in the sense that what I shall critically explore are tendencies or
assumptions left unquestioned. Hence, I do not claim that there is a necessary
relationship between EC and FP. So, the more conservative aim is to establish that
leaving FP behind opens a space for interesting research on EC topics. Let that be
the first proviso. The second is that I shall not be arguing that EC in general is
committed to FP. First, I do not argue that parity-based arguments are committed to
Extended cognition and fixed properties 289

FP. This is evident from my endorsement of Wheeler’s (2004) case of off-line

cognition precisely because Wheeler is a parity-driven EC theorist. Nevertheless, I
will argue that Clark, whose work is often directed at parity-EC, shows evidence of
FP-style assumptions with respect to the domains of cognitive transformation and
cognitive assembly. In cognitive transformation, the justification for this claim
comes from the consideration that Clark only thinks that parity is sufficient for
cognitive extension, and that the far “more interesting and plausible argument […],
is the one which describes the seepage of the mind into the world by stressing that
“the brain’s brief is to provide complementary facilities that will support the repeated
exploitation of operations upon the world […].” (Clark 1998, p. 98; italic added).
Hence, it is at the fine-grained level of Clark’s complementary arguments—and not
at the coarser-grained level of functional isomorphism—that FP assumptions arise in
Clark’s work. In addition to this, what warrants my gluing of Clark to FP in the
domain of cognitive assembly is the individualistic conception of cognitive agency
expressed in Clark’s hypothesis of organism-centered cognition: if the orchestration
process of systemic parts on the synchronic level is primarily the result of
organismic properties, then the dynamics of socio-cultural practices are left
explanatorily static, with the result of separating unnecessarily the biological from
the cultural. Therefore, it is not parity that I am questioning but rather assumptions in
the complementarity model and in EC’s individualistic notion of cognitive agency.
Second, I do not argue that Menary’s framework of cognitive integration is
committed to FP, in that Menary is much more DP-oriented in his approach.
However, on the issue of cognitive assembly, there is still a tendency to explain
integration from the perspective of the individual organism. Third, because I am
pursuing a critical line against complementarity EC, the arguments against Clark
also apply to the model of complementarity endorsed by Sutton (2010). However,
and which will become clear in the “Toward a third-wave extended cognition”
section, Sutton is quite aware of the tendency within EC of fixing the realms of the
“internal” and “external.”

Different waves of extended cognition

There are different versions, articulating different methodologies and research

interests, in EC. Especially Sutton (2010) and Menary (2010c) should be credited
for making several of these important differences come to light. In the present
literature there are two articulated waves or versions of EC: Sutton and Menary
call these 1st wave EC (Clark and Chalmers 1998; Clark 2008; Wheeler 2010) and
2nd wave EC (Menary 2006, 2007, 2010b; Rowlands 2010; Sutton 2010; Sutton
et al. 2010).

First-wave extended cognition

First-wave EC is based on a combination of complementarity and what is known as

the parity principle (PP). Opinions on these matters, however, differ somewhat.
While Clark (see above) only thinks that the PP is sufficient for cognitive extension
and that the better argument for EC is a complementarity-based argument (Clark
290 M.D. Kirchhoff

1998, p. 99), Wheeler (2010, 2011) conceives of the PP as the only viable route to
EC (Walter 2010, p. 286). Nevertheless, because first- and second-wave EC share a
commitment to complementarity, but do not equally share the endorsement of the PP,
I focus here on the PP. The PP stresses the following: “If we confront some task, a
part of the world functions as a process which, were it to go on in the head, we
would have no hesitation in accepting as part of the cognitive process, then that part
of the world is (for that time) part of the cognitive process.” (Clark and Chalmers
1998, p. 8; and reprinted in Clark 2008, p. 77). The PP focuses on functional
isomorphism of “inner” and “outer” processes. In support of the PP, Clark and
Chalmers developed the case of the neurobiologically impaired Otto and his
notebook. Otto is a victim of a mild form of Alzheimer’s disease. Over time, Otto
has written down useful information in his notebook in a similar way to storing
information in biological memory. According to Clark and Chalmers, because the
dispositional information in Otto’s notebook is functionally poised to guide action in
a functionally similar way as non-occurrent beliefs in biological memory, the
information in Otto’s notebook should be considered as cognitive belief-like states.
Importantly, the PP by itself is not meant as an argument for EC but rather to
encourage us to look at various cases of cognitive extension “behind a veil of
metabolic ignorance,” (Clark 2011, p. 449). Given this picture, then, the PP acts as a
kind of heuristic device (Menary 2010a, p. 5) designed to suspend what Clark calls
“biochauvinistic prejudice” (2008, p. 77).

Second-wave extended cognition

Second-wave EC shares the complementarity view of Clark’s version of first-

wave EC. But this second wave of EC is critical of arguments based on parity
and functional isomorphism. Generally, it is EC in its integrationist, historical,
and cognition-in-the-wild mode. Even so, second-wave EC is best understood not
as a substantial doctrine departure from first-wave EC; but rather, as a refinement
and (perhaps) attunement to a more empirically and enactive oriented approach
to EC. However, even if the two waves are compatible, they are also distinct, in
the sense that most proponents of second-wave EC argue that the PP is either
wrong or incomplete as a motivation for EC in general (Sutton 2010, p. 200).
Within second-wave EC, there are two approaches with slightly different views or
inflections: the first starts from a principle of complementarity (Sutton 2010),
whereas the second focuses on integration and manipulation (Menary 2007).
Sutton builds his case for complementarity arguing, among other things, that the
PP “does not encourage attention to the distinct features of the components in
particular cognitive systems […],” and because of this “downplays—or even
collapses—differences between inner and outer resources […].” (Menary 2010a, b,
c, d, p. 198). As a result, the PP fails to study the deep mechanistic dissimilarities
between “inner” and “outer” parts and on how they complement and “operate
together in driving more-or-less intelligent thought and action.” (Sutton et al. 2010,
p. 525). Against functional isomorphism, complementarity EC “both predicts and
requires” (Rowlands 2010, p. 89) such disparate but complementary processes
between culturally engineered props and artifacts and the brain’s biological modes
of processing. For Menary, complementary is also an important aspect of cognitive
Extended cognition and fixed properties 291

integration (2006, p. 330). Sharing Sutton’s critical stance towards the PP, Menary
builds his case for second-wave EC on the manipulation thesis:

“The manipulation thesis as a constituent thesis of cognitive integration is first

understood to be an embodied engagement with the world, […]. Secondly it is
not simply a causal relation, bodily manipulations are also normative—they are
embodied practices developed through habit and training and governed by
cognitive norms.” (2007, p. 84).

Important for Menary’s version of second-wave EC is that some cognitive

processes are (partly) made up of—constituted, composed of—an individual’s bodily
manipulation of “external” structures and that such manipulations are embedded in
the wider social, semantic, and normative cognitive niche (2010d, p. 611). An
important focus of Menary-style EC is the idea of cognitive transformation. In
particular, Menary thinks that the PP fails to explain how bodily manipulations alter
the informational and physical structure of the cognitive niche, thereby transforming
human cognitive capacities. Also, nothing in the PP tells us about how such
manipulations literally result in the transformation of body schemas required for
manipulation of external elements and in transformation of both representational and
cognitive capacities (2010b, p. 561).

