Phil 860 – Topics Phil Science Professor John Symons Paper # 1 – Due Sep 14 The Extended Mind Hypothesis: Objection and Defense Jenny Lorraine Nielsen Introduction In “The Extended Mind”, Andy Clark and David Chalmers (1998) present a claim that mind extends beyond brain and body into the physical world via coupling of organism and external resources in order to hold mental states (such as beliefs) “constituted partly by features of the environment” (12, 18). One strong criticism of the hypothesis comes from Ken Aizawa and Fred Adams (2001), who argue in “Defending the Bounds of Cognition” that Chalmers and Clark commit a fallacy by confusing the causal relationship between the brain and external objects with a constitutive relationship (2). They further maintain that such objects cannot make up cognition as they lack the “nature” of “what constitutes the cognitive” (2001, 3). In the sections that follow, I will explicate this objection and then present counterarguments that