Author Archives: Matthew J. Brown

About Matthew J. Brown

Professor of Philosophy, Boydston Chair of American Philosophy, and Director of the Center for Dewey Studies at Southern Illinois University.

Dewey’s Definition of “Cognition”?

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This week in CCC we’re reading the first part of Jean Lave’s Cognition in Practice (1988). Lave is one of the major figures in the area of so-called “Situated Cognition.” This sounds to my ear a little bit like the less conservative “Embedded Cognition” approaches which emphasize that environmental situatedness is important for understanding cognition, without thinking that features of the situation are constitutive of cognition. It is clear from the get-go that this is not in fact Lave’s view:

It will be argued here… that a more appropriate unit of analysis is the whole person in action, acting with the settings of that activity. This shifts the boundaries of activity well outside the skull and beyond the hypothetical economic actor, to persons engaged with the world…

It is within this framework that the idea of cognition as stretched across mind, body, activity and setting begins to make sense. (p. 17-18, emphasis added)

I am drawn back (no surprise) to John Dewey. John Dewey says, in the preface of his 1938 Logic, that throughout the work he refers to “inquiry” where he had previously referred to “thinking.” Perhaps we could adapt his definition of “inquiry” as a definition of “cognition” for situated cognition theory:

[Cognition] is the directed or controlled transformation of an indeterminate situation into a determinately unified one. (“The Pattern of Inquiry,” Logic, 1938, LW 12).

Could be a start.

Course Policies & Expectations

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Late Work / Make-up Exams

No late work or make-up exams will be allowed without consent of the professor prior to the due/exam date, except in situations where University policy requires it.

Class Attendance

While reading and writing are crucial parts of the course, the central philosophical activity is live discussion. While class will occasionally involve bits of lecture, this is merely an instrument to a more well-informed discussion. Attendance is thus considered mandatory.

Classroom expectations

You are expected to have read the assignments before class, and it would be to your benefit to also read them again after class. You are expected to bring all of the texts assigned for each day’s class, and have them available to refer to. You are expected to listen respectfully to the professor and your fellow students, and participate in class discussions and activities.

Further standard University policies can be found at http://go.utdallas.edu/syllabus-policies

These descriptions and timelines are subject to change at the discretion of the Professor.

Alternatives: Concepts, Theories, and Methods

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Conceptual Tools

These concepts will be resources that we return to repeatedly throughout the semester. Any improvements to these definitions that you can suggest are welcome.

  • Process vs. System
    • Processes are events that take place in time
    • Systems are persisting, organized, made of parts
  • Artifact
    • Material object created or modified by humans in order to be incorporated into meaningful actions.
    • Material AND conceptual
  • Mediation
    • A process by which some third entity alters the interaction between two other things.
  • Tool
    • Artifact that mediates between an agent and some object or environment towards some goal.
  • Sign
    • Artifact that mediates between person and environment or social interactions towards some interpretation or meaning.
  • Activity
    • Collective undertaking with a guiding object or motive.
    • Composed of goal-directed actions and routinized instrumental operations.
    • E.g., Healthcare
  • Activity System
    • Community organized by rules and norms, tools, and a division of labor engaged in an activity.
    • E.g., Physician working at a clinic.
  • Actant
    • Humans and non-human tools and objects.
    • Action as interaction, mediation
  • Toolforthoughts
    • Amalgam of tool and thought
    • According to Shaffer and Clinton, all tools involve thoughts and vice versa
  • C^3^ Process/System
    • Cognitive-Cultural-Communicative Process/System
    • Nascent notion of my own coinage
  • Ecological Validity
    • Related to external validity – generalizability across groups (populations)
    • Grounded in or reflecting real-world settings and real-life conditions.
    • Generalizability from research setting to natural setting.

Theoretical Approaches

These are the theoretical approaches to cognition-culture-communication (C^3^) that we will be discussing this semester.

The big four:

  1. Situated Cognition / Learning / Action
  2. (Socially) Distributed Cognition
  3. Cultural(-Historical) Psychology / Activity Theory / CHAT
  4. Actor-Network(-)Theory

Other related approaches

  • Sociocultural/Socio-historical Psychology/Theory / Mediated Action / Mediational Means (Vygotsky/Wertsch)
  • Enaction / Enactive Psychology
  • Embodied Mind / Embodied Cogniton
  • Extended Mind / Extended Cognition
  • Ecological Psychology
  • And MORE!