Toward a third-wave extended cognition

Following Sutton (2010), this paper explores what a third-wave version of EC might
look like. I take my starting point in the following specifications:

“If there is to be a distinct third wave of [EC], it might be a deterritorialized

cognitive science which deals with the propagation of deformed and
reformatted representations, and which dissolves individuals into peculiar loci
of coordination and coalescence among multiple structured media […].
Without assuming distinct inner and outer realms of engrams and exograms,
the natural and the artificial, each with its own proprietary characteristics, this
third wave would analyze these boundaries as hard-won and fragile
developmental and cultural achievements, always open to renegotiation.”
(2010, p. 213; italics added)

The first feature mentioned is the framing “a deterritorialized cognitive science.”

This is both a radical and fascinating proposal. Although I cannot deal with it
sufficiently, since doing so will take us too far astray, more detail is required. Despite
EC’s core claim that we should not privilege the boundaries of the biological
organism in settling the question of what is cognitive and what is not, or,
alternatively, what is “internal” to a cognitive system and what is “external,” certain
strands of EC end up setting the bar for cognitive inclusion by appeal to what is
‘internal’ to the skin-and-skull boundary of an individual organism. This is evident if
we consider first-wave EC’s parity argument for EC. Briefly, the PP works
accordingly: (1) locate an “external” element taken to perform a functional role in
intelligent behavior; (2) locate or imagine a scenario in which the same functional
292 M.D. Kirchhoff

role is realized by an “internal” mechanism; (3) then ask the question, should we
count the “internal” mechanism in (2) as part of the cognitive system?; (4) if the
answer is yes, then (1) qualifies for cognitive inclusion. So, despite employed to
overcome any sharp separation between “inner” and “outer”—between “fluid
biology and stable culture” (Sutton 2006, p. 242)—the PP ends up privileging the
“internal” on matters of cognitive inclusion for the “external” (Di Paolo 2009, p. 10).
The relationship between what is “external” and what is “internal” to a cognitive
system is most certainly complicated; nonetheless, it is not at all clear that sticking to
the old “internal” and “external” distinction will be helpful in settling this debate.
Moreover, it is important not to lose sight of the fact that the question of what is
supposed to be “internal” to a cognitive system and what is “external” is pitched at a
synchronic, individualist level, thereby encouraging an object-based view of
cognitive systems. If one acknowledges, as Hutchins does (1995, 2008, 2011a, b),
the socio-culturally distributed nature of cognitive systems and consequently of
cognitive agency (more on this in the “Cognitive assembly: EC, FP, and DP”
section), the criteria for what it means to be “internal” to a cognitive system become
even more opaque. EC, of course, can still pursue the all important boundary
inquiries into which processes, relations, systems, and mechanisms are cognitively
relevant. However, if Sutton is correct, EC should not presuppose any clear-cut
boundaries between “internal” and “external.”
This brings us to the second interesting feature, namely that third-wave EC deals with
“deformed and reformatted representations.” This idea of deformed and reformatted
representations takes third-wave EC’s focus on a decentralized and deterritorialized
cognitive science even further. What does Sutton means by this? One way to get a grip
on this allows me to comment critically on the complementarity framework endorsed by
Sutton himself. Building on Donald’s (1991) theory of engrams (biological memory
records) and exograms (culturally encoded public representations) as a signature mark
of complementarity, Sutton points out that exograms are often discrete, modality and
task independent, and much more durable than engrams. However, following
Hutchins, this distinction between two disparate (but complementary) representational
formats “has the unintended side effect of rendering cultural practices invisible.”
(2008, p. 2017) In line with the enactivist approach (Stewart et al. 2011), what makes
a material pattern into a representation is a process of enactment—of bringing forth of
meaning. Within this framework, cognition is an active embodied and heavily
embedded process (Hutchins 2011b, p. 429). Hence, to even engage with exograms as
representations, it is necessary to bodily engage “a material pattern as a memory
record” (Hutchins 2008, p. 2017) within structured and patterned socio-cultural
practices. Thus, exograms are not simply “memory records outside the brain” with
properties different from engrams; but rather, exograms are constantly reformatted
according to the non-symbolic features of physical materials, cultural norms for their
use, and embodied activities of individuals (Ingold 2000). There is a second way to
understand the framing of “deformed and reformatted representations,” and it is this I
shall pursue in depth in this paper. Instead of looking at the meshed composition of
exograms, Sutton’s framing encourages analysis on the effects of enculturation on the
plastic brain’s own representational capacities. I signpost this here, and nothing else,
since a large part of the “Cognitive transformation: EC, FP, and DP” section is devoted
to fleshing out the idea of the “enculturated brain.”
Extended cognition and fixed properties 293

The third, and final, suggestion in the above passage is the claim that third-wave
EC “dissolves individuals into peculiar loci of coordination and coalescence among
multiple structures media.” Echoing Latour (1999) and his decentralized notion of
agency, I understand this as a direct call to free EC from its present individualistic
tendencies and to do so by taking socio-cultural practices, and diachronic
contributions, seriously in addressing the issue of cognitive assembly and the
underlying notion of cognitive agency. In fact, on a DP-oriented third-wave EC,
cognitive assembly and agency are best understood as self-organizational processes
distributed across brains, bodies, people, norms, and socio-cultural practices and
structures—none of which have any analytical priority. However, driving assembly
is not the same as effecting a significant “internal” transformation. So, apparently
one can have DP-style assembly without DP-style transformation. I bring this worry
here in order to avoid confusion about FP in cognitive transformation and FP in
cognitive assembly. Generally, FP-style assumptions involve keeping boundaries
fixed and separate. In cognitive transformation, FP arises because of a tendency to
claim that the properties of “external” elements augment but do not transform the
psychological innards of the individual. In cognitive assembly, in contrast, FP comes
into play because of certain individualistic tendencies delegating all the causally
active roles to the organism, thereby deactivating the dynamical role of the
environment in co-driving cognitive assembly. Hence, FP is not only indicative of
a non-transformative view of representational capacities but also of prioritizing the
individual as the loci of coordination and control in cognitive assembly.

Cognitive transformation: EC, FP, and DP

I begin this section with a version of cognitive transformation endorsing DP, namely
Menary’s (2010b) hypothesis of dual component process transformation. As I shall
unpack this hypothesis, it contains not two but three important elements. The first
implies an extension of the functional architecture by integration of new processing
nodes into the cognitive system. The second implies an enhancement of individual
cognitive abilities to engage in cognitive practices. According to Menary, the third,
and final, element is:

“The deeply transformatory power of our learning histories in the cognitive

niche is one that reformats the representational capacities of the brain in terms
of public symbol systems.” (2010b, p. 576; italics added).

