Peirce, Mead, and the theory of extended mind: a divergent convergence

In their pivotal article of 1998, “The Extended mind”, Clark and Chalmers sustained some important theses: 1) there is no line of demarcation between skin and skull and what is outside them, 2) cognitive processes ain’t(all) in the head, 3) there is an active role of the environment in driving cognitive processes, 4) even portable, external devices are part of our beliefs, that is, are to be considered as ‘mental’ states (see the very much cited case of Otto’s notebook). I will confine myself in my comment on this article and on some later adjustments of the theory. Trying to synthetize Clark and Chalmers’s issue, I would say that they enlighten some important philosophical questions: the question of the boundary between what is inside human cognition and what is outside, the question of the localization of thought, the question of the possible extension of mind. Yet, I will contend that, notwithstanding their innovative characters, these positions still suffer from a metaphysical prejudice. Clark and Chalmers – and most of the cognitive leader thinkers that follow them – reason from the standpoint of the privilege of mind, as spread as it could be understood, never questioning its priority and the occasion of its emergence; secondly, they reason thanks to an epistemic reference to localization and extension, that still remains in a Cartesian horizon. I will try to demonstrate that following the Pragmatists’ theses another scenario is possible, along some parallel trucks.