Greif Hajo
MCTS, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany.
Department of Philosophy, Alpen-Adria-Universität, Klagenfurt, Austria.
Synthese. 2017;194(11):4311-4336. doi: 10.1007/s11229-015-0799-9. Epub 2015 Jun 29.
Two aspects of cognitive coupling, as brought forward in the Extended Mind Hypothesis, are discussed in this paper: (1) how shall the functional coupling between the organism and some entity in his environment be spelled out in detail? (2) What are the paradigmatic external entities to enter into that coupling? These two related questions are best answered in the light of an aetiological variety of functionalist argument that adds historical depth to the "active externalism" promoted by Clark and Chalmers and helps to counter some of the core criticisms levelled against this view. Under additional reference to conceptual parallels between the Extended Mind Hypothesis and a set of heterodox theories in biology-environmental constructivism, niche construction, developmental systems theory-an argument for the grounding of environmentally extended cognitive traits in evolved biological functions is developed. In a spirit that seeks to integrate extended functionalism with views from cognitive integration and complementarity, it is argued (ad 1) that instances of environmental coupling should be understood as being constitutive to cognitive functions in either of two distinct ways. It is further argued (ad 2) that the historically and systematically prior environmental counterparts in that coupling are features of the natural environment. Language and linguistically imbued artefacts are likely to have descended from more basic relations that have an extension over the environment.
（1）有机体与其环境中的某个实体之间的功能耦合应如何详细阐述？（2）参与这种耦合的典型外部实体是什么？这两个相关问题最好根据一种病因学上的功能主义论点来回答，该论点为克拉克和查默斯所倡导的“积极外在主义”增添了历史深度，并有助于反驳针对这一观点提出的一些核心批评。在额外参考扩展心智假说与生物 - 环境建构主义、生态位构建、发育系统理论中的一组非正统理论之间的概念相似性的基础上，提出了一种关于环境扩展认知特征基于进化生物学功能的论证。本着将扩展功能主义与认知整合和互补性观点相结合的精神，有人认为（针对问题1）环境耦合的实例应以两种不同方式中的任何一种被理解为对认知功能具有构成性。进一步有人认为（针对问题2）在这种耦合中历史上和系统上先于环境的对应物是自然环境的特征。语言和充满语言元素的人工制品可能源自对环境具有延伸性的更基本关系。
