延展认知与延展心灵论辨析

Thesis on Extended Cognition and Extended Mind

安迪.克拉克和戴维.查尔默斯(A.Clark&D.Chalmers)通过引入"延展心灵"概念提出了一种对于认知和心灵本质的新说明,认为外部物理的和社会的环境也是人类认知主体和心灵的构成要素,并以"认知不局限在头脑中"和"心灵可延展到世界"两个论题,主张最终取消心灵与世界的根本界限。在此基础上克拉克等人又将这一主张进一步拓展为一种新的"延展认知研究纲领",试图实现认知科学中的涉身认知和嵌入式认知的"新综合"。文章结合西方学界对这一理论的相关争论,对克拉克和查尔默斯的"延展论题"的论证进行分析,给出质疑"延展心灵论题"的理由,同时指出,试图以延展心灵作为认知科学"新综合"的出发点是有一定的理论缺陷的。

Clark and Chalmers have proposed a new explanation for the characteristics of cognition and mind by introducing the concept of 'the extended mind'. They believe that the external physical and the social environment constitute the subjects of human cognition and mind. Drawing on the essence of the thesis that 'cognition does not exist only in the mind' and 'the mind is extended into the outside world,' the two philosophers propose to blur the lines between the mind and the world. Clark and others have further turned this proposition into a research area under the title of 'extended cognition' in an attempt to achieve the integration of embodied and embedded cognition. This paper draws on the debates on this subject in Western academia to conduct an in-depth analysis of Clark and Chalmers' 'extended thesis.' The author further provides a list of reasons for challenging the thesis of 'the extended mind'. At the end of this paper,the author points out that there are some limitations if the thesis of 'extended mind' is taken as the starting point of an integrated cognitive science.