{"title":"The Locus of Agency in Extended Cognitive Systems","authors":"Barbara Tomczyk","doi":"10.1007/s10838-023-09666-1","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>The increasing popularity of artificial cognitive enhancements raises the issue of their impact on the agent’s personal autonomy, and issues pertaining to how the latter is to be secured. The <i>extended mind</i> thesis implies that mental states responsible for autonomous action can be partly constituted by the workings of cognitive artifacts themselves, and the question then arises of whether this commits one to embracing an <i>extended agent</i> thesis. My answer is negative. After briefly presenting the main accounts on the conditions for autonomous agency, and analyzing how the latter can be protected from threats posed by the use of cognitive artifacts, I argue that autonomous agency is essentially tied to conscious experience and intentionality, which in turn can only be attributed to the human part of any extended cognitive system. I present both theoretical (conceptual) and practical arguments against recognizing the entire extended system, composed of one human and an artifact, as an autonomous agent.</p>","PeriodicalId":44953,"journal":{"name":"Journal for General Philosophy of Science","volume":"77 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2000,"publicationDate":"2023-12-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal for General Philosophy of Science","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10838-023-09666-1","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"HISTORY & PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
The increasing popularity of artificial cognitive enhancements raises the issue of their impact on the agent’s personal autonomy, and issues pertaining to how the latter is to be secured. The extended mind thesis implies that mental states responsible for autonomous action can be partly constituted by the workings of cognitive artifacts themselves, and the question then arises of whether this commits one to embracing an extended agent thesis. My answer is negative. After briefly presenting the main accounts on the conditions for autonomous agency, and analyzing how the latter can be protected from threats posed by the use of cognitive artifacts, I argue that autonomous agency is essentially tied to conscious experience and intentionality, which in turn can only be attributed to the human part of any extended cognitive system. I present both theoretical (conceptual) and practical arguments against recognizing the entire extended system, composed of one human and an artifact, as an autonomous agent.
期刊介绍：
The Journal for General Philosophy of Science is a forum for the discussion of a variety of attitudes concerning the philosophy of science. It has as its subject matter the philosophical, especially methodological, ontological, epistemological, anthropological, and ethical foundations of the individual sciences. Particular emphasis is laid on bringing both the natural, the cultural, and the technical sciences into a philosophical context, within which the historical presuppositions and conditions of the current problems of the philosophy of science are also included in the discussion. The Journal for General Philosophy of Science has been successful in its attempt to serve as a forum that bridges the gap between the different sciences, especially the natural, cultural, and social sciences. One of its purposes is to discuss and contrast the common as well as the different specific methodological and philosophical foundations of the individual sciences, taking into account all currently relevant positions of the philosophy of science. In recent years considerable insight has been gained into the problems of current philosophy of science by considering the historical dimension of the sciences. This is why more intensive efforts will be made in the future towards the integration of historical and systematic considerations. The journal contains:articles discussions reports on the state of the philosophy of science in individual countries reviews a bibliography of the major journals in the field of the history and philosophy of science. The journal is of interest to philosophers, especially philosophers of science, as well as to scholars from the field of the natural, cultural, social and technical sciences who are interested in becoming aware of the philosophical implications of their disciplines and in being stimulated by the transfer of methods, leading ideas, concepts and theories from other fields.
As of 2015, Journal for General Philosophy of Science will accept submissions online via the Editorial Manager system. Authors are encouraged to use this format in submitting to the journal to ensure that your article is processed in a timely fashion.
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