Title: Distributed Cognition, Self-knowledge, and Self-improvement

Presenter: Dr. Robert Rupert, Chair and Professor, Department of Philosophy, University of Colorado Boulder

Abstract: Distributed perspectives on cognition relieve the pressure to identify a single location or processing stream where genuine cognition takes place or where the mind or self resides. At the same time distributed perspectives on cognition create puzzles about self-knowledge, partly by undermining a certain simplistic picture of it. If the mind were local, taking the form of, say, a single stream of conscious states, a straightforward account of self-knowledge might appear ready to hand: a state of self-knowledge obtains when a conscious state accurately represents (possibly self-referentially) an event in the stream of consciousness of which the representing state is a part. But, if mind and cognition are distributed mongrels, we find ourselves in need of a different account of self-knowledge. In this talk, I first articulate a distributed account of the cognitive system. Then, I provide a framework for self-knowledge as it might appear in a distributed cognitive self. I particularly emphasize the role of self-knowledge in self-improvement. In the case of self-improvement, I contend that states of self-knowledge are states of the cognitive system (or its parts) that represent features of the cognitive system (or of its parts) and, by doing so, contribute to an increase in coherence within the cognitive system – an increase in a kind of coordination-enhancing alignment between different processes occurring, often simultaneously, in the cognitive system. Enhancing human abilities is often a matter of coordinating the activities of various cognitive subsystems, and effecting such coordination is typically facilitated by processes many component parts of which involve one subsystem’s representing properties or states of another subsystem(s) – that is, by the contribution of what is, on my account, self-knowledge.

Bio: Rob Rupert is Professor and Chair of the Dept. of Philosophy at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He earned his B.A. from the University of Washington, Seattle, and his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Chicago. He has held visiting positions at U. of Edinburgh, Australian National U., Ruhr U. Bochum, and NYU, among other institutions. He has published widely on topics in philosophy of mind, philosophy of cognitive science, philosophy of science, metaphysics, and epistemology. His publications include two books, Cognitive Systems and the Extended Mind (Oxford University Press) and Ten Lectures on Cognition, Mental Representation, and the Self (Distinguished Lectures in Cognitive Linguistics, Vol. 30, Brill). He is Co-Editor-in-Chief of the British Journal for the Philosophy of Science.

Title: Distributed Cognition, Self-knowledge, and Self-improvement

Presenter: Dr. Robert Rupert, Chair and Professor, Department of Philosophy, University of Colorado Boulder

Abstract: Distributed perspectives on cognition relieve the pressure to identify a single location or processing stream where genuine cognition takes place or where the mind or self resides. At the same time distributed perspectives on cognition create puzzles about self-knowledge, partly by undermining a certain simplistic picture of it. If the mind were local, taking the form of, say, a single stream of conscious states, a straightforward account of self-knowledge might appear ready to hand: a state of self-knowledge obtains when a conscious state accurately represents (possibly self-referentially) an event in the stream of consciousness of which the representing state is a part. But, if mind and cognition are distributed mongrels, we find ourselves in need of a different account of self-knowledge. In this talk, I first articulate a distributed account of the cognitive system. Then, I provide a framework for self-knowledge as it might appear in a distributed cognitive self. I particularly emphasize the role of self-knowledge in self-improvement. In the case of self-improvement, I contend that states of self-knowledge are states of the cognitive system (or its parts) that represent features of the cognitive system (or of its parts) and, by doing so, contribute to an increase in coherence within the cognitive system – an increase in a kind of coordination-enhancing alignment between different processes occurring, often simultaneously, in the cognitive system. Enhancing human abilities is often a matter of coordinating the activities of various cognitive subsystems, and effecting such coordination is typically facilitated by processes many component parts of which involve one subsystem’s representing properties or states of another subsystem(s) – that is, by the contribution of what is, on my account, self-knowledge.

Bio: Rob Rupert is Professor and Chair of the Dept. of Philosophy at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He earned his B.A. from the University of Washington, Seattle, and his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Chicago. He has held visiting positions at U. of Edinburgh, Australian National U., Ruhr U. Bochum, and NYU, among other institutions. He has published widely on topics in philosophy of mind, philosophy of cognitive science, philosophy of science, metaphysics, and epistemology. His publications include two books, Cognitive Systems and the Extended Mind (Oxford University Press) and Ten Lectures on Cognition, Mental Representation, and the Self (Distinguished Lectures in Cognitive Linguistics, Vol. 30, Brill). He is Co-Editor-in-Chief of the British Journal for the Philosophy of Science.