Concluding remarks

This is not the place to settle these issues, but it is important to note that there are standing questions regarding the extent to which extended cognitive processes can be part of the mani­festation of both the general virtue of humility and the specific intellectual virtue of intellectual humility.

Notes

1 Note that, for the purposes of this article, I will be setting to one side a particular kind of extended cognition—sometimes called distributed or socially extended cognition—where the cognitive extension involves other agents. For some useful discussions of distributed cognition, see Giere and Moffat (2003), Theiner et al. (2010), and Gallagher (2013). For specific discussion of the epistemological ramifications of distributed cognition, see Palermos and Pritchard (2016) and Carter et al. (2018).

2 Note that Clark and Chalmers (1998) are less interested in arguing for extended cognition than for the more specific thesis of the extended mind—viz., roughly, that minds can extend beyond the skill and skull of the subject. Whether the extended mind thesis is a more demanding thesis than the extended cognition thesis—as Clark and Chalmers (1998) clearly believe—depends on further factors, such as whether one treats the cognitive as the mark of the mental. In any case, our concern here is with the extended cognition thesis rather than the extended mind thesis.

3 Note that the ‘neuromedia' terminology is not my invention, but since this terminology is used in varied ways it is important that it is understood along the specific lines set out here. For a philosophical discussion of neuromedia that is relevant to our current concerns (but which uses this terminology in a slightly different manner), see Lynch (2014; 2016).

4 Note that it might be important to the technology that the subject can tell the difference, if only in principle, perhaps for legal reasons. But it would still be significant that there could exist technology of this kind where ordinarily the subject could not tell the difference.

5 Interestingly, one way in which neuromedia might be developed could be as devices that are fitted beneath the skin and skull of the subject. Indeed, if one is aiming for the technology to be as seamlessly integrated into one's cognitive character as much as possible, such that one isn't even normally aware of it as technology, then it would make sense to have it as hidden from view as much as possible. If neuromedia is developed in this way, however, then it is in a certain sense an ‘internal' form of extended cognition (even though it is still ‘external' in the manner that is relevant to extended cognition, as it is external the biological cognitive processes that the subject has under her skin and skull).

6 For further discussion of cognitive integration in the context of extended cognition, see Palermos (2014a; 2014b).

7 For two prominent critiques of extended cognition—and also the related extended mind thesis (see endnote 2)—see Adams and Aizawa (2008) and Rupert (2009).

8 That's the standard way of thinking about the intellectual good at any rate—see, for example, Zagzebski's (1996) influential account of the intellectual virtues in this regard—though some might wish to sub­stitute a more elevated epistemic standing like knowledge, understanding or wisdom.

9 I leave it as an open question whether this cognitive trait would be compatible with one making inaccu­rate judgements that regularly underestimate one's importance—this would depend on further features of one's account of humility.

10 For a development of the idea of an extended cognitive character, see Alfano and Skorburg (2016).

11 I discuss a case of this kind, whereby the extended cognitive process is never consciously endorsed by the subject, but where it nonetheless seems to count as a bona fide instance of extended cognition, in Pritchard (2010).

12 There are a range of different accounts of intellectual humility in the contemporary literature. For some key recent discussions in this regard, see Tanesini (2016), Whitcomb et al. (2017), and Priest (2017). For my own take on these issues, see Pritchard (2018c; 2019).

13 I develop this idea in Pritchard (2018a; 2018b; 2018d).

14 For some recent treatments of virtues, including intellectual virtues, as being a kind of skill—which is, of course, compatible with the idea that intellectual virtues might be more demanding cognitive traits than other kinds of (mere) cognitive skills—see Annas (1995; 2011) and Stichter (2018).

15 I am grateful to Mark Alfano for detailed comments on an earlier version of this paper.

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