Everyone in EC endorse the first two elements of cognitive transformation. It is

the final element—the claim that ontogenetic development within the cognitive
niche reformats or transforms the representational capacities of the brain in terms of
public symbol systems—that non-trivially marks the distinction between DP-
inspired EC and EC with FP tendencies. Unfortunately, Menary is not very clear
about what he means by this. Hence, part of my exploration (in the “Cognitive
transformation, EC, and DP: the enculturated brain” section) is to examine this in
more detail. In the following subsection, however, I show how FP theorizing sneaks
into EC.
294 M.D. Kirchhoff

Cognitive transformation: EC and FP

Imagine digging a hole in your garden. When asked about where the digging power
resides, how would you respond? Would you answer “in the spade,” or “in you”?
According the Clark, both answers are incorrect, since digging power is the product of a
larger coupled system. In the digging case, the point is that the spade makes an “ongoing
and complementary contribution to that made by [the] biological body,” and “in such a
case, [there is] no obvious sense in which I biologically replicate the essence of the
spade’s activity.” (Clark 2006, p. 292) An important step in Clark’s reasoning about
the transformatory role of language (and public symbols in general) is to view
language in analogy to the spade. Hence, on Clark’s view, understanding language
implies explaining the coordination dynamics between “internal” biological resources
and “external” non-biological resources, enabling language to “occupy a wonderfully
ambiguous position on any hybrid cognitive stage […], looking one moment like any
other piece of the biological equipment, and the next like a peculiar potent piece of
external cognitive scaffolding.” (2006, p. 293)

A quick objection and response

My claim is that precisely this spade-language analogy, conceiving of scaffolds as

different but complementary, contains the assumption of FP in EC theorizing. Just
like the properties of biological resources do not need to take on the properties of the
spade’s activity, so is it possible for the biological brain to dynamically coordinate
with linguistic scaffolds, and do so without alteration of the brain itself. As Clark
says: “Over cultural-evolutionary time, […], language itself becomes the kind of
thing (artifact) that brains like ours can learn to use, and that they can use
without radically altering their basic modes of representation and computation.”
(2004, p. 720; italics in original). Before going any further, I want to discuss an
objection to my claim that the complementarity model of EC—crisscrossing first-
and second-wave EC—displays FP tendencies. First, one could argue that a
motivation for endorsing EC is that it frees the biological organism from having to
carry on-board all the machinery required for higher-level problem solving. Our
brains, as Clark puts it, “are generally better at Frisbee than at logic.” (1997, p. 60).
Humans become good at logic not because our brains undergo a functional
transformation so the brain becomes good at both Frisbee and logic, but rather by
our brains continuously coupling with, decoupling from, and recoupling with
public symbol systems. Second, if our brains become functionally transformed to
be both good at Frisbee and logic, this would seem to screen-off the environment from
its role of augmenting and empowering cognition. Although I agree with this worry in its
motivational claim for EC, there are two problems with this way of conceiving of
cognitive transformation from an anti-FP perspective. Giving a DP-style explanation of
cognitive transformation by focusing on how some (and only some) of the brain’s
representational capacities undergo a process of enculturation does not imply a
reduction of the contribution of the environment to merely a form of garden-variety
causal influence. This will become much clearer in the “Cognitive transformation, EC,
and DP: the enculturated brain” section. But consider, briefly, Gallagher and Crisafi’s
(2009) account of mental institutions. According to Gallagher and Crisafi, large-scale,
Extended cognition and fixed properties 295

socio-cultural practices—like legal institutions—carried out in interactive coordination

by many people, using many kinds of cognitive tools, constrained and empowered by the
activities of previous generations, could be instances of distributed cognitive systems
enabling the achievement of cognitive practices. Such a case is important precisely
because it “is a cognitive practice that in principle could not happen just in the head;
indeed, it extends cognition through environments that are large and various.” (Gallagher
and Crisafi 2009, p. 48) So, looking at how processes of enculturation might transform
the brain’s representational capacities—as Menary puts it, in terms of public symbol
systems—does not imply delegating the cognitive contributions of the environment a
less important role than it is taken to play in the EC literature. The second problem with
this kind of worry is that it itself indicates an overly synchronic way of dealing with
cases of EC. Consider how the response is framed in terms of coupling with and
decoupling from external resources. This imposes an overly inert picture of what is a
vastly dynamical process at multiple levels. An important virtue of DP considerations is
that such a perspective encourages an argument for synchronic cognitive extension
based on diachronic, developmental considerations. It is from diachrony that the
question of enculturated transformation processes becomes important.

Cognitive transformation: EC and FP continued

We can further substantiate the claim that there are FP tendencies in the
complementarity model via recourse to a brief summary of how Clark (1997,
2006, 2008) distances his view of the cognition-transforming role of language from
Dennett’s (1991, 1996) account of this issue. First, Clark agrees with Dennett on the
evolutionary dimension. It is certainly true that our human cognitive profile is
different from other non-linguistic primates—past and present. The point that both
Clark and Dennett endorse is that it does not follow that this difference amounts to
any profound and radical differences in underlying neural hardware. Rather, the
“idea is that some relatively small neural (or neural/bodily) difference was the source
that lit a kind of intellectual forest fire.” (Clark 2001, p. 151, 1997, p. 198; Dennett
1991, p. 219). The real disagreement between the two is on the developmental scale.
On Clark’s interpretation (one he himself admits is only tentative), Dennett’s view is
that developmental exposure to public language and symbol systems results in a
profound reorganization of the brain’s computational and representational profile, in
the sense that Dennett thinks that our largely innate and connectionist cognitive
architecture is transformed—by exposure to language—to simulate “something like
a serial logic engine […].” (Clark 1997, p. 197; Dennett 1991, p. 278) In contrast to
Dennett, Clark sees public language (and material symbols) as essentially external
cognitive tools “that complements but does not profoundly alter the brain’s own
basic modes of representation and computation.” (1997, p. 198; italics added)

Cognitive transformation, EC, and DP: the enculturated brain

Case #1: off-line mathematical reasoning

According to Wheeler (2004), our human capacity to engage in off-line cognitive

tasks requires transformation of the brain’s representational capacities. In fact, this is
296 M.D. Kirchhoff

“an unavoidable consequence of the basic logic of the [EC] paradigm.” (2004, p. 709)
This is an interesting argument in part because it shows DP-style considerations within
EC and in part because it is pitched against what I argue is Clark’s FP assumption on
cognitive transformation. As I shall reiterate this argument, it consists of the following
steps (Wheeler 2004, pp. 708–9):

1. In cases of on-line, distributed (extended) mathematical reasoning, the “internal”

mechanisms will be directly causally coupled with certain properties of
mathematical symbols located in the environment.
2. According to Clark, it is the coordination dynamics between biological and non-
biological elements that augment and empower cognition.
3. In cases of off-line mathematical reasoning, there are, by hypothesis, no such
environmental factors onto which the “internal” mechanisms can integrate with
or lock onto.
4. According to Clark, in cases of on-line and off-line mathematical reasoning,
fundamentally the same “inner” processing mechanisms are active in both cases.
5. However, if certain properties of “external” mathematical symbols are
essentially part of our capacity for mathematical reasoning, and if these are
absent in cases of off-line mathematical reasoning, then certain “internal”
surrogates must recapitulate certain structural properties of those “external”
mathematical symbols.
6. Therefore, off-line mathematical reasoning requires “inner” representations that
recapitulate certain structural properties of “external” symbol systems, namely
those structural properties that are non-trivial contributing factors in on-line
distributed mathematical performance.

