The idea that something crucial to cognition lies outside the brain and even the skin is central to a number of significant recent developments in cognitive science and philosophy of mind. Loosely grouped under the label ‘situated cognition’, all variants of the view hold that the context of cognition is crucial. However, there is a big division over in what way. Indeed, there are a number of divisions over what way, but the one on which I will focus is this: Are contexts just causally linked to cognition or are they actually part of cognition, some contexts anyway?
However important researchers of the first persuasion take contexts to be, they do not mess around with the traditional boundary between mind and world. Researchers of the second persuasion do challenge that boundary. They hold that in some respects cognition actually extends beyond the brain and skin, that something outside the body is part of cognition. This claim can take at least three forms:
(i) There is a normative and therefore a social dimension to cognition (the normativity of mind hypothesis),
(ii) Semantic and representational content consists of a relationship between representational vehicles and something else (externalism),
(iii) The hypothesis of the extended mind.*
After a survey of situated cognition and some comments on the normativity view, we will zero in on externalism and the extended mind hypothesis (EM). The internet and wireless appliances such as the BlackBerry are an interesting test case, especially for EM. On that view, my BlackBerry turns out to be a part of me, part of the mind that I am. Once a credible view of the boundaries of the mind is laid out, we will see that there is little to support such a claim.
* Clark, A. and D. Chalmers, The extended mind. Analysis 58, 1998, pp. 7-19