Do No Harm: the Extended Mind Model and the Problem of Delayed Damage

I argue in this essay that there can be harm due to philosophy that is not directly expressed in violent imagery. The harm is instead a concealed and delayed detrimental effect of an assumption of non-violence in a working model, defined as a picture of a field of enquiry and the methods required to...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Sophia
Main Author: Williams, James (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Springer Netherlands [2016]
In: Sophia
IxTheo Classification:NBE Anthropology
VA Philosophy
Further subjects:B Andy Clark
B extended mind
B Harm
B Process Philosophy
B Philosophical models
B Kim Sterelny
Online Access: Volltext (Verlag)
Volltext (doi)
Description
Summary:I argue in this essay that there can be harm due to philosophy that is not directly expressed in violent imagery. The harm is instead a concealed and delayed detrimental effect of an assumption of non-violence in a working model, defined as a picture of a field of enquiry and the methods required to approach it. Theses for the extended mind, as developed by Andy Clark and others, lead to a form of harm that follows from the models they work with. These engineering, tool and function-based models seek smooth interactions and transparency. Following points made by Kim Sterelny in the philosophy of biology, I argue that claims for smoothness and transparency conceal underlying conflict in the situations they seek to describe and explain. This concealment leads to harm, defined as a diminishing of our capacities to flourish in a given environment.
ISSN:1873-930X
Contains:Enthalten in: Sophia
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1007/s11841-016-0515-3