Distributed cognitive agency in virtue epistemology

Michael David Kirchhoff, Will Newsome

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    13 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    We examine some of the ramifications of extended cognition for virtue epistemology by exploring the idea within extended cognition that it is possible to decentralize cognitive agency such that cognitive agency includes socio-cultural practices. In doing so, we first explore the (seemingly unquestioned) assumption in both virtue epistemology and extended cognition that cognitive agency is an individualistic phenomenon. A distributed notion of cognitive agency alters the landscape of knowledge attribution in virtue epistemology. We conclude by offering a pragmatic notion of cognitive agency, where the situation sets the benchmarks for whether cognitive agency is individualistic or socio-culturally distributed.
    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)165-180
    Number of pages16
    JournalPhilosophical Explorations
    Volume15
    Issue number2
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2012

    Keywords

    • cognitive agency
    • cognitive assembly
    • epistemic credit
    • extended cognition
    • knowledge attribution
    • virtue epistemology

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