Widening the extended mind theory: the mind as a capacity

Abstract

This a theoretical poster. Its explores the way for a comprehensive understanding of the human mind. Philosophers and neuroscientists often reject the claim that their theory of the mind and of the mental phenomena is in any way ‘reductive’. This adjective typically involves the crucial negligence of essential features of the subjective and a too narrow scientific outlook. I show here that by adequately connecting the theory of the extended mind (EM) with the philosophical theory of capacities or abilities, which is attributed to Aristotle (IV b. C.), such negligence can be avoided. A more precise, integrative and open-ended view of the mind emerges then, a view which I will only sketch here.