Introduction to "The Material Bases of Cognition"

The papers published in the special issue of Minds & Machines track the development of the material bases of cognition. The collection begins with papers by Theurer and Gillett on the metaphysics of material bases. Theurer's paper focuses on a putative feature of reduction, such as whether the relation, 'X is a material basis for Y' is a transitive relation. The papers by Adams and Garrison, and Shapiro, concern themselves with the nature of cognition. Huneman and Haselager explore new directions in the debates over the material bases of cognition. Haselager offers a suggestive account of how certain tools, such as wheelchairs controlled through the assistance of artificial intelligence and brain computer interfaces (BCI) causally influence one's sense of agency. Haselager implicitly proposes is that there can be scientifically and philosophically interesting work showing how one's tools can causally influence one's sense of agency.