Cognitive Agency Research Articles

Misinformation, observational equivalence and the possibility of rationality

ABSTRACT In vice epistemology, bad epistemic outcomes, such as maintaining false beliefs, are interpreted as indicators of blameworthy irrationality. Conversely, a growing trend in philosophical psychology advocates for environmentalist explanations, suggesting these outcomes emerge because rational cognitive processes of faultless individuals falter due to polluted environmental inputs. Building on concrete examples, I first offer a systematic analysis of the relative explanatory merits of that environmentalist project. I then use this analysis to advance the rationality debate, which has recently been identified as stagnating due to an observational equivalence between environmentalist and vice accounts. Although the conceptual imprecision of vice epistemology has frequently been critiqued, the framework developed here reveals that environmentalism is (also) unable to meet various theoretical desiderata. I show why this is so and argue that, to make progress, environmentalism needs a more substantive conception of epistemic rationality. To this end, I propose that a closer engagement with questions of cognitive agency – how rational creatures can “make up” their minds about what to believe – could enable the necessary progress.

Формування пізнавальної активності та самостійності старших дошкільників у педагогічній системі Марії Монтессорі

The article notes that the 6–7 years of children’s life are basic and at the same time the most favourable period in the transition from visual to abstract thinking. The purpose of the article is to actualize and generalize the experience of forming cognitive activity and independence of senior preschool children in the pedagogical system of Maria Montessori. It is noted that the concept of M. Montessori is based on the following: a prepared environment, a prepared adult, a child as an autonomous subject of cognition, and the child’s individuality. The functions of the educator (according to V. Khromets) are characterized as follows: to assist, interest, objectify, and simplify. It was determined that the environment should stimulate cognitive activity and should be prepared in such a way that a child, according to Montessori, would assimilate the “idea of order”. The content of the definition of “cognitive enthusiasm” is determined – the ability of a preschool child to spontaneously react, learnm and remember objects and phenomena of the surrounding reality. M. Montessori called this ability the “absorbent mind” or “absorbing culture”. Methodical recommendations for the use of Montessori materials for the development of cognitive activity in accordance with the following principles are substantiated: materials provide for the possibility of controlling actions, preventing, and correcting mistakes; materials are grouped by educational subjects in activity centres; materials are arranged “from simple to more complicated”; materials are aesthetically pleasing, harmonious and visually structured. It has been determined that internal discipline is the basis of cognitive and subsequently educational self-discipline, which is a formative means of actively directed personality of senior preschooler. To summarize, cognitive independence is an element of the child’s general independence, which is based on natural cognitive powers and abilities, is formed in the space of functional freedom, is regulated by the internal mechanism of self-discipline, and is aimed at developing a self-motivated child capable of self-education. It is pointed out that teachers need to direct the educational process towards the development of the child’s desire to be independent in his/her actions, deeds, and behaviour. Thus, the Montessori approach is relevant in the context of the reformed preschool education content (2021), aimed at its implementation, and can be used by educators in the modern conditions of the educational process. Keywords: preschool education, senior preschool children, activity formation, cognitive activity, cognitive agency, cognitive independence, self-activity, M. Montessori’s concept, pedagogical system.

Extended knowledge and autonomous belief

ABSTRACT Adam Carter has recently presented a novel puzzle about extended knowledge – i.e. knowledge that results from extended cognitive processes. He argues that allowing for this kind of knowledge on the face of it entails that there could be instances of knowledge that are simply ‘engineered’ into the subject. The problem is that such engineered knowledge does not look genuine given that it results from processes that bypass the cognitive agency of the subject. Carter’s solution is to argue that we need to impose an additional autonomy condition on knowledge that excludes such cases of non-autonomous knowledge. In response, two points of criticism are offered. First, that when extended knowledge is properly understood, virtue-theoretic accounts of knowledge can already exclude non-autonomous knowledge without the need of an additional epistemic condition. Second, that the cases that Carter offers of putatively non-autonomous knowledge involve the inclusive folk notion of belief rather than the more restrictive notion of belief that is relevant to epistemology (K-apt belief). Once it is recognized that the belief condition on knowledge concerns this more restrictive notion, then we already have the means to exclude cases of non-autonomous knowledge (regardless of which theory of knowledge one favors).

