Wild agency: nested intentionalities in cognitive neuroscience and archaeology

Abstract

The present paper addresses the tensions between internalist and radical-interactionist approaches to cognitive neuroscience, and the conflicting conclusions these positions lead to as regards the issue of whether archaeological artefacts constitute ‘results’ or ‘components’ of cognition. Wild systems theory (WST) and the notion of wild agency are presented as a potential resolution. Specifically, WST conceptualizes organisms (i.e. wild agents) as open, multi-scale self-sustaining systems. It is thus able to address the causal properties of wild systems in a manner that is consistent with radical-interactionist concerns regarding multi-scale contingent interactions. Furthermore, by conceptualizing wild agents as self-sustaining embodiments of the persistent, multi-scale contexts that afforded their emergence and in which they sustain themselves, WST is able to address the semantic properties of wild agents in a way that acknowledges the internalist concerns regarding meaningful (i.e. semantic) internal states (i.e. causal content ). In conclusion, WST agrees with radical interactionism and asserts that archaeological artefacts constitute components of cognition. In addition, given its ability to resolve tensions between the internalist and the radical interactionist approaches to cognition, WST is presented as potentially integrative for cognitive science in general.