Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T08:26:41.241Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Distributing mind, cognition and language: exploring the (un)common ground with integrational linguistics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 January 2015

JON ORMAN
JON ORMAN*
Affiliation:
School of Languages and Area Studies, University of Portsmouth, UK
*
†Address for correspondence: e-mail: orman.jon@gmail.com, jon.orman@port.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

While acknowledging that they have many points of theoretical agreement, the discussion deliberately focuses on areas of incompatibility between integrational and ‘distributed’ approaches to mind, cognition, and language in the light of Roy Harris’ claim that the notion of a ‘distributed mind’ comprises a category mistake. Harris’ position is based on his affirmation of a ‘vulgar concept of mind’ which contrasts sharply with certain accounts of mind originating from within cognitive science. The tension between lay and scientific understandings of mind and language forms a key point of discord between the two approaches. I discuss Harris’ argument that the category mistake inherent in the notion of ‘distributed mind’ can be dissolved by replacing it with the notion of an ‘integrated’ or ‘integrating’ mind. I then consider the derived notion of ‘distributed language’ and its theoretical and explanatory value from an integrational perspective. Finally, I conclude by arguing that although they share many important insights, the differences of perspective which exist between the integrational and distributed approaches are such as likely to prevent the emergence of anything resembling a unified movement.

Keywords

integrational linguisticsintegrationismdistributed cognitiondistributed languagedistributed mindextended mindRoy Harris
Type
Research Article
Information
Language and Cognition , Volume 8 , Issue 1 , March 2016 , pp. 142 - 166
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © UK Cognitive Linguistics Association 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

references

Adams, F., & Aizawa, K. (2010). Defending the bounds of cognition. In Menary, Richard (Ed.), The extended mind (pp. 67–80). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bennett, M., & Hacker, P. (2003). Philosophical foundations of neuroscience. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Blackburn, S. (1994). The Oxford dictionary of philosophy. Oxford; Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Button, G. (2008). Against ‘distributed cognition’. Theory, Culture & Society, 25(2), 87–104.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chalmers, D. (2008). Foreword. In Clark, A., Supersizing the mind: embodiment, action and cognitive extension (pp. ix–xvi). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Clark, A., & Chalmers, D. (1998). The extended mind. Analysis, 58(1), 7–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cowley, S. J. (2004). Contextualizing bodies: human infants and distributed cognition. Language Sciences, 26, 565–591.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cowley, S. J. (2009). Introduction: distributed language and dynamics. Pragmatics & Cognition, 17(3), 495–507.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cowley, S. J. (2014). Bio-ecology and language: a necessary unity. Language Sciences, 41(Part A), 60–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cowley, S. J., & Spurrett, D. (2003) ‘Putting apes (body and language) together again’, a review article of S. Savage-Rumbaugh, T. J. Taylor, & S. G. Shanker, Apes, language, and the human mind (Oxford: 1999) and A. Clark Being there: putting brain, body, and world together again (MIT: 1997). Language Sciences, 25(3), 289–318.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cowley, S. J., & Vallee-Tourangeau, F. (Eds.) (2013). Cognition beyond the brain: computation, interactivity and human artifice. Springer-Verlag: Berlin.Google Scholar
Gallagher, S. (2005). How the body shapes the mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hampshire, S. (1971). Critical review of ‘The Concept of Mind’. In Wood, O. P & Pitcher, G (Eds.), Ryle (pp. 17–44). London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Harris, R. (1980). The language-makers. London: Duckworth.Google Scholar
Harris, R. (1981). The language myth. London: Duckworth.Google Scholar
Harris, R. (1990). The scientist as homo loquens. In Bhaskar, R. (Ed.), Harré and his critics: essays in honour of Rom Harré, with his commentary on them (pp. 65–86). Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Harris, R. (1996a). The language connection: philosophy and linguistics. Bristol: Thoemmes.Google Scholar
Harris, R. (1996b). Signs, language and communication. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Harris, R. (2004). Integrationism, language, mind and world. Language Sciences, 26, 727–739.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harris, R. (2005). The semantics of science. London: Continuum.Google Scholar
Harris, R. (2008). Mindboggling: preliminaries to a science of the mind. Luton: Pantaneto Press.Google Scholar
Harris, R. (2013). Language and intelligence. Gamlingay: Bright Pen.Google Scholar
Hutchins, E. (1995a). Cognition in the wild. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Hutchins, E. (1995b). How a cockpit remembers its speeds. Cognitive Science, 19(3), 265–288.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hutchins, E. (2000). Distributed cognition, online: <http://files.meetup.com/410989/DistributedCognition.pdf> (last accessed July 2014).+(last+accessed+July+2014).>Google Scholar
Jones, P. E. (2010). You want a piece of me? Paying your dues and getting your due in a distributed world. AI & Society, 25(4), 455–464.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Linell, P. (2009). Rethinking language, mind and world dialogically. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.Google Scholar
Linell, P. (2013). Distributed language theory, with or without dialogue. Language Sciences, 40, 168–173.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Love, N. (2004). Cognition and the language myth. Language Sciences, 26, 525–544.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Menary, R. (2007). Cognitive integration: mind and cognition unbounded. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Menary, R. (Ed.) (2010a). The extended mind. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Menary, R. (2010b). Cognitive integration and extended mind. In Menary (2010a, pp. 227–244).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Melser, D. (2004). The act of thinking. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nardi, B. A. (2002). Coda and response to Christine Halverson. Computer Supported Cooperative Work, 11, 269–275.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rączaszek-Leonardi, J. (2009). Symbols as constraints: the structuring role of dynamics and self-organization in natural language. Pragmatics and Cognition, 17(3), 653–676.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ross, D. (2007). Introduction: science catches the will. In Ross, Don, Spurrett, David, Kincaid, Harold, & Lynn Stephens, G. (Eds.), Distributed cognition and the will: individual volition and social context (pp. 1–16). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ryle, G. (1949). The concept of mind. London: Hutchinson.Google Scholar
Sinha, C., & Jensen De López, K. (2000). Language, culture and the embodiment of spatial cognition. Cognitive Linguistics, 1/2, 17–41.Google Scholar
Spurrett, D. (2004). Distributed cognition and integrational linguistics. Language Sciences, 26, 497–501.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Steffensen, S. V. (2009). Language, languaging and the Extended Mind Hypothesis. Pragmatics & Cognition, 17(3), 677–697.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Steffensen, S. V. (2011). Beyond mind: an extended ecology of languaging. In Cowley, S. J. (Ed.), Distributed language (pp. 185–210). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sutton, J. (2004). Representation, levels, and contexts in integrational linguistics and distributed cognition. Language Sciences, 26, 503–524.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thibault, P. J. (2011). First-order languaging dynamics and second-order language: the distributed language view. Ecological Psychology, 23(1), 1–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Uryu, M, Steffensen, S. V., & Kramsch, C. (2014). The ecology of intercultural interaction: timescales, temporal ranges and identity dynamics. Language Sciences, 41(A), 41–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wheeler, M. (2004). Is language the ultimate artefact? Language Sciences, 26(6), 693–715.CrossRefGoogle Scholar