An Analysis Of John Sutton’s Complementary Theory

Extended cognition is produced under the influence of thoughts such as body cognition,functionalism and causality.An article entitled "The Extended Cognition",co-authored by Andy Clark and David Chalmers in 1998,argues that "cognition is not confined to the human brain" and it revolves around the question of whether cognition can extend beyond the brain or body.There are two opposing camps.One side is supporters as Clark and Chalmers,but the other side is opponents as Adams and Aizawa.As a supporter of extended cognition,John F.Kennedy pays close attention to functional equivalence.He regards the collaboration between the internal and external components of the body as a evidence of cognitive extension to the external components.Because of the fundamentally difference between the brain and the external tool,Sutton turns to the complementary argument: the brain and the external environment can complement each other in producing an advantage.The article is on the basis of Sutton’s cognitive interpretation path to unfold.First,Sutton uses the extended cognitive cases based on the complementary internal and external resources,through which the neural,physical,social and environmental resources with different but complementary attributes are integrated into the hybrid cognitive system,which changes or enhances the nature of memory or decision-making.Second,Sutton looks forward to the theoretical trend of complementary argumentation,which provides a clear vision for subsequent supporters.Last,Sutton combines complementarity theory with memory method and distributed cognition,which gave birth to a new path of cognitive interpretation.The purpose of this paper is to study Sutton’s thought source,characteristics,advantages,the influence of his thought on the extension cognition and the philosophical value.Extension cognition has been widely paid attention to and intensely discussed in recent years.Through the study of extended cognition,extension cognition is constantly developing in debate.On one hand,based on complementarity theory,it is clear that the view of extending cognition breaks out of the boundaries of the brain,and cognitive processes extend beyond the brain into the body and environment.On the other hand,by analyzing the progress of complementarity theory and its historical role in extension cognition,it provides a method for the multiple realization of extension cognition and the dilemma of extension cognition.