RESEARCH PAGE
John Sutton
John Sutton, Philosophy
Department, Macquarie University,
Sydney.
Back to my home
page. Email me.
Here is a list of my recent and upcoming talks,
and here is a page with details of all my old talks.
INDEX TO RESEARCH PAGE
This is a hub page linking to my various
research projects.
Memory
Cognitive Science and Distributed Cognition
History and historical cognitive
science
Editorial work, Research Admin, and
Refereeing.
Link to my papers
page, where you'll find some drafts of papers and book reviews on
cognitive science, memory, and history of science.
Link to my Philosophy
and Cognitive Science Resources Index.
Here's a link to resources and
bibliographies for the Interdisciplinary
Study of Memory.
And related materials for the Interdisciplinary
Study of Dreams.
Memory
Current research on
memory (2006)
i) 'From
autobiographical memory to collective memory: an interdisciplinary
study of individual and group cognition', in
collaboration with Amanda
Barnier.
We aim to integrate
established empirical research on
interpersonal memory dynamics (in work on collaborative recall and
memory contagion) with
theories of shared
and social memory developed from two
key conceptual sources - the Extended Mind/ Distributed Cognition
framework in philosophy of cognitive science,
and the idea of the plural
subject from social ontology in the philosophy of the social sciences.
We investigate both what Rob Wilson
calls the social
manifestation of
individual memory, and true collective memory in small groups, as
expressed in 'we remember' statements. This project also aims
to reinterpret central
ideas from Maurice Halbwachs and Frederic Bartlett; to continue our
integrative work with the social-interactionist tradition
in the developmental
psychology of autobiographical memory; and to address philosophical/
moral implications of our attention to relational remembering.
- Sydney
Collective Memory Meeting,
July 14, 2006
- New journal to be
published by Sage and launched in 2008: Memory
Studies
- Sample initial papers (for
more see my papers
page):
- (in press)
Amanda J. Barnier,
John Sutton, Celia B. Harris, & Robert A. Wilson,
'A
Conceptual and Empirical Framework for the Social Distribution of
Cognition: the case of memory' [prepublication draft],
forthcoming in special
issue
of Cognitive Systems Research on group cognition.
-
(in press) 'Integrating
the Philosophy and Psychology of Memory: two case studies',
forthcoming in Mario de Caro, Francesco Ferretti,
and
Massimo Marraffa
(eds.), Cartographies of the Mind: the
interplay
between philosophy & psychology (Kluwer, 2006), 69-79.
- 'Remembering',
Philip Robbins and Murat Aydede
(eds), The
Cambridge Handbook of Situated Cognition
(Cambridge
University Press, late 2007 or 2008)
ii) 'Applying
intelligence to the reflexes: embodied skill and kinesthetic memory,'
in collaboration with Doris McIlwain,
funded by a
Macquarie University Research
Development Grant (2006-2008).
Highly
skilled activities like sport and dance are of great cultural
significance for
participants and audiences.
Expertise requires both intensive long-term
training and the capacity to avoid distraction, intrusive thinking, or
excessive
self-monitoring. Such embodied
skills offer a rare chance to study
memory, attention, and anticipation in complex real-world settings.
This
project in
philosophy and psychology
investigates relations between thought and
action. How do we influence ourselves, in practice and in performance?
How
can
instruction alter grooved embodied skills? In preliminary studies of
cricket
batting and yoga, we develop a new model of the development and nature
of
kinaesthetic memory. For example, we
aim to identify the role of various forms of ‘instructional nudges’ (a
term drawn from David Sudnow's account
of learning improvisatory jazz
piano) in expert practice and performance as a way to understand how
humans can influence themselves, and how
coaching or teaching can ever
improve performance.
-
Sample initial papers (for more see my papers
page):
- (in press) 'Batting,
Habit, and Memory: the embodied mind and the nature of skill', in
Jeremy McKenna (ed), The
Philosophy of Cricket,
to be
published both as a special issue of the journal Sport in
Society and as a book in the series Sport in the
Global Society (Taylor
and
Francis).
- (2005) 'Moving
and Thinking Together in Dance', in Thinking
in Four Dimensions: creativity and cognition in contemporary
dance, eds
Robin Grove,
Kate
Stevens,
& Shirley McKechnie (Melbourne University Press e-book).
Please email me for more on
these projects.
iii) With Catharine Abell and Jordi
Fernandez, I am
running a reading group at Macquarie University on Point
of View in Personal Memory (on the
related distinctions
between field and observer modes of remembering, and between centrally
and acentrally remembering)
2003-2005 Project: 'Interdisciplinarity
in the sciences of memory: cognition, culture, and
complexity', funded by an ARC Discovery Grant.
For a fuller description of this project,
which has now been extended/ refined into the projects listed above,
click here.
Some sample publications (for
a full list see my
publications page).