Counseling services leading to desistance by way of a change in certainty perceptions and cognitive agency beliefs.

The purpose of this study was to determine whether receiving counseling services reduced future offending in a group of seriously delinquent youths through a process of chaining. In this process, a youth's perceived certainty of punishment and an increase in their cognitive agency or control mediated the services-offending relationship. The main hypothesis was that where perceptions of certainty preceded cognitive agency beliefs (perceived certainty → cognitive agency), the (target) pathway would be significant, and where cognitive agency beliefs preceded perceptions of certainty (cognitive agency → perceived certainty), the (comparison) pathway would be nonsignificant. The difference between the target and comparison pathways was also predicted to be significant. This study modeled change in 1,354 (1,170 boys, 184 girls) justice-involved youths from the Pathways to Desistance study. The number of counseling services accessed by a participant within 6 months of the baseline (Wave 1) interview served as the independent variable, and self-reported offending 12-18 months later (Wave 4) served as the dependent variable. Perceived certainty of punishment and cognitive agency were cross-lagged at Waves 2 and 3 and served as mediators. Consistent with the research hypothesis, results showed that the total indirect effect from services to delinquency through perceived certainty and cognitive agency was significant, the total indirect effect from services to cognitive agency to perceived certainty was nonsignificant, and the difference between the two effects was significant. The results of this study suggest that turning points do not have to be major life events to bring about desistance and that chaining in which perceptions of certainty precede cognitive agency beliefs may play a vital role in the change process. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Epistemic Explanations: A Theory of Telic Normativity, and What it Explains

<i>Epistemic Explanations: A Theory of Telic Normativity, and What it Explains</i>

Is a subpersonal virtue epistemology possible?

ABSTRACT Virtue reliabilists argue that an agent can only gain knowledge if she responsibly employs a reliable belief-forming process. This in turn demands that she is either aware that her process is reliable or is sensitive to her process’s reliability in some other way. According to a recent argument in the philosophy of mind, sometimes a cognitive mechanism (i.e. precision estimation) can ensure that a belief-forming process is only employed when it’s reliable. If this is correct, epistemic responsibility can sometimes be explained entirely on the subpersonal level. In this paper, I argue that the mechanism of precision estimation–the alleged new variety of epistemic responsibility–is a more ubiquitous phenomenon than epistemic responsibility. I show that precision estimation operates at levels that are not always concerned with the epistemic domain. Lastly, I broaden this argument to explain how all subpersonal epistemologies are likely to fall prey to the problem of demarcating cognitive agency and the problem of attributing beliefs.

How do people with chronic pain choose their music for pain management? Examining the external validity of the cognitive vitality model.

Music interventions for pain are more successful when patients choose the music themselves. But little is known about the attentional strategies used by chronic pain patients when choosing or using music for pain management, and the degree to which these attentional strategies align with the cognitive mechanisms outlines in the cognitive vitality model (CVM, a recently developed theoretical framework that outlines five cognitive mechanisms that mediate the analgesic effects of music for pain management). To investigate this question, we used a sequential explanatory mixed method approach, which included a survey, online music listening experiment, and qualitative data collection, with chronic pain patients (n=70). First, we asked chronic pain patients to name a piece of music that they would use to manage their chronic pain, and answer 19 questions about why they chose that particular piece of music using a questionnaire based on the CVM. Next, we asked chronic pain patients to listen to high energy and low energy pieces of music, to understand aesthetic music preferences and emotional responses at the group level. Finally, participants were asked to qualitatively tell us how they used music to manage their pain. Factor Analysis was completed on the survey data, and identified a five-factor structure in participant responses that was consistent with five mechanisms identified in the CVM. Regression analysis indicated that chronic pain patients choose music for pain management if they think it will facilitate Musical Integration and Cognitive Agency. Musical Integration refers to the degree to which the music can provide an immersive and absorbing experience. Cognitive Agency refers to having an increased feeling of control. At the group level, participants reported a preference for low energy music, and reported that they found high energy music more irritating. However, is it important to note that individual people had different music preferences. Thematic synthesis of patient responses highlighted how these processes mediate the analgesic benefits of music listening from the perspective of chronic pain patients, and highlighted the wide range of music used by participants for chronic pain management including electronic dance music, heavy metal and Beethoven. These findings demonstrate that chronic pain patients use specific attentional strategies when using music for pain management, and these strategies align with the cognitive vitality model.

