Abstract
This chapter questions the causal-constitution fallacy raised against the extended mind. It does so by presenting our signature temporal thesis about how to understand constitutive relations in the context of the extended mind, and with respect to dynamical systems, more broadly. We call this thesis diachronic constitution. We will argue that temporalising the constitution relation is not as remarkable (nor problematic) as it might initially seem. It is (arguably) inevitable, given local interactions between microscale and macroscale states of (coupled) dynamical systems. We focus primarily on the metaphysics of the extended mind in this paper. However, we also show how our account of diachronic constitution has important implications for the metaphysics of dependence relations more generally as well as an emerging literature on inter-level explanations in the mechanistic framework applied to the discussion over extended, enactive and embodied cognition.
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Notes
- 1.
Note that this attempt to dissolve the causal-constitution fallacy is relevant for providing positive arguments for the entire field of so-called 4E (extended, enactive, embodied and ecological) philosophy of cognitive science. All these frameworks emphasise the constitutive role of the body and environment, in addition to the brain, in the formation and constitution of cognitive processes and mental states. Hence, getting clear about how to understand metaphysical talk of constitution will help researchers in this area to articulate their positions in a way that does not fall prey to the usual kinds of metaphysical worries about 4E claims in philosophy of cognitive science.
- 2.
We note here that we cannot and do not aim to provide a full and detailed discussion of the recent surge of work on mechanistic constitution. We focus here on what is most important for the argument for diachronic constitution that we are developing. A full treatment of this literature will be a task for a different paper.
- 3.
It may be objected that emotions are non-cognitive states on many views of emotion (e.g. Prinz, 2004). Thus, to use emotion regulation as an example of extended cognition is incoherent even if it can be shown that emotions exhibit reciprocal causality. To fully respond to such a line of objection would require us to delve into the debate about how to carve off the cognitive from the non-cognitive. We will not attempt to answer this question in this paper. We do however contend that the distinction between emotion and cognition is now somewhat outdated. Cognitive neuroscience suggests a picture in which cognitive processes like attention and executive control are reciprocally influencing and influenced by emotional processes (Pessoa, 2013). These processes are tightly coupled in the brain. We would argue on the basis of this tight coupling that emotion is partially constituted by cognition and vice versa, in line with the treatment of constitution we are giving in this paper.
- 4.
It could be argued that emotion regulation is not a case of extended cognition as we have defined it above. Even if it is characterised by reciprocal causality and thus best understood in terms of diachronic constitution, the processes that are involved in emotion regulation are just neural and bodily. The contribution of the environment has not yet been established. This shortcoming in our argument is easily corrected by pointing to examples discussed in the literature on extended emotions that illustrate how artefacts can play a role in emotion regulation (see e.g. Colombetti & Roberts, 2014; Colombetti & Krueger, 2015). Consider for instance Colombetti and Roberts’s (2014) example of Renier, a person of melancholic temperament. Renier keeps a diary with him containing inspirational quotations that help him to feel less miserable and dejected. Colombetti and Roberts suppose that after a while Renier may through the use of the notebook even come to develop a positive temperament. Renier’s use of the notebook (just like in the famous case of Otto) we suggest counts as an example of reciprocal causality. The cycles of perception and action that couple Renier to his notebook stand in a relation of reciprocal causality. They do so in such a way as to regulate his mood. His use of the notebook to regulate his mood is thus an example of mood regulation in which the notebook gets to play a constitutive role.
- 5.
It should be noted this is a common assumption in the literature on the metaphysics of causation. Thus it is common to read examples like event x – the boy kicking the football caused event y – the glass in the window shattering (e.g. Salmon, 1998). We are arguing this feature of causation is absent in cases of reciprocal causality and thus cannot be used to distinguish causation from constitution.
- 6.
There are some interesting points of overlap between Leuridan and Lodewyckx (2020) and our arguments here for diachronic constitution (building on Kirchhoff (2015) and Kirchhoff & Kiverstein (2019a, b)). Of special interest is the push towards eliminating the standard view that causation and constitution are independent relations in virtue of causation being intralevel and constitution an interlevel relation of dependence. In this paper we do not discuss this overlap with Leuridan and Lodewyckx (2020). This will be an important task for another occasion.
- 7.
Rupert will likely object that his account of cognitive systems as integrated and persisting sets of mechanisms provides additional considerations for endorsing a synchronic understanding of constitution. Rupert puts his account of cognitive systems to work to argue that the boundary of an organism is fixed and non-negotiable. We have argued elsewhere that organismic boundaries are always fragile, negotiable and hard-won (see Author’s articles). Thus we would dispute Rupert’s characterisation of cognitive systems but here is not the place to get into this disagreement. Sprevak (2010) has argued that the scientific findings do not decide between embedded and extended theories. He has argued that inference to the best explanation arguments for the extended mind or against it fail. We agree with Sprevak that inference to the best explanation arguments fail. However, we disagree that the science cannot be used to decide between embedded and extended theories of the mind. We have argued that the dynamical cognitive science used in support of EM is best understood in terms of diachronic and not synchronic constitution. Attempts to interpret dynamical cognitive science in terms of a weaker embedded theory of mind rely upon a synchronic understanding of constitution that may apply to material objects but that is not apt to describe self-organising processes that exhibit reciprocal causality. Our thanks to an anonymous reviewer for discussion of this point.
- 8.
Applying this criterion for constitutive relevance to the discussion of 4E cognition is promising, for unlike other rivals for ‘marks of the mental’, the MM criterion has the virtue of avoiding begging the question in the discussion of how to demarcate the boundaries of the mind. Adams and Aizawa (2008) suggests that the mark of the mental has to be with non-derived content. Yet this has been argued to beg the question against EM (Clark, 2010; Menary, 2007). Furthermore, Rupert (2009) sought to overthrow arguments for EM by appealing to functional differences between the internal dynamics of neuronal functioning and external technologies. However, this has been argued to imply a form of biochauvinism (Chalmers, 2019; Sprevak, 2009).
- 9.
There is an ongoing discussion in the mechanistic literature on the possibility of applying the MM criterion to justify EM. Krickel (2019) suggests that it leads to what she calls ‘trivial extendedness’. Others such as Hewitson et al. (2018) seek to overcome this triviality problem for EM via the MM criterion by appealing to the notion of ‘causal specificity’. Others still argue that it is impossible to empirically vindicate EM by appeal to the MM criterion (Baumgartner & Wilutzky, 2017). We mention these issues here, only to set them aside. A proper discussion of these issues will be a task for a follow-up paper.
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Kiverstein, J., Kirchhoff, M. (2023). Dissolving the Causal-Constitution Fallacy: Diachronic Constitution and the Metaphysics of Extended Cognition. In: Casper, MO., Artese, G.F. (eds) Situated Cognition Research. Studies in Brain and Mind, vol 23. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-39744-8_10
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