Extended Knowledge (2013-15)

Funded by the AHRC (c. £510K)

Project Team

• Principal Investigator: Prof Duncan Pritchard FRSE
• Co-Investigators: Prof Andy Clark FRSE & Dr Jesper Kallestrup
• Auditors: Prof Robert Rupert (Colorado, Boulder) & Prof Ernest Sosa (Rutgers)
• Postdoctoral Fellows: Dr J. Adam Carter, Dr Orestis Palermos, and Dr Adam Toon (Marie Curie)
• Local Members: Dr Allan Hazlett; Dr Suilin Lavelle; Dr Aidan McGlynn; Dr Mark Sprevak; Dr Nick Treanor; Dr Till Vierkant; Dr Dave Ward.
• International Network: Prof Sven Bernecker (UC, Irvine); Prof Brit Brogaard (St. Louis); Prof Axel Gelfert (Singapore); Dr. Mikkel Gerken (Copenhangen); Prof Brie Gertler (Virginia); Prof Sanford Goldberg (Northwestern); Dr Christoph Kelp (Leuven); Prof Jennifer Lackey (Northwestern); Prof Robert Logan (Toronto); Prof Richard Menary (Macquarie); Dr Kirk Michealian (Bilkent); Prof Ram Neta (UNC, Chapel Hill); Prof Nikolaj Jang Lee Linding Pedersen (Yonsei); Prof Joelle Proust (Jean-Nicod); Prof Georg Theiner (Villanova); Dr Sarah Sawyer (Sussex); Dr Paul Smart (Southampton); Prof Declan Smithies (Ohio State); Dr Krist Vaesen (Eindhoven); Prof Hamid Vahid (Tehran); Prof Asa Wikforss (Stockholm). (More to follow).

Affiliated Project

• Cognition in Science.

Project Summary

This major project involves a three-year programme of research. It will for the first time offer a systematic exploration of the various different ways of ‘externalising’ knowledge, one which draws on cutting-edge research on knowledge and cognition. It will then build on this systematic exploration to offer a new perspective on two particularly significant ways in which knowledge could be thought to be ‘extended’--viz., the extended cognition and distributed cognition research programmes as they apply to knowledge. In both cases the result is a form of extended knowledge, where what is unique to the latter is that the extension in question is distinctively social. The project will help establish an international network of around fifty researchers, including both established and early career. It will also draw on the unique research strengths in the University of Edinburgh, not only within Philosophy in the areas of epistemology and philosophy of mind and cognitive science, but also within the School of Philosophy, Psychology & Language Sciences and the neighbouring School of Informatics in the area of cognitive science more generally.

Project Events

The first project workshop will be held on June 10-11th 2013. 

Project Outputs

Dr Kallestrup and Prof Pritchard will be editing the 2014 edition of Philosophical Issues, an annual supplement to the journal Nous. This will comprise around 20 full-length articles on topics related to the project. Confirmed contributors include: Sven Bernecker; Brit Brogaard; Axel Gelfert; Mikkel Gerken; Sandy Goldberg; Christoph Kelp; Jennifer Lackey; Ram Neta; Kirk Michaelian; Joelle Proust; Robert Rupert; Sarah Sawyer; Georg Theiner; Adam Toon; Krist Vaesen; Hamid Vahid; and Asa Wikforss.