Methods

Cognitive Ethnography
~ Combines aspects of traditional psychological and anthropological method.
(Participatory) Action Research
~ Specifically aimed at improving and researching conditions simultaneously, organically.
~ Subjects of study are also co-researchers and agents of change.
Multi-Level Methods
~ Phylogenetic history, cultural history, ontogeny, and microgenesis.
~ Look at: Institutions, Activities, Individual Interactions
~ Methods: Evolutionary, Historical, Developmental, Ethnographic, and Experimental
Model Activity Systems
~ Design and implement an activity system that is sustainable
Actor-Network-Theory
~ Actor-Network-Theory claims to be a theoretical and methodological resource. We’ll try to understand this claim later on in the semester.

CCC Home | Week 1: Introductions

The Dominant Paradigm

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These are main features of the dominant paradigm(s) that our main readings will be critiquing and providing alternatives to.

Objects of Study / Ontological Divisions

  1. Mind – Cognition (broad), Person, Agent
    1. Feeling – Emotion / Affect
    2. Thinking – Cognition / Knowledge
    3. Acting – Decision
  2. Society – Groups, Culture (broad)
    1. Culture
    2. Language
    3. Institutions
  3. Communication – Modes of interaction
    1. Media / Information
    2. Rhetoric – Writing / Speaking
    3. Organizations

Associated Disciplines

  1. Sciences of the Mind
    • Psychology, Cognitive Science, Neuroscience
    • Philosophy – of Mind, Epistemology
    • Artificial Intelligence, Education
  2. Sciences of Society
    • Sociology, Anthropology, Linguistics
    • Economics, Political Science
    • Philosophy – Ethics, Political
    • Humanities: History, Literature, Art
  3. Sciences of Communication
    • Communication Studies, Media Studies
    • Network Theory, Information Theory, Telecommunications
    • Rhetoric & Comp, Journalism

Theories and assumptions

  1. Computationalism – Cognition as information processing, formal.
  2. Reductionism – Society to Mind, Mind to Life, Life to Chemicals, Chemicals to Atoms…
  3. Functionalism – Mind and society as complex, structure system whose parts are understood in terms of how they function within and are shaped by those structures.
    • System as stable whole. Body and organs.
    • A type of reductionism
  4. Mind is deep, culture is superficial – e.g., Chomsky.
  5. Communication as thought-downloading.
  6. Learning as passive, receptive.
  7. Cartesianism – The mind is separate from the body, world. It is independent of culture. Our own mind is what we know best, because we have direct access to it, unlike the world.

CCC Home | Week 1: Introductions

Reminders & Tips for Writing Assignments

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Here are a list of tips on your writing assignments, such as this week’s Cognitive Diary activity:

  1. Your job is to produce a document that makes it easy for us to see that you did the reading, thought about the issues, and did some real research.
  2. Make specific connections to the readings, e.g., in defining concept, applying theoretical ideas, making comparisons to someone’s work, or in applying methods defined or used by someone else. Always cite the author – use Chicago/Turabian author-date format.
  3. When you make a claim, especially one that isn’t obvious or commonly known, back it up with evidence that supports or illustrates it. Evidence in this class can include both ethnographic observation, images, interview transcripts, etc. as well as references to evidence in articles and books by other authors.
  4. Work on making your paper concise, communicating as much information as needed in the space allotted.
  5. Please proofread your papers. If possible, get someone else to read your paper and help you edit it.

Many of the points in my general Term Paper Guidelines and Helpful Hints are applicable for all writing assignments.