Discussion on the Relationship between Computation, Information, Cognition, and Their Embodiment.

Three special issues of Entropy journal have been dedicated to the topics of "Information-Processing and Embodied, Embedded, Enactive Cognition". They addressed morphological computing, cognitive agency, and the evolution of cognition. The contributions show the diversity of views present in the research community on the topic of computation and its relation to cognition. This paper is an attempt to elucidate current debates on computation that are central to cognitive science. It is written in the form of a dialog between two authors representing two opposed positions regarding the issue of what computation is and could be, and how it can be related to cognition. Given the different backgrounds of the two researchers, which span physics, philosophy of computing and information, cognitive science, and philosophy, we found the discussions in the form of Socratic dialogue appropriate for this multidisciplinary/cross-disciplinary conceptual analysis. We proceed as follows. First, the proponent (GDC) introduces the info-computational framework as a naturalistic model of embodied, embedded, and enacted cognition. Next, objections are raised by the critic (MM) from the point of view of the new mechanistic approach to explanation. Subsequently, the proponent and the critic provide their replies. The conclusion is that there is a fundamental role for computation, understood as information processing, in the understanding of embodied cognition.

Speaking Silences

Miranda Fricker’s account of what is involved in cases of hermeneutical injustice has been criticised for neglecting the existence of alternative hermeneutical resources developed by non-dominant groups and consequently overlooking its members’ cognitive agency. I argue that this critical strand might be extended to consider what I call “uncontroversial cases of hermeneutical injustice”, i.e. cases in which no alternative resources are available, but marginalized subjects can still be said to resist dominant interpretations of their experiences. Following Alice Crary, I trace the limitations of Fricker’s original account of hermeneutical injustice back to her reliance on a neutral conception of reason and argue that widening the realm of rationality to accommodate affective responses authorizes a revaluation of marginalized subjects’ agency under ideological systems. To illustrate this point, I indicate that Ludwig Wittgenstein’s reflections on hinges present a notion of objectivity that serves liberatory projects and might guide a more adequate response to cases of hermeneutical injustice.

Thinking like a State : Embodied intelligence in the deep history of our collective mind

This article aims to show how the deep history of early State societies entails the development of a collective form of cognitive agency. It relates classical works in the anthropology of States (in particular Scott’s Seeing like a State) with the enactive account of biological and cognitive organisation, thanks to the unified ontology for self-organisation dynamics across scales offered by the Active Inference framework.Active Inference conceives of cognition as synchronisation across individuated sensorimotor states. It entails that biological or sociocultural constraints display a minimal form of cognition by shaping the behaviour of faster dynamics in a certain way. When such constraints collectively define a basic life form (an integrated, operationally closed system), they can therefore be said to embody adaptive knowledge properly speaking.The (en)Active Inference account I articulate here strongly motivates and methodologically grounds a holist approach in the social sciences. Indeed, it grounds the study of human societies in the role of structural constraints, whose “meaning” depends both on the broader system’s activity and in the historical context of their emergence. The present account of the dynamics of early urbanisation and State genesis aims to illustrate this approach.

Tune out pain: Agency and active engagement predict decreases in pain intensity after music listening.

