Avant, Vol. XIII, No. 1, https://doi.org/10.26913/ava202203
published under license CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
Robert W. Clowes 
Lisbon Mind and Reasoning Group (ArgLab), Instituto de Filosofia da Nova,
Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas, Universidade Nova de Lisboa
robert.clowes@gmail.com
Gloria Andrada
University of California, Los Angeles
Lisbon Mind and Reasoning Group (ArgLab), Instituto de Filosofia da Nova,
Universidade Nova de Lisboa
gloriandrada@gmail.com
Received 30 January 2021; accepted 11 March 2022; published 15 May 2022.
Download full text
Abstract: Is the mind flat? Chater (2018) has recently argued that it is and that, contrary to traditional psychology and standard folk image, depth of mind is just an illusory confabulation. In this paper, we argue that while there is a kernel of something correct in Chater’s thesis, this does not in itself add up to a critique of mental depth per se. We use Chater’s ideas as a springboard for creating a new understanding of mental depth which builds upon findings in contemporary cognitive science. First, we rely on the predictive processing framework in order to determine a proposed neural contribution to mental depth, specifically in hierarchical predictive knowledge. Second, drawing from an embodied approach to cognition, we argue that mental depth results from the depth of our embodied skills and the situations in which we are embedded. This allows us to introduce to a new realist notion of mental depth, one which can only be explained once we attend to the dense patterns of skillful interaction within a rich artefactual and social environment.
Keywords: Mental Depth; Skills; Skill Refinement; Illusionism; Predictive Processing; Embodied Cognition
Bibliography
| Andrada, G. (2020). Transparency and the phenomenology of extended cognition. LÍMITE Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy & Psychology, 15(20), 1-17. | ||||
| Barrett, L. F., & Bar, M. (2009). See it with feeling: Affective predictions during object perception. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society ,B, 364(1521), 1325-1334. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2008.0312 |
||||
| Blackmore, S. (2002). There is No Stream of Consciousness. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 9(5-6), 17-28. | ||||
| Bredlau, S. M. (2010) A Respectful World: Merleau-Ponty and the Experience of Depth, Human Studies, 33, 411-423. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10746-011-9173-1 |
||||
| Chater, N. (2018). The Mind Is Flat: The Remarkable Shallowness of the Improvising Brain: Yale University Press. https://doi.org/10.12987/9780300240610 |
||||
| Clark, A. (1997). Being There: Putting Brain, Body, and World Together Again. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/1552.001.0001 |
||||
| Clark, A. (2008) Supersizing the Mind: Embodiment, Action, and Cognitive Extension, Oxford: Oxford University Press. | ||||
| Clark, A. (2015). What ‘Extended Me’ knows. Synthese, 192(11), 3757-3775. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-015-0719-z |
||||
| Clark, A. (2016). Surfing Uncertainty: Prediction, Action, and the Embodied Mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190217013.001.0001 |
||||
| Clowes, R.W. (2014). Thinking in the Cloud: The Cognitive Incorporation of Cloud-Based Technology. Philosophy and Technology, 28(2): 261-296. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-014-0153-z |
||||
| Clowes, R.W. (2019). Immaterial Engagement: Human Agency and the Cognitive Ecology of the Internet. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 18(1), 259-279. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-018-9560-4 |
||||
| Clowes, R. W., & Gärtner, K. (2020). The Pre-Reflective Situational Self. Topoi, 623-637. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11245-018-9598-5 |
||||
| Dennett, D. C. (1991). Consciousness explained. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. | ||||
| Dennett, D. C. (1992). The Self as a centre of Narrative Gravity. In F. Kessel, P. Cole & D. Johnson, (eds.), Self and Consciousness: Multiple Perspectives. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. | ||||
| Dennett, D. C. (2001). Surprise, surprise. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 24(5), 982. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X01320113 |
||||
| Dołęga, K. & Dewhurst, J. E. (2021). Fame in the predictive brain: a deflationary approach to explaining consciousness in the prediction error minimization framework. Synthese, 198(8), 7781-7806. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-020-02548-9 |
||||
| Donaldson, M. (1979). Children’s minds. W. W. Norton & Company. | ||||
| Donaldson, M. (1992). Human minds: An exploration. Allen Lane/Viking Penguin. | ||||
| Fabry, R. (2018). Betwixt and between: the enculturated predictive processing approach to cognition. Synthese, 195(6), 2483-2518. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-017-1334-y |
||||
| Fodor, J. (1975). The Language of Thought. Hassocks, UK: Harvester Press. | ||||
| Frankish, K. (2016). Illusionism as a theory of consciousness. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 23(11-12), 11-39. | ||||