-
(forthcoming) 'Language,
Memory, and Concepts of Memory: semantic diversity and scientific
psychology', in Mengistu Amberber
(ed.), The Language of Memory
from a Cross-linguistic Perspective. (John Benjamins).
- (2006) 'Memory',
Donald M. Borchert (ed), The Encyclopedia of
Philosophy (2nd
edition, Farmington Hills, MI: Macmillan Reference/
Thomson Gale, 2006 [published December 2005]),
volume 5, pp.122-8.
- (2004) 'Representation,
Reduction, and Interdisciplinarity in the Sciences of Memory' [html,
or here in pdf],
in Hugh Clapin,
Phillip Staines, and Peter Slezak (eds.), Representation
in Mind: new approaches to mental representation (Elsevier),
pp.187-216.
- (2003) 'Memory',
in the
online Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Cite as (Summer
2004 Edition), Edward N.
Zalta (ed.),
URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2004/entries/memory/>
- (2003) 'Constructive
Memory and Distributed Cognition: towards an interdisciplinary
framework', in Boicho Kokinov and
William Hirst (eds.), Constructive Memory (Sofia:
New Bulgarian University), 290-303.
My 1998 book Philosophy
and Memory Traces: Descartes to connectionism (CUP) was more
historical than my more recent work, but also
included extensive treatment of
theories of memory in philosophy and cognitive science. For extracts
and details click here.
TOP OF PAGE
Cognitive Science
and Distributed Cognition
I'm interested in the foundations of the cognitive sciences, in
particular from the point of view of the 'extended mind' hypothesis and
the
various interrelated movements under
the labels 'distributed cognition' and 'situated cognition'. This links
closely with my work on memory,
for example in developing an account of
shared memory using the resources of social ontology; but it also
springs from independent interests
in post-connectionist theories of mind
and self, in relations between the cognitive sciences and the social
sciences, and in material agency. For
example, in 2002 I introduced the idea
of 'the cognitive life of things', in explicit analogy to the idea of
'the social life of things' developed in
social theory by Appadurai, Kopytoff
and others, and related ideas in social anthropology and cognitive
archaeology. This has now been picked
up and put into exciting practice in
recent work by Ed Hutchins, Donald Norman, David Kirsh, and others.
Some sample publications (for
a full list see my
publications page).
-
(in press) 'Exograms
and Interdisciplinarity: history, the extended mind, and the civilizing
process', in Richard Menary (ed), The
Extended Mind (Ashgate). Identifying
three distinct movements in recent literature
on the extended
mind, this paper defends an interdisciplinary vision of the theory's
implications, applied in two detailed
case studies which further extend the framework for
historical cognitive science.
- (in press) 'Distributed
Cognition: domains and dimensions', Pragmatics and
Cognition 14 (2), 2006, 235-247, special issue on distributed
cognition.
- (2004) 'Representation,
Levels, and Context in Integrational Linguistics and Distributed
Cognition' [final draft version], Language
Sciences 26 (6), 503-524
- (2002) 'Porous
Memory and the Cognitive Life of Things'. In Darren Tofts,
Annemarie Jonson, and Alessio Cavallaro (eds), Prefiguring
Cyberculture:
an intellectual history
(MIT Press and Power Publications), pp.130-141.
History
and Historical Cognitive Science
The earlier historical work in my 1998 book Philosophy
and Memory Traces: Descartes to connectionism (CUP) addressed
body history and cultural history
as well as issues in the history of the
neurosciences, psychology, and
philosophy. I continue to work on the "animal spirits",
the strange nervous fluids
which were thought for centuries to be the
medium of neural transmission. In my book I tried to sketch the
bewildering range of scientific, psychological,
and cultural domains in which talk of the fleeting
animal spirits was entwined. Now I'm seeking to tell a better narrative
of the puzzling process by which animal
spirits finally disappeared from mainstream
neurophysiology some time in the 18th century; and to understand the
roles played by animal spirits (and fickle
imaginary body fluids in general) in changing
Enlightenment models of self-control and cognitive discipline,
especially in England and Scotland. In this connection
I'm working on a
paper on the physiology of chance and habit in early 18th century
medical and philosophical theory.
More recently I've been able to connect this project more directly to
my work on memory and on distributed cognition, thanks in large part to
the active support and
enthusiasm of colleagues and
collaborators, notably Gail Kern Paster whose work on humoral theory in
early modern England has been responsible for extremely
fruitful points of contact being
forged between literary history and the cognitive sciences. I am now
working on a single project 'The extended mind
in early modern
England', in
collaboration with Lyn Tribble,
who has offered the most successful and detailed application yet of
Clark/ Hutchins-style analysis to historical case
studies.
This is particularly exciting for me as a way to implement my picture
of a 'historical cognitive science' (if we're cyborgs now, we always
have been).
