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Extended mathematical cognition: External representations with non-derived content

Vold, Karina and Schlimm, Dirk (2019) Extended mathematical cognition: External representations with non-derived content. [Preprint]

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Abstract

Vehicle externalism maintains that the vehicles of our mental representations can be located outside of the head, that is, they need not be instantiated by neurons located inside the brain of the cogniser. But some disagree, insisting that ‘non-derived’, or ‘original’, content is the mark of the cognitive and that only biologically instantiated representational vehicles can have non-derived content, while the contents of all extra-neural representational vehicles are derived and thus lie outside the scope of the cognitive. In this paper we develop one aspect of Menary’s vehicle externalist theory of cognitive integration—the process of enculturation—to respond to this longstanding objection. We offer examples of how expert mathematicians introduce new symbols to represent new mathematical possibilities that are not yet understood, and we argue that these new symbols have genuine non-derived content, that is, content that is not dependent on an act of interpretation by a cognitive agent and that does not derive from conventional associations, as many linguistic representations do.


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Item Type: Preprint
Creators:
CreatorsEmailORCID
Vold, Karinakvv22@cam.ac.uk0000-0002-0768-7517
Schlimm, Dirkdirk.schlimm@mcgill.ca
Keywords: mental content; representational vehicles; vehicle externalism; cognitive integration; enculturation; mathematical cognition
Subjects: Specific Sciences > Cognitive Science
Specific Sciences > Mathematics
Depositing User: Dr. Karina Vold
Date Deposited: 17 Jan 2019 14:13
Last Modified: 17 Jan 2019 14:13
Item ID: 15594
Subjects: Specific Sciences > Cognitive Science
Specific Sciences > Mathematics
Date: 16 January 2019
URI: https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/15594

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