The mind beyond the head: Two arguments in favour of embedded cognition

Abstract

In this paper I defend situated approaches of cognition, and the idea that mind, body and external world are inseparable. In the first section, I present some anti-Cartesian approaches of cognition and discuss the intuition they share that there is a constitutive interaction between mind, body and external environment. In the second section, I present the fallacy of the Cartesian theater of the mind and explain its theoretical premises. In the third section, I present a spatial argument against it, and argue that some case studies could give support to the idea of the mind stretching over the boundaries of the skull. In the fourth section, I present a temporal argument, and argue that even in this case the idea of an interaction between our cognitive life and the external world has at least a very strong intuitive palatability. 1 See e.g. Greeno (1989) for a presentation of this topic, or Suchman 1987 for a research in cognitive science-where cognition is taken to be continuous with processes in the environment. 2 See Rowlands (2010): 51.