ABSTRACT
One of the questions that frequently come up in discussions of situated, embodied and distributed cognition is where to draw the boundary between cognisers and their environment. Adams and Aizawa (2001) have recently formulated a critique of what they consider a “radical view of tool use”, i.e., the view of tools as part of the cognitive system. We analyse their critique and show that much of what they consider ‘radical’ turns out to be compatible with what they consider ‘common sense’. Hence, we argue that much of the debate boils down to a disagreement over different uses of the term ‘cognitive’, whereas there is growing agreement about the central role that agent-environment interaction in general, and tool use in particular, play in cognitive processes. We therefore suggest to drop the ‘bounds of cognition’ debate, and conclude by raising what we consider more important questions in the study of cognitive tool use.
