Bullot & Reber's (B&R's) advocacy of a psycho-historical approach to art appreciation and the determinate form of such an approach that they propose are both welcome additions to the intersection of aesthetics and cognitive science. In this commentary, I consider how we might think about the objects of artistic appreciation themselves and their relationship to the cognitive systems that underpin our capacities for artistic appreciation.
In particular, I propose that in at least some cases, objects of artistic appreciation are best thought of not simply as causes of artistic appreciation, but as parts of the cognitive machinery that drives aesthetic appreciation. In effect, this is to say that the cognitive systems that physically realize our capacities for aesthetic appreciation, at least some times, are not physically contained within the boundary of the individual artistic appreciator. Here aesthetic appreciation operates via extended cognitive systems (Wilson Reference Wilson2004).
I follow Bullot & Reber (B&R) in considering objects of artistic appreciation inclusively with respect to genre and style. They include pieces of visual art, dance, and theatrical performances and the creation, performance, and improvisation of music; they include such objects of aesthetic appreciation created or performed in culturally specific and individually idiosyncratic ways. Such objects are artifacts, and as objects of artistic appreciation, they are cognitive artifacts in that their appreciation is mediated in virtue of their having been created via some kind of cognitive agency.
Within the cognitive sciences, the term cognitive artifacts is typically used interchangeably with cognitive tools or cognitive technologies (Hutchins Reference Hutchins, Wilson and Keil1999; Norman Reference Norman1993). Such terms refer to products of technology that either augment human cognitive capacities (e.g., external storage systems) or replace or improve some existing cognitive system in part or in whole (e.g., cochlear implants). Like the artifacts that are objects of artistic appreciation, the artifacts that are cognitive tools should also be thought of broadly, including not simply particular devices or pieces of technology, but also large-scale cultural innovations, such as the invention of particular symbol systems (e.g., arithmetical systems), as well as human spoken and written languages (Clark Reference Clark2008).
One way to see objects of artistic appreciation as playing something more than a mere causal role in the cognitive processes that mediate artistic appreciation is to entertain the idea that the two senses of “cognitive artifact” are related in a particular way. That is, suppose that we think of objects of artistic appreciation themselves as technologies of cognition. Then it becomes relatively easy to view them as playing not simply a causal role in the process of artistic appreciation, but a physically constitutive role in the relevant cognitive system. And since they are not located within the physical boundary of the individual cognizer, the resultant systems are extended cognitive systems.
This supposition plays such an explanatory role because some cognitive tools are plausibly considered as physical constituents of more powerful cognitive systems. Such cognitive tools become sufficiently functionally integral to a cognizer that she comes to acquire a capacity-augmented, extended cognitive system. For example, the 256-symbol board that the bonobo Kanzi learned to use (Savage-Rumbaugh Reference Savage-Rumbaugh1994) both to articulate and express at times complicated desires and beliefs is a cognitive tool that became functionally integral to Kanzi in just this way. The resultant cognitive system includes Kanzi's symbol board as a physical constituent, and thus is an extended cognitive system.
Andy Clark and I (Wilson & Clark Reference Wilson, Clark, Aydede and Robbins2009) have argued that extended cognitive systems vary in at least two dimensions: their durability (one-off, temporary, and permanent) and the nature of the augmenting cognitive resource (natural, social, and cultural). The introduction of these dimensions aimed to shift debate over the extended mind thesis from one demanding a “yes” or “no” answer to a generic form of that thesis to one that explores a range of forms of extended cognitive systems. Systems that are viewed as paradigmatic in debates over extended cognition tend to involve relatively permanent augmentations incorporating resources that are cultural in nature. But a cognizer's utilization of natural or social resources even relatively temporarily can also produce extended cognitive systems. With both of these points in mind, I return more specifically to B&R's psycho-historical approach to artistic appreciation.
B&R distinguish between three modes of artistic appreciation: an appreciator's exposure to the work of art, the causal reasoning she engages in applying a design stance, and resultant knowledge-based artistic understanding. The type of rich and ongoing interactions with particular, human-created artistic representations characteristic of expertise or a deeper understanding of a work of art approximates the parameters that correspond to paradigmatic extended cognitive systems. In such cases, further exposure to the work of art may serve as a causal input to cognitive systems responsible for artistic appreciation. But those systems are already extended, having come literally to physically incorporate cultural resources themselves not contained within the boundary of the individual cognizer.
This is not to say that, as in cases in which the reliance on cognitive tools stops short of expertise, when artistic appreciation is more casual, uncertain, or passing in nature, it does not draw on extended cognitive systems in each of the three modes that B&R identify. My chief question for them is whether they view this introduction of the extended mind thesis as one they find useful for further articulation of their psycho-historical approach.