Term Paper Guidelines and Helpful Hints

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  • Choose a guiding idea. Start with a rough version of what you’ll argue for that is a real issue worth exploring and focused enough to fit the length requirements. Don’t commit yourself so much up front that you feel stuck later, though your final paper will need to have a clear thesis/claim.
  • Pick out the relevant readings. Figure out what we’ve read that is relevant to the topic you’ll be writing on and familiarize yourself with what they say.
  • Research using reliable and appropriate resources. It’s best to use sources from an academic press. Consult the databases in philosophy and related areas at the library or on library webpage (the librarians are friendly and willing to help). Required & recommended class texts often include helpful sources in their bibliography. An encyclopedia is fine for giving you ideas for where to look for sources, but it usually isn’t to be used as a primary source itself.
  • Read for relevance. Use highlighters or pens, write in the margins, use sticky-notes, whatever technology will help you pull apart the structure of what you read. You will need to explain and analyze the ideas and the reasons the authors give for accepting those ideas (i.e., the argument).
  • Talk to people about your ideas. This includes classmates, other friends, professor. Get advice. Bounce ideas off each other. Advice is not plagiarism, but do the research and writing yourself.
  • Analyze, don’t summarize. Pick apart the argument and show how it works. Only talk about the part of the text that is relevant to your argument. Leave out useless details. Don’t just repeat in shorter form what has already been said. Your reader should learn something new about your sources.
  • Be prepared to revise or change your claim. Stay flexible. Your research may prove you wrong.
  • Every part of your paper should provide new reasons for accepting your claim. Make sure everything in your paper is clearly connected and makes your point. Focus it. Avoid rhetorical questions!
  • Provide specific evidence. Don’t speak only in vague generalities and abstractions, and don’t just appeal to personal feelings or commitments. Provide facts that actually favor your view.
  • Be creative. Bring something new to the table: a new bit of evidence, a more subtle argument, a novel application of an argument, or a new position in the debate.
  • Write for an interested but relatively unfamiliar audience. Imagine trying to explain it to your peers who aren’t in the course. Better yet, actually try explaining it to them while you write.
  • Use correct grammar and formatting, and a clear style. Consult a standard handbook such as Chicago, Turabian, or MLA for references and citations. Use a style manual like Strunk & White’s. It may be useful to consult a basic handbook of argumentation, such as Weston’s Rulebook of Arguments. Another useful resource is Jim Pryor’s page on writing philosophy papers (which is useful for more than just philosophy papers).
  • Cite every source that you quote directly, paraphrase, or rely on for your understanding of the material, including course textbooks. Again, look to a guidebook like Chicago. Don’t plagiarize! Make sure you understand what that means.
  • The following advice is inspired by Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird (NY: Pantheon, 1994).
    • Write “draft zero.” Get all of your thoughts on paper, all the rough notes, quotes, bits of analysis, etc. Arrange it so that it looks sort of like an argument. Print this out and read over it. Highlight your claim with one color. Highlight all of the most important items of support in another color.
    • Write a shitty first draft. Start a fresh document, and commit to not copy-pasting anything (except maybe quotations) from draft zero. Put your argument together. Get the whole thing down on paper before you worry too much about how each part of it works.
    • Revise, revise, revise. For each draft, print it out (preferably on recycled paper!). Highlight (different colors) your (a) main claim, (b) major sub-claims, and (c) key bits of evidence. Make sure that the non-highlighted parts of your paper all work to make clear the connections between the highlighted parts or remove them. Read it again to make sure it sounds good. Show no mercy with your red pen: cross out useless words and sentences, rewrite awkward bits, add in missing pieces. Look over this draft with your classmates, professor, writing center tutors, friends, pets, roommates, significant other(s), parents, coworkers, or whoever can give you useful feedback.

Activity: Cognitive Diary

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Due in class 1/22

The goal of this project is two-fold. First, you will learn to think about the nature of cognitive tasks in everyday life and how they can be analyzed. Be sure to make use of the ideas from the main readings.

Directions:

  1. Keep a “cognitive diary” for an entire day. Whenever you engage in some kind of cognitive task – i.e., something that requires you to think, plan, remember, or problem-solve – try to notice it and make a record of it (jot it down, dictate to tape recorder, etc.). You are not required to turn in the diary itself, but you are required to do one.
  2. Choose an everyday cognitive activity from your diary to describe in detail. Choose carefully. Keep it small and simple. It may be part of your job, or part of a recreational activity, or part of your everyday routine. It should be something that you would have done even if you were not taking this class. Do not attempt to describe a personal relationship, or a private activity, or your reasoning about it. Do not attempt to design an “experiment.” Don’t worry about how representative the activity is.
  3. Describe the cognitive activity as carefully as you can. Begin by describing only those things that can be seen “from the outside,” i.e., could be captured on video or described by an observer. What is “cognitive” about the activity, based on the description of “cognitive” from the readings? Some of the questions you might be able to answer include the following: What function does the cognitive activity perform? How does the activity take advantage of or interact with structure in the environment? Is the activity a common routine, and if so, in what ways? Look for cognitive shortcuts – ways of making a complicated computation into a simple one. Minimize or avoid first-personal descriptions of “what is going through my mind” or “what was going on in my head.” Such things are not available to cognitive researchers, and you may know much less about them than you think!

Turn in a typed description that includes the following:

The Activity: What is the activity being described?

Description: Careful and detailed description of the activity.

Maximum 800 words of text. Additional figures, sketches, images and so on, e.g. structure that was used in the environment, are not included in the page count.

Your job is to produce a document that makes it easy for us to see that you did the reading, thought about the issues, and did some real research. Work on making it concise. Please proofread your papers.

Credit to Ed Hutchins from whom I’ve adapted this project idea and taken some of the text for the directions.

Distributed Cognition II – 2/19

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Read

  • Edwin Hutchins, Cognition in the Wild, Chapters 4-5

Methods Discussion: Cognitive Ethnography I

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