Music is increasingly being recognised as an adjuvant treatment for pain management. Music can help to decrease the experience of both chronic and experimental pain. Cognitive agency has been identified as a specific mechanism that may mediate the analgesic benefits of music engagement however, it is unclear if this specific mechanism translates to acute pain. Previous attempts to understand the cognitive mechanisms that underpin music analgesia have been predominantly lab-based, limiting the extent to which observed effects may apply to participants' everyday lives. Addressing these gaps, in naturalistic settings, the present study examined the degree to which cognitive agency (i.e., perceived choice in music), music features (i.e., complexity), and individual levels of musical sophistication were related to perceived pain. In an online global experiment, using a randomised between groups experimental design with two levels for choice (no choice and perceived choice) and two levels for music (high and low complexity), a sample of 286 adults experiencing acute pain reported their pain intensity and pain unpleasantness pre- and post-music listening. A bespoke piece of music was co-created with a commercial artist to enable the manipulation of music complexity while controlling for familiarity, while facilitating an authentic music listening experience. Overall, findings demonstrated that increased perceived control over music is associated with analgesic benefits, and that perceived choice is more important than music complexity. Highlighting the importance of listener engagement, people who reported higher levels of active engagement experienced greater decreases of pain intensity in the perceived choice condition, than those who reported lower levels of active engagement. These findings have implications for both research and practice, emphasising the importance of facilitating freedom of choice, and sustained engagement with music throughout music listening interventions.

Socially Extended Scientific Knowledge.

A three-tiered account of social cognition is set out—along with the corresponding variety of social knowledge that results from this social cognition—and applied to the special case of scientific collaboration. The first tier is socially-facilitated cognition, which results in socially-facilitated knowledge. This is a form of cognition which, while genuinely social (in that social factors play an important explanatory role in producing the target cognitive success), falls short of socially extended cognition. The second tier is socially extended cognition, which generates socially extended knowledge. This form of cognition is social in the specific sense of the information-processing of other agents forms part of the socially extended cognitive process at issue. It is argued, however, that the core notion of socially extended cognition is individual in nature, in that the target cognitive success is significantly creditable to the socially extended cognitive agency of the individual. Socially extended cognition, in its core sense, thus generates individual knowledge. Finally, there is distributed cognition, which generates distributed knowledge. This is where the cognitive successes produced by a research team are attributable to a group agent rather than to individuals within the team. Accordingly, where this form of social cognition generates knowledge (distributed knowledge), the knowledge is irreducibly group knowledge. It is argued that by making clear this three-tiered structure of social scientific knowledge a prima facie challenge is posed for defenders of distributed scientific cognition and knowledge to explain why this form of social knowledge is being exhibited and not one of the two weaker (and metaphysically less demanding) forms of social knowledge.

A limitation on agency in judgment

To many, judgment has seemed a locus of cognitive agency, a kind of cognitive mental act. In one minimal sense, judgment is something one does. I consider whether judgment is more robustly agential: is it a kind of action done with an aim? The most attractive version of this sort of position takes judging that p to affirming that p with an alethic aim, an aim such as affirming truly. I argue that such views have unacceptable consequences. Acts done with aims, in general, can be based only indirectly on evidence that one would attain the aim in so acting. It follows that if alethic aims theories of judgment were correct, a judgment that p could be based only indirectly on evidence for p. This itself would be problematic. But the problems extend further. Given the connection between judgment and belief-formation, it would follow, further, that the beliefs we form through judgment could at best be only indirectly based on evidence for p. On these theories, the direct bases for a judgment that p would have to be either a belief that p or a belief that it’s likely that p. The former cannot support belief-formation and the latter supports at best epistemically inappropriate belief-formation. I conclude that there is a hard limit on how robustly agential judgment can be.

Pragmatism, truth, and cognitive agency

ABSTRACT The main objection to pragmatism about knowledge is that it entails that truth-irrelevant factors can make a difference to knowledge. Blake Roeber [2018. “Anti-Intellectualism.” Mind: A Quarterly Review of Philosophy 127: 437–466] has recently argued that this objection fails. I agree with Roeber. But in this paper, I present another way of thinking about the dispute between purists and pragmatists about knowledge. I do so by formulating a new objection to pragmatism about knowledge. This is that pragmatism about knowledge entails that factors irrelevant to both truth and ‘cognitive agency’ can make a difference to knowledge. An interesting additional upshot of my argument is the connection revealed between the debate between pragmatists and purists about knowledge, and the debate between ‘alethists’ and pragmatists about reasons for belief.