| Gallagher, S. (2001). The Practice of Mind. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 8(5-7), 83-108. | ||||
| Gallagher, S. (2005). How the Body Shapes the Mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/0199271941.001.0001 |
||||
| Gallagher, S. & Allen, M. (2018). Active inference, enactivism and the hermeneutics of social cognition. Synthese 195(6), 2627-2648. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-016-1269-8 |
||||
| Gazzaniga, M. S. & LeDoux, J. (1978). The Integrated Mind. New York: Plenum. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-2206-9 |
||||
| Hohwy, J. (2013). The Predictive Mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199682737.001.0001 |
||||
| Hohwy, J. & Seth, A. (2020). Predictive processing as a systematic basis for identifying the neural correlates of consciousness. Philosophy and the Mind Sciences, 1(II). https://doi.org/10.33735/phimisci.2020.II.64 |
||||
| Hurley, S. (1998). Consciousness in Action. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press. | ||||
| Hutchins, E. (1995) Cognition in the Wild. MIT Press. https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/1881.001.0001 |
||||
| Hutchins, E. (2011). Enculturating the Supersized Mind. Philosophical Studies, 152(3), 437-446. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-010-9599-8 |
||||
| Krueger, J. (2013). Affordances and the musically extended mind. Frontiers in Psychology, 4, 1-12. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.01003 |
||||
| Mantel, H. (2011). Wolf hall. Fourth Estate (UK). | ||||
| McGeer, V. (2001). Psycho-practice, psycho-theory and the contrastive case of autism. How practices of mind become second-nature. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 5-7, 109-132. | ||||
| Menary, R. (2007). Cognitive integration: mind and cognition unbounded. Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230592889 |
||||
| Menary, R. (2010). Dimensions of Mind, Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 9(4), 561-578. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-010-9186-7 |
||||
| Menary, R. (2018). Cognitive Integration How Culture Transforms Us and Extends Our Cognitive Capabilities. In A. Newen, L. De Bruin, & S. Gallagher (eds.), The Oxford handbook of 4E cognition (pp. 187-215), Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198735410.013.10 |
||||
| Newen, A., De Bruin, L., & Gallagher, S. (eds.). (2018). The Oxford handbook of 4E cognition: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198735410.001.0001 |
||||
| Noë, A. (2002). Is the visual world a grand illusion? Journal of Consciousness Studies, 9(5-6), 1-12. | ||||
| Noë, A. (2004). Action in perception. Cambridge, MA: Bradford Books, MIT Press. | ||||
| O’Regan, J. K. (2002). The Grand Illusion and Sensorimotor Approaches to Consciousness. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 9(5-6). | ||||
| O’Regan, J. K. & Noë, A. (2001). A sensorimotor account of vision and visual consciousness. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 24, 939-973. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X01000115 |
||||
| Power, Michael J. & Brewin, C. R. (1991). From Freud to cognitive science: A contemporary account of the unconscious. British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 30, 289-310. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-8260.1991.tb00951.x |
||||
| Reed, E. (1993). The intention to use a specific affordance: a conceptual framework for psychology. In R. H. Wozniak & K. W. Fischer (eds.), Development in Context: Activity and Thinking in Specific Environments. Taylor and Francis Group. | ||||
| Rowlands, M. (1999). The Body in Mind: Understanding Cognitive Processes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511583261 |
||||
| Rowlands, M. (2009). Extended Cognition and the Mark of the Cognitive. Philosophical Psychology, 22(1), 1-19. https://doi.org/10.1080/09515080802703620 |
||||
| Simons, D. J., & Levin, D. T. (1997). Change blindness. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 1(7), 261-267. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1364-6613(97)01080-2 |
||||
| Schlicht, T. & Dolega, K. (2021). You can’t always get what you want: Predictive processing and consciousness. Philosophy and the Mind Sciences, 2. https://doi.org/10.33735/phimisci.2021.80 |
||||
| Simons, D. J. & Rensink, R. A. (2005). Change blindness: Past, present, and future. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 9(1), 16-20. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2004.11.006 |
||||
| 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. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-010-9182-y |
||||
| Suzuki, S. (1991). Suzuki cello scholl, cello part 3 (Vol. 3). Alfred Music Publishing. | ||||
| Wester, D. (1996). The Scientific Status of Unconscious Processes: Is Freud Really Dead? Journal of Ametican Psychoanalytic Association, 47(4), 1061-1106. https://doi.org/10.1177/000306519904700404 |
||||
| Zawidzki, T. W. (2008). The function of folk psychology: mind reading or mind shaping? Philosophical Explorations, 11(3), 193-210. https://doi.org/10.1080/13869790802239235 |
||||