Premises 4 and 5 carry the heaviest explanatory burden. However, we can begin
by noting that the first two premises articulate an interactively coordinated system
composed of domain-general connectionist-style mechanisms with public symbol
systems. In accordance with EC, our human capacity for linguistic reasoning is the
joint product of neural networks organized exhaustively in terms of high-
dimensional patterns of activation and similarity metrics and environmentally
realized symbol systems (Clark 1997; Sutton 2010).
In unpacking premise 4, I focus on responding to a potential worry one might have
against DP in the domain of cognitive transformation. One could argue that the real
power of Clark’s phrase “complements but does not profoundly alter the brain’s own
basic modes of representation” (1997, p. 198; italics added), is that it resists the
orthodox view that language-like features such as productivity and systematicity can be
explained “only if a classical representational format (one which features a language-
like combinatorial syntax) is understood to be a fundamental feature of the neural
economy at some “higher,” non-implementational level.” (Wheeler 2004, p. 710) There
is absolutely nothing in either Wheeler’s argument or in the alternative to FP I am
exploring that heralds anything like a return to a “language of thought architecture”
(LOT). Wheeler gives two compelling reasons for this. First, unlike a LOT,
mathematical reasoning—regardless of accomplished on-line or off-line—does not
require that there is any sort of domain-specific processing device organized so as to
encode language-like symbols. According to Wheeler, “we can easily hold onto the
Extended cognition and fixed properties 297

Clark-inspired thought that fundamentally the same kind of processing mechanism

(perhaps even the very same pattern-completing mechanism) may still be deployed
[…].” (2004, p. 708). This sets DP-style views in contrast with orthodox positions like
a LOT precisely because a DP-oriented explanation of off-line mathematical reasoning
is fully compatible with the neural architecture being at root connectionist. Second, the
“recapitulation” claim inherent in Wheeler’s argument should be not understood as a
claim about complete “re-programming” as Clark takes Dennett’s view to be.
According to Wheeler, during on-line performance of mathematical reasoning we
should not expect the psychological innards of the brain to undergo distinct processes
of transformation. While on-line, it is the particular hybrid system of neural pattern-
completing networks and environmental symbols that drives cognitive success. It is
only during off-line cognition—in this case, mathematical reasoning processes—that a
transformation of neural representational formats is required. Summarizing these two
points, Wheeler claims:

“As far as I can see, while the sub-claim concerning the neutral effects of language
on the brain’s own basic mode of computation can still be sustained following my
critical arguments, the sub-claim concerning the neutral effects of language on the
brain’s own basic mode of representation cannot.” (2004, p. 709).

This brings us to premise 5. The argumentative appeal of this premise comes from
Clark’s own view that the brain’s own basic modes of representation remain
unaltered regardless of being reliably and functionally integrated with public
symbols in the cognitive niche or being effectively disconnected or decoupled from
the exact same environmental symbol systems. Following Wheeler, if some
properties of public symbol systems are distinctively part of our capacity for
mathematical reasoning—that is, if our ability to manipulate mathematical symbols
in the environment is part and parcel of our capacity to perform mathematical
practices—and if the properties of these public symbol systems are absent in cases
of mathematical off-line reasoning, then certain representations in the brain must
stand in for these structural properties when conducted off-line. Thus,

“[I]n the off-line case we confront nothing less than a profound transformation
in the brain’s own basic mode of representation, and that runs contrary to
Clark’s avowed view.” (Wheeler 2004, p. 711).

Case #2: phoneme perception

Consider the concept of “patterned practices” (Roepstorff et al. 2010, p. 1051).

Patterned practices are pervasive forms of structured practices in which most (if not
all) human socio-cultural activity is both conditioned by and emerges from. So a
patterned practice is a socio-cultural practice structured in a particular, collectively
assembled way. As Roepstorff et al. say of these practices:

“Everyday life is continuously ordered into more or less stable patterns that are
specific to particular types of situations, defining preferences, predispositions,
and expectations for actors. These patterns present regularities that arise from
298 M.D. Kirchhoff

everyday practices while at the same time shaping them. Patterns appear to be
emergent phenomena that are currently not sufficiently explained by its
constitutive factors, i.e., individual behavior or intersubjectivity.” (2010, p. 1051).

A patterned practice analysis is important because it sets up a perspective from

which to explore important shifts in dynamical properties, viz., how patterns of
practices at the socio-cultural level reshape the patterning of cortical connectivity
and activity, “and in the same way the social practice forms patterns, large-scale
brain signals as well as other psychophysical signals generated during particular task
performance can be analyzed to expose significant patterning.” (2010, p. 1052) To
underpin their claim, Roepstorff et al. turn to a study on the effects of enculturation
on the brain, Näätänen et al.’s (1997) study on phoneme perception. This study
indicates some important cortical transformatory effects facilitated by the brain’s
participation in certain patterned, socio-cultural practices.
Based on a mismatch negativity paradigm, where subjects are exposed to
unattended sounds in certain rhythmic patterns, Näätänen et al. have established that
the primary auditory cortex in the left hemisphere is highly sensitive to changes in
predictable sound patterns (1997, p. 432). In the first set of these experiments
(1997), Näätänen et al. utilized Finnish and Estonian language speakers because of a
relatively small discrepancy between the two languages in terms of vowel structure,
except that Estonian vowel space includes an additional vowel, /õ/, not found in
Finnish. In the experiment, the speakers were also presented as deviants a prototype
of this sound, along with vowels existing in both languages (/o/ and /ö/), and a non-
prototypical vowel (located between/e/ and /ö/) (1997, p. 432; Roepstorff et al. 2010,
p. 1053). The upshot was that Finnish speakers showed significantly higher
mismatch negativity when exposed to prototypical vowels in their native language
than when exposed to the Estonian vowel /õ/. Näätänen et al. take this finding to
show that this “language-specific prototypical effect suggests the existence of neural
traces of language-specific phoneme representations.” (1997, p. 433)

The neuronal recycling hypothesis: arithmetic and reading

The final piece of evidence running against FP-style assumptions and favoring a DP-
based explanation of cognitive transformation comes from neuroscience and the
development of arithmetic and reading abilities. Especially Dehaene’s “neuronal
recycling hypothesis” (NRH) is interesting here (2005). Why should one think that
Dehaene’s work supports DP? One of the most compelling ideas of the NRH is that
when the brain recruits and utilizes cognitive tools during ontogenetic development
this may lead to a recycling or pre-empting of biological mechanisms so that these
acquire a new function from their evolved function (Dehaene 2005; Nieder and
Dehaene 2009). This accommodates Wheeler’s point: that during participation in
socio-cultural patterns of stable mathematical practices, certain cortical areas of the
brain undergo a transformation in representational format enabling off-line
mathematics to occur. Second, because of these recycling processes, the organism
itself may undergo certain losses in cognitive abilities. If FP had been the case, this
loss of abilities would have been hard to explain. For instance, in learning to read
and engaging in regular patterns of reading such practices will partially reduce
Extended cognition and fixed properties 299

perceptual abilities like object-related activations in the left inferotemporal sulcus