Every Krapp counts: tracing an Object-Oriented Ontology in Krapp's Last Tape

ABSTRACT In an interview Samuel Beckett dismisses man as a ‘non-knower’ and a ‘non-canner’, a being that has lost its reign of cognitive agency. By so doing, Beckett not only defies the Heideggerian anthropocentric dictum of ‘Man alone exists. Rocks are, but they do not exist’, but also suggests a new reality wherein the subject is no longer the agent of meaning-making. Graham Harman's Object-Oriented Ontology introduces an uncanny way for the object to not just exist but to confirm the ways in which it independently performs the act of existence. This article reads Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape as the artist's prophetic caveat vis-à-vis the demise of anthropocentrism, inviting the audience to imagine an object-oriented reality. By drawing on OOO and Tool-Being, this essay examines the preexisting inter-reality of objects in Krapp's Last Tape known as ‘the invisible realm’ by tapping into their autonomous, and yet relation-oriented existence. The autonomy of the object that agitates the subject's cognitive balancewill be examined by exploring the interdependent struggle between the ‘handiness of objects’ known as zuhandenheit, and their ‘ontic presence’, vorhandenheit, and the ways in which an ontic reality of, for instance, a tape-recorder and a collection of tapes could reaffirm Krapp's ontological plasticity.

Cognitive agency in music interventions: Increased perceived control of music predicts increased pain tolerance.

Self-selected music is consistently found to be the strongest predictor for successful music listening interventions in pain management contexts, but the specific cognitive mechanisms that mediate these effects are currently unknown. The aim of this study was to isolate the role of cognitive agency on pain tolerance in music listening interventions, independently from parallel effects related to enjoyment. Additionally, the study examines the role of intramusical features and individual attributes related to musical engagement. Fifty-two participants completed a repeated measures experiment, which involved listening to six different pieces of music while completing the cold pressor task. Cognitive agency was operationalized by giving participants different degrees of perceived control over the music selection, when in fact it was pre-determined by the experimenter. A generalized linear mixed model was used to analyse the impact of perceived choice and intramusical features on pain tolerance measured in terms of duration on the cold pressor task, pain intensity and pain unpleasantness. Increased levels of perceived choice predicted increases in pain tolerance when enjoyment was accounted for. Individual levels of trait empathy and sophisticated emotional engagement with music also contributed to the effects. Intramusical features did not predict increases in pain tolerance. This study demonstrates that the reason self-selected music is particularly effective in reducing pain is related to the act of making a choice over the music itself. This study provides support for the cognitive vitality model and emphasizes the importance of giving people as much control as possible in music interventions. This study identifies that the act of selecting music contributes to increases in pain tolerance in parallel with the independent factor of enjoyment. This provides support for the role of cognitive agency in mediating the analgesic effects of music interventions, which suggests that people should be given as much control as possible in music interventions. Additionally, this study identifies specific individual attributes related to emotional engagement and empathy that amplify the effect of cognitive agency.

Cognitive Disability and the Hebrew Bible

Knowledge is a major theme in the Hebrew Bible, and raises both challenges and possibilities for theology and cognitive disability. This paper will focus on these issues with particular reference to disability theology, and the Psalter. Pervasive negative portrayals of ignorance and folly, of dullness of mind or heart, become problematic in light of cognitive disability. I will suggest that these negative construals pertain to willed ignorance, rather than those who live with cognitive disabilities. On the other hand, cognitive disability encourages broader reflections on YHWH’s care for those who are vulnerable and marginalized, whatever form that might take. In social conditions such as ours, where cognitive agency is so prized, those with cognitive disabilities are weak and vulnerable—orphaned, so to speak, by our institutions and practices. The Psalms, in particular, remind us that God cares for them—and so should we. Cognitive disability may also help us rethink our assumptions, and so gain fresh insight from biblical texts in relation to identity, vulnerability and agency (and its absence), and the need to name human brokenness and avail ourselves of the resources Scripture gives us to address it. Finally, dealing with people with cognitive disabilities requires that we reconsider our epistemology and the values inherent in it. If the knowledge of God is (fundamentally) relationship with God and not mere cognition, then we must consider both how people with cognitive disabilities might exemplify that knowledge, and how their patterns of knowing might contribute to the fullness of human knowing.

