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Epistemic Complementarity: Steps to a Second Wave Extended Epistemology

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The Mind-Technology Problem

Part of the book series: Studies in Brain and Mind ((SIBM,volume 18))

Abstract

In this paper, I propose a new framework for extended epistemology, based on a second-wave approach to extended cognition. The framework is inclusive, in that it takes into account the complex interplay between the diverse embodiments of extended knowers and the salient properties of technological artifacts, as well as the environment in which they are embedded. Thus it both emphasizes and exploits the complementary roles played by these different elements. Finally, I motivate and explain this framework by applying it to a case of interaction with contemporary technologies.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Clark and Chalmers 1998, Clark 2008.

  2. 2.

    For discussion, see Menary 2010.

  3. 3.

    See especially the essays in Carter et al. 2018b.

  4. 4.

    Clark and Chalmers 1998, Clark 2008.

  5. 5.

    For defences of this argument, see Clark and Chalmers 1998, and Clark 2008, and for recent rejections of this argument see Sprevak 2009, and Wadham 2015.

  6. 6.

    Menary 2006, 2007, 2010; Rowlands 2010, Sutton 2010, Sutton et al. 2010, Heersmink 2014, Kiverstein and Farina 2011.

  7. 7.

    The properties of exograms are not fixed and might in fact change, depending on their format and implementation.

  8. 8.

    See Heersmink 2014 for a thorough taxonomy of the dimensions of integration, and Sterelny 2010 for an account of scaffolded cognition.

  9. 9.

    Rowlands 2009, Menary 2007, 2010, 2018a, b.

  10. 10.

    Elaborating on the social and cultural dimensions of cognition has led to what can be identified as third-wave extended cognition (sketched in Sutton 2010, and developed in Kirchhoff 2012, Kirchhoff and Kiverstein 2019, Gallagher 2013, and Cash 2013). The active role of the socio-cultural environment is also captured in the epistemic complementarity approach I present in this paper, giving rise, perhaps, to a third-wave extended epistemology. I plan to return to this in future work.

  11. 11.

    See Carter, Palermos, Kallestrup and Pritchard 2014, and Carter 2017. Notice that the conditions for evaluation will depend on our epistemological commitments, hence giving rise to different kinds of epistemic parity principles. See e.g. Carter 2017, pp. 9–12.

  12. 12.

    Let me clarify that I do not want to suggest that an agent’s epistemic life can be reduced to their epistemic hygiene; rather this notion serves the purpose of illustrating the different ways of thinking about extended epistemology.

  13. 13.

    For more on this see Palermos 2014.

  14. 14.

    The debate concerning epistemic hygiene is orthogonal to the more traditional debate concerning internalism vs. externalism about epistemic justification. However, it is true that active epistemic hygiene involves increasingly strict conditions, and these in turn might point to more internalistic aspects of epistemic justification.

  15. 15.

    Cf. Smart 2018a.

  16. 16.

    This reasoning is dramatized by the Epistemic Hygiene Dilemma in Carter et al. 2018a: 334, and Clark 2015: 3763. See also Andrada (2019) for a new solution to this dilemma.

  17. 17.

    See Clark 2015, pp. 3768–3771.

  18. 18.

    Sutton 2006, 2010, Menary 2010, Heersmink 2014.

  19. 19.

    See Andrada 2020 on the importance of attending to diverse embodiments when giving an account of the phenomenology of extended cognition.

  20. 20.

    See for instance Clark 2015.

  21. 21.

    Thanks to an anonymous reviewer for helping me to clarify this point.

  22. 22.

    Both John Sutton and Richard Heersmink are leading advocates of a complementarity-based approach to extended cognition. Inspired by their work, I have developed the epistemic complementarity principle whereby all the elements that constitute a cognitive system have a bearing on the epistemic standing of an individual’s cognitive process.

  23. 23.

    See for instance Haraway 1988, Haslanger 2007, 2020.

  24. 24.

    To the best of my knowledge, exceptions include Menary 2012, 2018b, and Kotzee 2018.

  25. 25.

    Care is needed here insofar as, given the long time spans of enculturation, the reliability of a given practice might take transgenerational intervals to be understood or even recognized. For more on this, see Levy and Alfano 2020.

  26. 26.

    For a thorough taxonomy of the varieties of epistemic dependence, see Broncano-Berrocal and Vega-Encabo 2020.

  27. 27.

    Goldberg 2017a identifies the effect of this sort of epistemic dependence by the status of epistemic justification. In this respect, the account on offer is one in which our epistemic dependence on designers and manufactures entails that their behavior with respect to the design of an instrument, or even an environment, can undermine or defeat the belief we form in virtue of using such an instrument. Here I am adopting a more general perspective, by focusing on the type of engagement required for achieving a minimal form of epistemic hygiene.

  28. 28.

    Remember that this is a schematic characterization, and that in real life we might deploy both strategies. See Andrada 2019 and Andrada 2020 for more on the role of conscious epistemic care and extended cognition.

  29. 29.

    World Health Organization: Towards a dementia plan: a WHO guide http://www.who.int/mentalhealth/neurology/dementia/en/. Last accessed: August 31, 2018.

  30. 30.

    I want to remark that many of our cognitive abilities are enculturated, although they might not be extended in the sense that concerns me here; that is, their material realizers might not be partly constituted by something external to the organism. This might be the case, as I have previously stated, for basic abilities and tasks, but not in many human cognitive activities. This should lead us to revisit the idea that reliability in intracranial cognition is entirely sub-personally achieved.

  31. 31.

    We can imagine an app that warns Otto (for instance through a vibration) of a failure in performance, or alerts his caregivers. Currently there are many apps that support complex ways of self-tracking and monitoring, many of which are deployed by people with dementia and their caregivers. See Lindqvist et al. 2015.

  32. 32.

    The extent to which such epistemic monitoring might be completely outsourced to technologies is an empirical question, which raises complex ethical and sociological challenges. Notice also that this sort of extended monitoring might be used for cognitive and epistemic enhancement (see Clowes 2014).

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Acknowledgement

For comments and discussion, I would like to thank Jesús Vega, Fernando Broncano, Richard Menary, Manuel de Pinedo, Robert W. Clowes, three anonymous reviewers, and audiences at Universidad Carlos III and Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. This work was funded by research grant ‘Intellectual autonomy in environments of epistemic dependence’ (FFI2017- 87395-P, MINECO/FEDER, EU), and by Portuguese national funds through FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia under the project UIDB/FIL/00183/2021.

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  1. Instituto de Filosofia da Nova, Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal

    Gloria Andrada

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  1. Gloria Andrada
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Correspondence to Gloria Andrada .

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  1. Instituto de Filosofia da Nova (IFILNOVA) Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal

    Robert W. Clowes

  2. Departamento de História e Filosofia das Ciências & Centro de Filosofia das Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa (CFCUL), Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal

    Klaus Gärtner

  3. Department of Philosophy & Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Berlin, Germany

    Inês Hipólito

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Andrada, G. (2021). Epistemic Complementarity: Steps to a Second Wave Extended Epistemology. In: Clowes, R.W., Gärtner, K., Hipólito, I. (eds) The Mind-Technology Problem . Studies in Brain and Mind, vol 18. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72644-7_12

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