(Dehaene 2005). Of course, one might object to my use of the NRH as evidence of
DP, to the extent that the NRH invokes the idea of “neuronal niches”: the idea that
cultural plasticity is not unlimited, but that certain functional and structural
evolutionary mechanisms partially constrain the acquisition of novel cultural
capacities. In the following passage, Dehaene makes this explicit:

“According to this […] view, the architecture of the human brain is limited and
shares many traits with other non-human primates. It is laid down under tight
genetic constraints, yet with a fringe of variability. I postulate that cultural
acquisitions are only possible insofar as they fit within this fringe, by
reconverting pre-existing cerebral predispositions for another use. Accordingly,
cultural plasticity is not unlimited, and all cultural inventions should be based
on the pre-emption of pre-existing evolutionary adaptations of the human
brain. It thus becomes important to consider what may be the important
precursors of reading and arithmetic.” (2005, p. 134)

But why think (like one of the reviewers of this paper) that this counts
against DP? As far as I can tell, this worry is based on a symptom spread
throughout the literature on cognitive extension, namely an overly static and
synchronic conception of the relationship between brain, body and environment.
If one is willing to accept that diachronic development can establish more than
merely causal dependence of neural mechanisms on environmental elements,
then the NRH’s emphasis on “constraints imposed on cognitive development
during ontogeny” has itself emerged through dynamical interactions over large,
evolutionary time-scales. The simple fact that the NRH does not express a
“largely equipotential cortex” (Quartz and Sejnowski 1997) and virtually
unlimited plasticity is unlikely to count against a DP explanation. Let us look at
some evidence.
According to Dehaene (1997), Dehaene et al. (1999) the processes enabling
mathematical reasoning are stored in a complex network of representational
mechanisms: first, the capacity for exact mathematical reasoning is stored in a
culturally acquired language-specific format and located strictly in left-lateralized
activation in the inferior frontal lobe; second, the capacity for approximate
mathematical reasoning stored in an evolutionary older and non-linguistic, visuo-
spatial representational format and located primarily in the bilateral parietal lobes of
the brain (1999, p. 970, 973). The model invoked by Dehaene et al. depicts
mathematical reasoning as composed from three cognitive capacities (Dehaene 2001,
pp. 18–20):

& A biological precursor to discriminate small quantities, e.g., 1–2, 2–3, etc. This
capacity is a cross-species capacity found in preverbal children, dolphins,
chimps, rats, etc.
& A biological precursor to discriminate magnitudes between objects and numbers,
e.g., 8 is larger than 4. This capacity is also a cross-species capacity.
& An enculturated numerical system enabling humans to reason in a discrete and
symbolic format required for exact mathematical competence.
300 M.D. Kirchhoff

Evidence supporting the result that approximate reasoning is stored in a non-

linguistic format and that exact, discrete, and symbolic reasoning is stored in a
language-dependent format is given in Dehaene et al. (1999). In one experiment,
Russian–English bilinguals were trained on 12 cases involving exact and
approximate sums of two-digit numbers presented in one of their two languages
(1999, p. 970). In the exact addition task, subjects were required to select the correct
sum of two numerically close numbers, e.g., the English trained subjects were asked
to add “Twelve + Four” and then select the correct sum from “Sixteen and Fourteen”
(1999, p. 970). In the approximate addition task, subjects were asked to estimate the
result and select the closest number, e.g., the English trained subjects were asked to
add “Twelve + Four” and estimate the result by choosing the closest number
“Eighteen and Six” (1999, p. 970). After being trained on the 12 cases of two-digit
numbers, subjects were then tested on the same sums. What Dehaene et al.
interestingly found was that on the exact addition problems, response time decreased
when having to perform exact calculation in their untrained language, whereas
subjects show an increase in response time when performing exact calculation in
their trained language, regardless of they were trained in Russian or English (1999,
p. 971). In contrast, performance on the approximate addition task was unaffected by
switching between trained and untrained language. According to Dehaene et al. such
studies provide evidence that:

“[D]emonstrate that exact calculation is language-dependent whereas

approximation relies on non-verbal visuo-spatial cerebral networks.” (1999, p. 970)

The evidence from off-line mathematical reasoning, the view of enculturation of

cortical areas in the case of phoneme perception, and the acquisition of exact
mathematical reasoning lend support to DP—certain neural transformations take the
form of a re-shaping or reformatting process, where diachronic development in
socio-cultural practices significantly transforms a sub-set of the brain’s cortical
representations from primarily non-linguistic to linguistic. A quick return to the
evidence on phoneme discrimination might help shed further light on this issue.
There is evidence that human infants from birth are capable of discriminating
phonemic patterns in their native language and non-native languages suggesting that
phoneme discrimination is based in non-verbal auditory networks (Bertoncini et al.
1987). What is interesting is that during the first year of their lives, infants show a
decrease in their phoneme discrimination abilities. After their first year, the infants
only show sensitivity to the phoneme structure of their native language (Werker and
Lalonde 1988). Such evidence fits the enculturated brain hypothesis. As Roepstorff
et al. point out: diachronic development in stable and predictive patterns of socio-
cultural practices sculpts the patterns of neural activity to the ones found at the
socio-cultural level:

“In the cases here discussed, the differences in patterning, exposure to different
languages with different structures of the phonetic space, may co-locate with
differences in culture in the sense that ‘Finns’ appear to have one type of brain
while ‘Estonians’ appear to have a different type of ‘brain’.” (Roepstorff et al.
2010, p. 1053)
Extended cognition and fixed properties 301

Determining whether such evidence of enculturation is evidence for a constructivist

approach (Quartz and Sejnowski 1997), a selectionist approach (Dehaene 2005), or a
nativist approach (Pinker 1994) to neuronal and cognitive development is a matter of
dispute and further empirical investigation. I signpost it here, since for my purposes a
solution to this debate is less important than what it illustrates—for we have here a
string of evidence suggesting transformatory effects on certain of the brain’s
representational capacities due to its immersion in patterned socio-cultural practices.

Cognitive assembly: EC, FP, and DP

In addition to the domain of cognitive transformation, I aim in this section to show that
there are FP-style tendencies in the domain of cognitive assembly as well. Unlike
cognitive transformation, where it was the assumption that non-biological elements
augment but do not transform certain of the brain’s representational capacities that linked
EC’s complementarity framework to FP, FP takes on a very different structure in the
domain of cognitive assembly. Hence, it is essential not to conflate my dealings with FP in
the domain of cognitive transformation with what is to come in this section. In the domain
of cognitive assembly, FP emerges due to an individualistic conception of the cognitive
agent orchestrating the assembly processes, viz., that it is primarily the biological
individual that is conceived as assembling cognitive systems (Clark 2008). So, FP
sneaks into the debate on cognitive assembly due to a failure of decentralizing
sufficiently the notion of cognitive agency to include socio-cultural practices.