I also keep up when I can with older interests in Descartes' natural
philosophy, where (along with Stephen Gaukroger and John Schuster) I
have put the case strongly for
seeing 'scientific' projects as lying at the heart
of Descartes' enterprise, and in particular for a radically revised
picture of Descartes' account of embodiment.
Some sample publications
(for
a full list see my
publications page).
-
(2007)
'Spongy
Brains and Material Memories'
in Mary
Floyd-Wilson
& Garrett Sullivan
(eds.), Environment and Embodiment in early
modern England,
Palgrave Macmillan, July 2007, pp.
14-34. Better, you can download the
published version from
the Palgrave UK site for
this book (click 'Read a sample
chapter')
-
(in press) 'Exograms
and Interdisciplinarity: history, the extended mind, and the civilizing
process', in Richard Menary (ed), The
Extended Mind (Ashgate). Identifying
three distinct movements in recent literature
on the extended mind, this paper defends an interdisciplinary vision of
the theory's implications, applied in two detailed
case studies which further extend the framework for
historical cognitive science.
- (2002) 'Porous
Memory and the Cognitive Life of Things'. In Darren Tofts,
Annemarie Jonson, and Alessio Cavallaro (eds), Prefiguring
Cyberculture: an
intellectual
history
(MIT Press and Power Publications), pp.130-141. This paper revises
my earlier account of the Renaissance arts of memory (Sutton 2000,
below), while it introduces
and applies the notion of 'the cognitive life
of things'. This conceit, adapted from Arjun Appadurai's (1986) work on
'the social life of things', has now been taken up in
recent work cognitive archaeology and cognitive
anthropology (see for example this 2006
conference and this wonderful new paper
by Ed Hutchins). I hae now tried to
refine my take on the cognitive life of things,
rendering it more faithful to the diachronic, process-based focus of
the Appadurai model, in 'Material
Agency, Skills, and
History:
distributed cognition and the archaeology
of memory', L.
Malafouris & C. Knappett (eds), Material Agency: towards a
non-anthropocentric approach (in press).
- (2000) (here in a very
badly
formatted old rtf version) 'Body,
Mind, and Order: local memory and the control
of mental representations in medieval and Renaissance
sciences
of
self', in Guy Freeland & Anthony Corones (eds.),
1543 And All That: word and image in the proto-scientific
revolution (Dordrecht: Kluwer), pp.117-150
[Australasian
Studies in History and
Philosophy of Science]
- (2000) Descartes'
Natural Philosophy Edited by Stephen Gaukroger, John
Schuster, and John Sutton (Routledge,
2000), pp.xii + 767.
The Animal
Spirits page.
Resources on Sir
Kenelm Digby.
Editorial Work,
Research Admin, and Refereeing
I am coeditor of a new interdisciplinary journal Memory
Studies, to be published by Sage and launched in 2008.
I'm on the editorial board of the journals Philosophical
Psychology, Scan: journal of
media arts culture,
and Journal of Neuroethics,
and the advisory board of Campus
Review.
From 1994 to 2004 I was Human
Sciences subject editor for Metascience,an international review journal for the history,
philosophy, and social studies of science,
medicine, and technology
edited by Steven
French. We construed the
'human sciences' very broadly. You can find a list of
some Metascience reviews in the
human
sciences areas here.
I was also Secretary of the Australasian Society for History,
Philosophy, and Social Studies of Science (AAHPSS) in 1995-6, and
Treasurer in 1996-7. I was a member of Macquarie
University's Research Policy and Management Committee from 2003-2005.
I've been a reviewer or referee of research proposals
for the
Australian Research Council (ARC), the NZ Marsden Fund, the Canada
Council's Social
Sciences
and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC)
and Killam Research Fellowships, the UK's Arts and Humanities Research
Board (AHRB), and a range of Macquarie
University Research Grants; served on the Prize
Committee of the International Society for the History of the
Neurosciences (ISHN);
refereed book proposals or typescripts for Ashgate,
Blackwell, John Benjamins, Kluwer, Palgrave Macmillan,
MIT Press, Oxford University Press, and Routledge;
and refereed journal
articles for American
Philosophical Quarterly, Artificial Intelligence in Medicine,
Artificial Life,
Australasian Journal of Philosophy, Connection Science,
International Journal of
Behavioral Development, Journal of
Consciousness Studies, Journal of Mind and Behavior, Memory, Mind and
Language,
Philosophical Papers,
Philosophical Psychology, Philosophical Quarterly,
Philosophical Studies, Pragmatics & Cognition, Scan: journal of
media arts
culture, Science and Education,
Shakespeare Quarterly, Studies in History and Philosophy
of Science C,
and
Theory and Psychology.
On Tuesday 21 March 2000 there was a mini-conference
at Macquarie Uni on Consciousness,
Connectionism, and the Self.
On Monday 23 October 2000 there was an interdisciplinary workshop Memory
Trade with Darren Tofts.
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Back to my home
page.
Last updated 4 February 2008.