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Bullot & Reber's (B&R's) advocacy of a psycho-historical approach to art appreciation and the determinate form of such an approach that they propose are both welcome additions to the intersection of aesthetics and cognitive science. In this commentary, I consider how we might think about the objects of artistic appreciation themselves and their relationship to the cognitive systems that underpin our capacities for artistic appreciation.
In particular, I propose that in at least some cases, objects of artistic appreciation are best thought of not simply as causes of artistic appreciation, but as parts of the cognitive machinery that drives aesthetic appreciation. In effect, this is to say that the cognitive systems that physically realize our capacities for aesthetic appreciation, at least some times, are not physically contained within the boundary of the individual artistic appreciator. Here aesthetic appreciation operates via extended cognitive systems (Wilson Reference Wilson2004).
I follow Bullot & Reber (B&R) in considering objects of artistic appreciation inclusively with respect to genre and style. They include pieces of visual art, dance, and theatrical performances and the creation, performance, and improvisation of music; they include such objects of aesthetic appreciation created or performed in culturally specific and individually idiosyncratic ways. Such objects are artifacts, and as objects of artistic appreciation, they are cognitive artifacts in that their appreciation is mediated in virtue of their having been created via some kind of cognitive agency.
Within the cognitive sciences, the term cognitive artifacts is typically used interchangeably with cognitive tools or cognitive technologies (Hutchins Reference Hutchins, Wilson and Keil1999; Norman Reference Norman1993). Such terms refer to products of technology that either augment human cognitive capacities (e.g., external storage systems) or replace or improve some existing cognitive system in part or in whole (e.g., cochlear implants). Like the artifacts that are objects of artistic appreciation, the artifacts that are cognitive tools should also be thought of broadly, including not simply particular devices or pieces of technology, but also large-scale cultural innovations, such as the invention of particular symbol systems (e.g., arithmetical systems), as well as human spoken and written languages (Clark Reference Clark2008).
One way to see objects of artistic appreciation as playing something more than a mere causal role in the cognitive processes that mediate artistic appreciation is to entertain the idea that the two senses of “cognitive artifact” are related in a particular way. That is, suppose that we think of objects of artistic appreciation themselves as technologies of cognition. Then it becomes relatively easy to view them as playing not simply a causal role in the process of artistic appreciation, but a physically constitutive role in the relevant cognitive system. And since they are not located within the physical boundary of the individual cognizer, the resultant systems are extended cognitive systems.
This supposition plays such an explanatory role because some cognitive tools are plausibly considered as physical constituents of more powerful cognitive systems. Such cognitive tools become sufficiently functionally integral to a cognizer that she comes to acquire a capacity-augmented, extended cognitive system. For example, the 256-symbol board that the bonobo Kanzi learned to use (Savage-Rumbaugh Reference Savage-Rumbaugh1994) both to articulate and express at times complicated desires and beliefs is a cognitive tool that became functionally integral to Kanzi in just this way. The resultant cognitive system includes Kanzi's symbol board as a physical constituent, and thus is an extended cognitive system.
Andy Clark and I (Wilson & Clark Reference Wilson, Clark, Aydede and Robbins2009) have argued that extended cognitive systems vary in at least two dimensions: their durability (one-off, temporary, and permanent) and the nature of the augmenting cognitive resource (natural, social, and cultural). The introduction of these dimensions aimed to shift debate over the extended mind thesis from one demanding a “yes” or “no” answer to a generic form of that thesis to one that explores a range of forms of extended cognitive systems. Systems that are viewed as paradigmatic in debates over extended cognition tend to involve relatively permanent augmentations incorporating resources that are cultural in nature. But a cognizer's utilization of natural or social resources even relatively temporarily can also produce extended cognitive systems. With both of these points in mind, I return more specifically to B&R's psycho-historical approach to artistic appreciation.
B&R distinguish between three modes of artistic appreciation: an appreciator's exposure to the work of art, the causal reasoning she engages in applying a design stance, and resultant knowledge-based artistic understanding. The type of rich and ongoing interactions with particular, human-created artistic representations characteristic of expertise or a deeper understanding of a work of art approximates the parameters that correspond to paradigmatic extended cognitive systems. In such cases, further exposure to the work of art may serve as a causal input to cognitive systems responsible for artistic appreciation. But those systems are already extended, having come literally to physically incorporate cultural resources themselves not contained within the boundary of the individual cognizer.
This is not to say that, as in cases in which the reliance on cognitive tools stops short of expertise, when artistic appreciation is more casual, uncertain, or passing in nature, it does not draw on extended cognitive systems in each of the three modes that B&R identify. My chief question for them is whether they view this introduction of the extended mind thesis as one they find useful for further articulation of their psycho-historical approach.