What is the role of the environment, and of the information it provides, in cognition? More specifically, may there be a role for certain artefacts to play in this context? These are questions that motivate "4E" theories of cognition (as being embodied, embedded, extended, enactive). In his take on that family of views, Hajo Greif first defends and refines a concept of information as primarily natural, environmentally embedded in character, which had been eclipsed by information-processing views of cognition. He continues with an inquiry into the cognitive bearing of some artefacts that are sometimes referred to as 'intelligent environments'. Without necessarily having much to do with Artificial Intelligence, such artefacts may ultimately modify our informational environments.

With respect to human cognition, the most notable effect of digital computers is not that they might be able, or become able, to think but that they alter the way we perceive, think and act.

The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.tandfebooks.com/doi/view/10.4324/9781315401867, has been made available under a Creative Commons CC-BY licence

About the Author

Hajo Greif is Research Assistant Professor at the Department of Philosophy and Ethics in Administration, Warsaw University of Technology. He also works as Senior Researcher at the Munich Center for Technology in Society (MCTS), Technical University of Munich. His research interests cover the philosophy - and some of the history an the social studies - of science and technology, as well as the philosophy of mind.

Reviews

"An absorbing volume that integrates an extraordinarily wide area of work, with interesting observations and new twists right to the end."

Ruth Millikan, University of Connecticut, USA

Book Information
ISBN 9781138222328
Author Hajo Greif
Format Hardback
Page Count 218
Imprint Routledge
Publisher Taylor & Francis Ltd
Weight(grams) 453g