The Extended Mind Thesis: A Critical Perspective

Mansour Fahim, Kamran Mehrgan


It has been claimed that human beings' cognitive processes do not transpire all in the head. This view refers to the human organism as is linked with an external entity in a two-way interaction and creates a coupled system which can be seen as a cognitive system in its own right. It is also stated that the components in the system possess an active causal role, monitoring and controlling behavior in the same manner that cognition usually does. Such an argument has led to a strong debate among philosophers. Some support it but others reject it. It is also claimed that removing the external component will lead to the fact that the system's behavioral competence will drop, just as it would if some part of its brain is removed. Human being's brain may have been structured in such a way that enables the mind to be in sporadic interactions beyond the body. It could be stated that since the biological structure of the human brain sometimes encounters cognitive failures such as the disability to retain and retrieve information, the mind which is supported by the brain requires being in conscious interactions with the parts outside the human body. The article reviews the notion of the extended mind thesis and presents the criticism which has been leveled against it.


The Brain; the Mind; the Extended Mind, the Extended Cognition; Language; Learning.

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