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Causal Parity and Externalisms: Extensions in Life and Mind

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Abstract

This paper questions the form and prospects of “extended theories” which have been simultaneously and independently advocated both in the philosophy of mind and in the philosophy of biology. It focuses on Extend Mind Theory (EMT) and Developmental Systems Theory (DST). It shows first that the two theories vindicate a parallel extension of received views, the former concerning extending cognition beyond the brain, the latter concerned with extending evolution and development beyond the genes. It also shows that both arguments rely on the demonstration of causal parities, which have been undermined by the classical received view. Then I question whether the argument that there is an illegitimate inference from parities or coupling to constitution claims, which has been objected by Adams and Aizawa in The bounds of cognition, (2008) to EMT, also holds against DST. To this aim, I consider two defenses against DST that are parallel to two defenses against EMT, one about intrinsic content, the other about the difference between what’s in principle possible and what happens in practice. I conclude by claiming that the weaknesses and strengths of both theories are different regarding these two kinds of objections.

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Notes

  1. Against evolutionary externalism, one would say that the environment is not the whole story about the causation of traits and organisms. Notably, there are commonalities across lineages, families or clades, e.g. the structure of tetrapod limbs in vertebrates (Caroll 2008). MS biologists would say that this is just a question of common descent. Yet another explanation could be that there is a mechanism that is shared across all species involved, and that produces this trait during development as its only possible outcome (Müller and Newman 2005; Caroll 2008). Against gene-centrism, some biologists have claimed that even if change in gene frequencies go with evolution, it is not a cause of evolution, and therefore causes have to be sought elsewhere, especially at the level of organisms and their developmental processes. For instance, it has been claimed that the ability of organisms to change their phenotype for coping with environmental change, namely plasticity, has a leading role in evolution, so that gene frequencies merely follow and reflect such a process (West-Eberhard 2003).

  2. Concerning the ambiguity between cognitive systems and cognitive processes in the ET thesis see Adams and Aizawa (2008, 107).

  3. Even if Clark and Chalmers (1998), Clark (1997, 2005), Noe (2004), Wilson (2004), Rowlands (2003), Sutton (2009) or Hurley (2003) do not agree on the consequences and the precise reasons for the thesis, they still defend some version of it.

  4. Some have said that what “gene” means depends upon the field of enquiry and that there is no unified concept of gene (Neumann-Held 1997; Moss 2003), or even that “transcripts” are in real life what best corresponds to the genetic idea of genes (Gingeras 2007)—all this is a recent result of empirical research in molecular biology.

  5. The double status of their theses is acknowledged by Griffiths and Gray (2001): “It is uncontroversial to describe all these resources as playing a role in development. But it is highly controversial to say that these same resources are ‘inherited’.” Pradeu (2010) offers this gradation consensuality of DST theses about development:

    1. 1.

      Factors other than genes are important in development. (Virtually every biologist accepts that).

    2. 2.

      Genes do not play a central, not even a privileged role, in development (genes are not controllers of development). (Few biologists accept that).

    3. 3.

      Factors which play a role in development are not separate channels, they become causally relevant only by their interaction. (Very few biologists accept that).

    4. 4.

      The nature/nurture dichotomy should be got ridden of. (A very small fraction of biologists accept that, even when they start their writings by saying the contrary: Oyama 2000).

  6. On this basis, confusions stemming from an overly simple reading of the labels “extensions” and “parity” should be avoided: in cognitive science, the issue is whether cognitive processes are brain centred, while in the life sciences, the issue is whether genes have “causal primacy”. So, in cognitive science, the issue is not whether cognitive processes have causal primacy over environmental processes, and in the life sciences, at least in the cases surveyed in this paper, the issue is not whether genes are found outside the cell or the organism.

  7. Even saying that parts of the gazelles do become parts of the lion, and therefore save a constitutional claim, is mistaking since it’s not the gazelle qua gazelle that enters into the nutrition process of the lion.

  8. Maynard-Smith (2000) seems to conflate both arguments: teleosemantic identification of gene functions on the one hand, and acknowledgement that DNA informs in a way which is not natural information because it’s mediated by a code, on the other hand. I separate the two arguments here.

  9. “However, non-genetic inheritance systems often produce patterns of transmission that may be confounded with genetic transmission. Furthermore, the fact that the various inheritance systems form an intricate network of interacting mechanisms makes them notoriously difficult to distinguish from each other.” (Danchin et al. 480).

  10. Importantly, we consider here the differential contributions to the variance of the trait, because it’s this variance that is evolutionary relevant (selection acts only upon varying trait values). The question here is only about evolution, and not development, i.e. we do not ask about the compared causal force of genetic and non genetic factors onto the genesis of a given trait in a given organism.

  11. I thank warmly Arnaud Pocheville (2010) and forthcoming paper made me aware of this role of timescale in such issues.

  12. “Developmental factors transmitted over many generations are more important as evolutionary causes and as explanatory factors of evolution in comparison with factors transmitted over only one generation: the potential evolutionary effects of the former are more significant over time than the potential evolutionary scope of the latter” (Merlin 2010). And “This possibility to lose epigenetic marks and revert to the ancestral phenotype when environmental conditions change constitutes a major difference between genetic and epigenetic inheritance that has major implications” (Danchin et al. 2011, 476).

  13. I warmly thank Françoise Longy, and three anonymous reviewers for their constructive critics, which largely improved the first version of this paper. I am grateful to Ken Aizawa, Andrew Mc Farland and John Symons for their comments and careful language checking. Finally I thank for their very instructive feedback all the participants of the Delaware workshop on realization and cognition (September 2011) organised by Fred Adams and Ken Aizawa.

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    Philippe Huneman

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Huneman, P. Causal Parity and Externalisms: Extensions in Life and Mind. Minds & Machines 23, 377–404 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11023-013-9309-3

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