Cognitive assembly: EC and FP

Concerning the product of cognitive assembly, cognitive processing is sometimes

extended across the biological boundaries of the organism to include parts of the
material and social environment. This is a view endorsed by all proponents of EC.
However, when it comes to explaining the process of cognitive assembly—the
recruitment and coordination of information-processing resources—especially Clark
steps back from this distributed nexus of disparate, heterogeneous, and self-
organizing elements and gives priority to the human brain:

“Human cognitive processing (sometimes) literally extends into the environ-

ment surrounding the organism. But the organism (and within the organism,
the brain/CNS) remains the core and currently the most active element.
Cognition is organism centered even when it is not organism bound.” (Clark
2008, 139; italics added).
“Just as it is the spider body that spins and maintains the web that then
(following Dawkins 1982) constitutes part of its own extended phenotype, so it
is the biological organism that spins, selects, or maintains the webs of
cognitive scaffolding that participate in the extended machinery of its own
thought and reason.” (2008, p. 123; italics added).

Clark coins this view the hypothesis of organism-centered cognition (HOC).

Unlike diachronic time-scales, the HOC is intended to operate synchronically. It is in
302 M.D. Kirchhoff

the process of recruitment and assembly here-and-now that Clark thinks that the
brain is primarily the responsible mechanism (Clark 2011, p. 459). In his (2008),
Clark refers to a series of experiments by Gray and Fu (2004) in order to empirically
substantiate the HOC. What these studies show is that the neural control system is
indifferent to the source of information—whether it is in-the- head or in-the-world
located information—such that the brain (based on the time–cost involved in
information retrieval) determines whatever mix of resources are recruited to solve a
problem. Following Gray and colleagues, Clark takes the lesson from these
experiments to be that “our problem-solving performances take shape according to
some cost function or functions that, in the typical course of events, accord no
special status or privilege to specific types of operations (motoric, perceptual,
introspective) or modes of encoding (in the head or in the world).” (Clark 2008, 121)
As Clark sums up the results to support the HOC:

“Concerning the process of recruitment, it is indeed the biological brain (or

perhaps some of its subsystems) that is in the driver’s seat. That is to say, it is
indeed some neurally based process of recruitment that (following Gray et al.)
turns out to be so pointedly unbiased regarding the use of inner versus outer
circuits, storage, and operations.” (2008, 122).

Part #1 of FP in cognitive assembly

Like Dennett (1991), who sees the human mind as consisting of a semianarchic
coalition of elements, interconnected and competing, Clark sacks the idea of an “all-
powerful, hidden agent inside the brain whose job is to do all real thinking and
which is able to intelligently organize those teams of internal and external supporting
structure.” (Clark 2008, p. 136) Clark thinks that the “control is itself fragmented
and distributed, allowing different inner resources to interact with, or call upon,
different external resources without such activity being routed via the bottleneck of
conscious deliberation or the intervention of an all-seeing, all-orchestrating inner
executive.” (2008, pp. 136–7) Consequently, Clark decentralizes the cognitive agent
responsible for cognitive assembly into a fragmented and distributed mix of internal
self-organizing processes.
My claim is that it is at this particular stage that the first part of FP emerges in
Clark’s account, since when decentralizing the inner homunculus to self-organizing
and fragmented processes, he ends up bounding all of these dynamical elements
within the biological boundaries of the organism: “it is the biological organism that
[assembles] the […] extended machinery […].” (Clark 2008, p. 123) FP is the failure
of decentralizing the notion of cognitive agency sufficiently to include patterned
socio-cultured practices. Following Hutchins (2011a), the individualist assumption
of cognitive agency in the HOC threatens to isolate the activity of the brain from the
dynamics of socio-cultural practices on both synchronic and diachronic time-scales
(2011a, p. 411). That is, if the boundaries of cognitive agency do not outweigh the
individual organism, and if the dynamics of socio-cultural practices in cognitive
assembly are taken to play only secondary roles, then the dynamics of cognitive
assembly must derive from the biological brain and body. Hence, by endorsing an
individualist notion of cognitive agency, Clark ends up privileging the organism-
Extended cognition and fixed properties 303

centered mechanisms as the driving and most active loci around which extended
architectures organize and dissolve.

Part #2 of FP in cognitive assembly

According to Hutchins, “A straightforward way to deal with [cognitive assembly] is to

abandon the assumption that the biological brain is the essential element. Doing so, of
course, requires that one look elsewhere for the apparently impartial forces that assemble
cognitive systems.” (2011a, p. 439) In shared spirits with Roepstorff et al. (2010), the
proposal favored by Hutchins is that a “good start on understanding this process of
recruitment would be to notice the role of cultural practices in the orchestration of soft-
assembly of extended systems.” (2011a, p. 440) As Hutchins emphasizes, “The
ecological assemblies of human cognition make pervasive use of cultural products.”
(2011a, p. 445)
My claim is that we can find a second part of FP in cognitive assembly when
considering how Clark responds to Hutchins’ challenge. First, Clark argues that
Hutchins fails to appropriately separate the different time-scales of the processes
concerned in cognitive assembly: to distinguish evolutionary and developmental
from synchronic time-scales. As Clark says: “I think Hutchins is failing to attend to
important differences concerning the shape and timescale of the processes
concerned. My own targets, in the discussion in SSM of cognitive assembly, were
processes operating in the here-and-now.” (2008, p. 459) Clark does not want to
deny that some spinning is done by socio-cultural practices on diachronic time-
scales. As Clark says, cultural practices really do provide “me with both a
prestructured recipe for success, a well-honed cultural practice (schooling) to help
me benefit from that recipe, and a pre-selected set of supporting materials and
structures (pen, paper) all ripe for assembly into a new problem-solving whole.”
(2011, 459) However, what Clark wants to deny is that the assembly process itself is
being spun and maintained by cultural practices synchronically: “even here, it is still
the individual biological brains […] that are, in the here-and-now, the most active
orchestrating elements in this process.” (Clark 2011, p. 459) FP here is a
consequence of Clark’s view of cognitive agency, since neglecting to take seriously
the dynamical role of socio-cultural practices in the here-and-now, precludes taking
seriously the dynamical contribution of socio-cultural practices on diachronic time-
scales as well.

Cognitive assembly: EC and DP

Case #1: mental institutions

Clark’s intuition is that the dynamical processes responsible for cognitive assembly
reside at only one level: the individual organism. Maybe it is possible to find
individual cases where the appropriate level is indeed the individual organism.
However, the problem with encapsulating cognitive agency at the individual level is
that we can find cases where the individual level is insufficient in order to explain
the assembly of extended cognitive systems (Protevi 2009; Theiner et al. 2010). On
Hollan et al.’s account: in “distributed cognition, one expects to find a system that
304 M.D. Kirchhoff

can dynamically configure itself to bring subsystems into coordination to accomplish

various functions.” (2000, p. 175) Consequently, in such cases, cognitive agency
outweighs the boundaries of skin-and-skull to include distributed processes and
activities across time, space, and people. Such a scenario has recently been proposed
by Gallagher and Crisafi (2009) in their discussion of mental institutions.
Essentially, if the cognitively relevant and reliable interactions bring a myriad of
subsystems into play, these subsystems being largely distributed across people,
artifacts, patterned practices, and the activities of previous generations, and if all
these subsystems are sufficiently integrated, it becomes increasingly difficult to
single out the individual level as the most active element in the assembly process.
In a similar way to Hutchins’ “observation that the outcomes that mattered to
[ship navigation] were not determined by the cognitive properties of any single
navigator, but instead were the product of the interactions of several navigators with
each other and with a complex suite of tools.” (Hollan et al. 2000, p. 183), Gallagher
and Crisafi show that in some cases the individual brain only performs a sub-set of
actions, while others are enacted and orchestrated by socio-cultural practices and
cognitive technology. In considering legal institutions and the practice of law as
mechanisms for carrying out cognitive practices, Gallagher and Crisafi argue that we
should view all of the following three cases on a par with respect to cognitive effort
on behalf of the individual or distributed system (2009, p. 47):