The archaeology of the social brain revisited: rethinking mind and material culture from a material engagement perspective

The social brain hypothesis (SBH) has played a prominent role in interpreting the relationship between human social, cognitive and technological evolution in archaeology and beyond. This article examines how the SBH has been applied to the Palaeolithic material record, and puts forward a critique of the approach. Informed by Material Engagement Theory (MET) and its understanding of material agency, it is argued that the SBH has an inherently cognitivist understanding of mind and matter at its core. This Cartesian basis has not been fully resolved by archaeological attempts to integrate the SBH with relational models of cognition. At the heart of the issue has been a lack of meaningful consideration of the cognitive agency of things and the evolutionary efficacy of material engagement. This article proposes MET as a useful starting point for rethinking future approaches to human social cognitive becoming in a way that appreciates the co-constitution of brains, bodies and worlds. It also suggests how MET may bridge archaeological and 4E approaches to reconsider concepts such as the ‘mental template’ and Theory of Mind.

“None’s Reflex”: Enactivism and Observational Philosophy on Consciousness and Observation

The paper is dedicated to the reconstruction of Alexander Piatigorsky’s observational philosophy within the context of the confrontation between two versions of the transcendental project of man-in-the-world. The first project accentuates the invariant functional organization of cognitive systems by abstracting from bodily, affective and phenomenological realization of this organization. On the contrary, the second project emphasizes the phenomenological perspective of the experience of givenness, always already dependent on whose experience this is and how the cognitive system living this experience is organized. The first project can be called functionalist, and the second – phenomenological. Ontological and epistemological positions of these projects are specified in the problem of the observer, its status in the world and cognitive practice. The observational philosophy possesses an intermediate position between these two programs since, aiming to disclose the invariant structure of observation, it proceeds from the factual experience of the embodied subject placed into the situation of self-observation and observation of the other subject. It is concluded that Piatigorsky’s philosophy borrows from the functionalist project the commitment to self-objectivation (observation of thinking is always the observation of the other thinking) and rejection from the spatiotemporal localization of cognitive activity (thinking is always “none’s” and does not belong to any kind of individual). With the phenomenological project of enactivism Piatigorsky shares the aspiration to disclose the invariant cognitive structures during the empirical observation of the real enactment of cognitive agency (the organization of cognitive systems is the same while its structural realizations are multiple), abandonment of substantialization of the self (“none’s” thinking is considered as the emergent effect of interaction among two or several observers – the autopoietic systems) as well as the refusal from theoretical formulation of the problem of consciousness (observational philosophy develops metatheoretical prolegomena to theory of consciousness, which in turn is considered as lived and essentially practical in phenomenology).

Towards a rational constructivist theory of cognitive development.

This article provides a synthesis and overview of a theory of cognitive development, rational constructivism. The basic tenets of this view are as follows: (a) Initial state: Human infants begin life with a set of proto-conceptual primitives. These early representations are not in the format of a language of thought. (b) Mature state: Human adults represent the world in terms of a set of domain-specific intuitive theories. (c) Three types of mechanisms account for learning, development, and conceptual change: language and symbol learning, Bayesian inductive learning, and constructive thinking. (d) The child is an active learner, and cognitive agency is part and parcel of development. I will discuss each of these tenets, and provide an overview of the kind of empirical evidence that supports this view. This is a non-Piagetian view though it is in the spirit of constructivist theories of development; this view emphasizes the utility of formal computational models in understanding learning and developmental change. Lastly, this view also has implications for the study of philosophy of mind and epistemology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).