1. A person, let us call her Alexis, is given a set of facts and is presented a
collection of evidence and is asked to judge on the basis of her own subjective
sense of fairness, the legitimacy of a certain claim being made. To make her
judgment Alexis must weigh the facts and consider the evidence entirely in her
own head, without help or interference from others. In this process she draws up
and considers three questions about the facts, tries to answer them the best she
can, and that makes her decision.
2. Alexis is given a set of facts and is presented a collection of evidence and is
asked to judge the legitimacy of a certain claim that is being made. This time,
however, she is given the three questions by a group of experts who provide a
set of possible answers from which she may choose. She may also decide to
formulate her own set of answers.
3. Alexis is given a set of facts and is presented a collection of evidence and is
asked to judge the legitimacy of a certain claim that is being made. As in (2), she
is asked to consider the same three questions by a group of experts who inform
her of a set of pre-established possible answers from which she can choose, and
a set of pre-established rules she must follow in answering the questions. The
rules specify that she must answer each question in one of only two ways,
choosing from the set of possible answers. Alexis is not allowed to formulate her
own alternative set of answers.

According to Gallagher and Crisafi, cases (2) and (3) are cognitive, in the sense
that they are cognition producing—they involve information-processing resources,
problem solving, reasoning, etc.—and they are cognition produced—they are
assembled from the activity of many people at both diachronic and synchronic
time-scales and their cognitive artifacts. On the issue of cognitive assembly—what
Extended cognition and fixed properties 305

or who it is that spins, selects, and coordinates the assembly process in the case of
legal practices—this could not take place primarily in the individual biological
organism. In fact, patterned practices would seem to do much of the spinning and
maintaining in the case of legal practices. Essentially, DP-driven explanations of
cognitive assembly enable at least two things: first, decentralizing cognitive agency
to include socio-cultural practices; and second, extended cognitive systems that exist
at a larger scale than merely individualist approaches focusing on integration or
incorporation of tools into the profile of a single individual.

Case #2: memory in Elizabethan theater companies

Consider now Tribble’s (2005) impressive analysis of collective memory or joint

action in Elizabethan theater companies (Sutton 2010). Applying the framework of
distributed cognition (Hutchins 1995) to understand the processes of collective
action and memory in Elizabethan theater companies, Tribble provides a novel and
highly impressive analysis of what not only have impressed but (more importantly)
puzzled historians of English drama.
These companies would perform a staggering number of plays; up to six different
plays per week; and without frequent time for rehearsals and the full texts of these
plays. As Tribble informs us, “between 1594 and 1597 a leading player such as
Edward Alleyn has to secure and retain command of about 71 different roles, of
which number 52 or 53 were newly learned.” (2005, p. 136) Given the rather
staggering demands on human memory, this raises the puzzle: how did these groups
actually manage to learn or memorize so many plays with so many changing roles?
Tribble offers an analysis of how socio-cultural practices, including the regular use
of artefacts “form elements of a cognitive structure that, in constraining and limiting,
also enables an extra-ordinary level of achievement.” (2005, p. 142) Especially the
role of stage doors and the playing platform; plots or scripts; and a culturally
situated, intergenerationally mediated apprenticeship system is analyzed. In the
study, the stage doors play a powerful double-role. First, over diachronic time, the
interactions within the cognitive niche alter the informational structure of the situation.
By continuously exploiting the size and locational distribution of doors, the local
environment comes to drive and constrain, orient and re-orient, the behavioral
opportunities of the actors. Second, in line with Hutchins (2011a) and Sterelny (2010),
Tribble shows how the ability of the actors to establish and maintain their grasp of the
situation is acquired through participation in socio-cultural practices in inter-personal
space. A third component of Tribble’s analysis pertains to how a specific culturally and
cross-generationally mediated apprenticeship system enculturates the process of
inclusion into Elizabethan theater practices (Tribble 2005, pp. 153–55). The
apprenticeship system is hierarchically structured. Following Hutchins’ (1995) analysis
of a similar system aboard naval vessels, Tribble shows how novices come to acquire
the necessary skills by being thrown into situations—guided by more experienced
actors—were it becomes a real possibility for the novice actors to perform successfully
both computationally and theatrically.
It is not clear why socio-cultural practices (including socio-cultural technologies)
could not play a dynamically orchestrating role in the assembly of extended
cognitive systems—not even if these are partly constructed over diachronic time-
306 M.D. Kirchhoff

scales. Right here, however, we are moving beyond the HOC—it is very hard (if not
impossible) to shoehorn collaborative memory in the case of Elizabethan theater
groups with the HOC. As Hutchins pinpoints, “few of the dynamic loops that link
people to their environments are invented by the people who exploit them.” (2011a,
p. 441) In Elizabethan theater companies, a substantial part of the assembly process
seems to be performed by dynamics of an apprenticeship system functioning on both
intergenerational time-scales and synchronic time-scales. Moreover, when Sterelny
remarks that it is true when Clark claims “that an organic brain chooses and assembles
the resources that make much problem solving possible […], but that in many critical
cases, those brains belong to members of the previous generation, not to the agent faced
with the problem […], (2010, p. 479),” he means quite literally that the cultural practices
of prior generations shape our epistemic access to the world by constraining “what to
attend to and to see when so attending.” (Hutchins 2011a, p. 441) Consequently, the
most active orchestrating elements in the process of joint action and memory in
Elizabethan theater companies outweigh the organism.

Conclusion

In this paper, I have explored some of the paths a distinctive third wave of extended
cognition might take. The critical-constructive view offered is that there is room
enough in extended cognition to do so without discrediting the validity of extended
cognition in general. In cognitive transformation cases, I argued that a potentially
problematic assumption concerning the complementarity framework is that it
presupposes that non-biological resources augment but do not transform the brain’s
representational capacities. In contrast to this tendency, I have attempted to show
that a much more dynamical model is available for the extended cognition theorist,
namely to view the enculturation processes on the brain as transforming the brain’s
representational capacities. In cognitive assembly cases, I argued that another
problematic tendency is an overly individualistic notion of cognitive agency—one
that places all the active and dynamical elements inside the organism, thereby
treating socio-cultural practices as only indirectly involved in the assembly of
extended cognitive systems. In contrast to this individualistic starting point, I have
argued that a much more distributed model is available to the fan of extended
cognition, namely to conceive of cognitive agency as socio-culturally distributed
across social groups, cognitive tools, and patterned practices.

Acknowledgments An Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Project Grant (DP1095109) and
an International Macquarie University Research Excellence Scholarship (no. 2011180) has funded this
project. Thanks to Richard Menary, John Sutton, and Will Newsome for helpful discussions. I am
especially grateful for the highly constructive comments made by two anonymous referees. Any mistakes
are mine and mine alone.

References

Bertoncini, J., Bijeljac-Babic, R., Blumstein, S., & Mehler, J. (1987). Discrimination in neonates of very
short CVs. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 82, 31–37.
Extended cognition and fixed properties 307

Clark, A. (1997). Being There. Cambridge: The MIT Press.

Clark, A. (1998). Author’s reply: Review symposium on Being There. Metascience, 7, 95–103.
Clark, A. (2001). Mindware. New York: Oxford University Press.
Clark, A. (2004). Is language special? Some remarks on control, coding, and co-ordination. Language
Sciences, 26, 717–726.
Clark, A. (2006). Material symbols. Philosophical Psychology, 19(3), 291–307.
Clark, A. (2008). Supersizing the Mind: Embodiment, Action, and Cognitive Extension. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Clark, A. (2011). Finding the mind. Philosophical Studies, 152, 447–461.
Clark, A., & Chalmers, D. (1998). The extended mind. Analysis, 58, 7–19.
Dehaene, S. (1997). The Number Sense. New York: Oxford University Press.
Dehaene, S. (2001). Précis of The Number Sense. Mind & Language, 16(1), 16–36.
Dehaene. (2005). Evolution of human cortical circuits for reading and arithmetic: The neuronal recycling
hypothesis. In J. R. Dehaene, M. D. Hauser, & G. Rizzolatti (Eds.), From Monkey Brain to Human
Brain: A Fyssen Foundation Symposium (pp. 133–157). Cambridge: The MIT Press.
Dehaene, S., Spelke, E., Pinel, P., Stanescu, R., & Tsivkin, S. (1999). Sources of mathematical thinking:
Behavioral and brain imaging evidence. Science, 284, 970–974.
Dennett, D. (1991). Consciousness Explained. New York: Little Brown.
Dennett, D. (1996). Kinds of Minds. New York: Basic Books.
Di Paolo, E. (2009). Extended life. Topoi, 28, 9–21.
Donald, M. (1991). Origins of the Modern Mind. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Gallagher, S., & Crisafi, A. (2009). Mental institutions. Topoi, 28, 45–51.
Gray, W. D., & Fu, W.-T. (2004). Soft constraints in interactive behavior: The case of ignoring perfect
knowledge in the world for imperfect knowledge in the head. Cognitive Science, 28(3), 359–382.
Hollan, J., Hutchins, E., & Kirsh, D. (2000). Distributed cognition: Toward a new foundation for human-
computer interaction research. Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction, 7(2), 174–196.
Hutchins, E. (1995). Cognition in the Wild. Cambridge: The MIT Press.
Hutchins, E. (2008). The role of cultural practices in the emergence of modern human intelligence.
Philosophical Transaction of the Royal Society, 363, 2011–2019.
Hutchins, E. (2011a). Enculturating the supersized mind. Philosophical Studies, 152, 437–446.
Hutchins, E. (2011b). Enaction, imagination, and insight. In J. Stewart, O. Gapenne, & E. A. Di Paolo (Eds.),
Enaction: Toward a New Paradigm for Cognitive Science (pp. 425–450). Cambridge: The MIT Press.
Ingold, T. (2000). The Perception of the Environment: Essays in Livelihood, Dwelling, and Skill. London:
Routledge.
Kirchhoff, M. D., & Newsome, W. (2011). Distributed agency in virtue epistemology. Philosophical
Explorations (in press).
Latour, B. (1999). Pandora’s Hope. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Menary, R. (2006). Attacking the bounds of cognition. Philosophical Psychology, 19, 329–344.
Menary, R. (2007). Cognitive Integration: Mind and Cognition Unbounded. Basingstoke: Palgrave
Macmillan.
Menary, R. (2010a). Cognitive integration and the extended mind. In R. Menary (Ed.), The extended mind
(pp. 227–243). Cambridge: The MIT Press.
Menary, R. (2010b). Dimensions of Mind. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 9(4), 561–578.
Menary, R. (2010c). Cognitive integration and the extended mind. In R. Menary (Ed.), The Extended Mind
(p. xx). Cambridge: The MIT Press.
Menary, R. (2010d). The holy grail of cognitivism: A response to Adams and Aizawa. Phenomenology
and the Cognitive Sciences, 9, 605–618.
Näätänen, R., Lehtokoski, A., Lennes, M., Cheour, M., Huotilainen, M., Livonen, A., et al. (1997).
Language-specific phoneme representations revealed by electric and magnetic brain responses.
Nature, 385(30), 432–434.
Nieder, A., & Dehaene, S. (2009). Representation of number in the brain. Annual Review of Neuroscience,
32, 185–208.
Pinker, S. (1994). The Language Instinct. New York: Morrow.
Protevi, J. (2009). Political Affect: Connecting the Social and the Somatic. Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press.
Quartz, S. R., & Sejnowski, T. J. (1997). The neural basis of cognitive development: A constructivist
manifesto. The Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 20, 537–596.
Roepstorff, A., Niewohner, J., & Beck, S. (2010). Enculturating brains through patterned practices. Neural
Networks, 23, 1051–1059.
308 M.D. Kirchhoff

Rowlands, M. (2010). The New Science of Mind. Cambridge: The MIT Press.
Sterelny, K. (2010). Minds: Extended or scaffolded? Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 9, 465–
481.
Stewart, J., Gapenne, O., & Di Paolo, E. A. (2011). Enaction: Toward a New Paradigm for Cognitive
Science. Cambridge: The MIT Press.
Sutton, J. (2006). Distributed cognition: Domains and dimensions. Pragmatics and Cognition, 14(2), 235–
247.
Sutton, J. (2010). Exograms and interdisciplinarity: History, the extended mind, and the civilizing process.
In R. Menary (Ed.), the extended mind (pp. 189–225). Cambridge: The MIT Press.
Sutton, J., Harris, C. B., Keil, P. G., & Barnier, A. J. (2010). The psychology of memory, extended
cognition, and socially distributed remembering. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 9(4),
521–560.
Theiner, G., Allen, C., & Goldstone, R. L. (2010). Recognizing group cognition. Cognitive Systems
Research, 11, 378–395.
Tribble, E. B. (2005). Distributed Cognition in the Globe. Shakespeare Quarterly, 56(2), 135–155.
Walter, S. (2010). Cognitive extension: The parity argument, functionalism, and the mark of the cognitive.
Synthese, 177, 285–300.
Werker, J. F., & Lalonde, C. E. (1988). Cross-language speech perception: Initial capabilities and
developmental change. Developmental Psychology, 24(5), 672–683.
Wheeler, M. (2004). Is language the ultimate artefacts? Language Sciences, 26, 693–715.
Wheeler, M. (2010). In defense of extended functionalism. In R. Menary (Ed.), The Extended Mind (pp.
245–270). Cambridge: The MIT Press.
Wheeler, M. (2011). In search of parity. Philosophical Studies, 152, 417–425.

View publication stats