I’ve ‘finished’ writing Whose Mind is it Anyway? This is my big book of hostile scaffolding. It’s got treatments of hostility in body-adjacent technology (clothes), epistemic action, ‘regular’ scaffolding and niche-construction, as well as an attempt to defend a big picture view of the sources of hostility (the kinds of selection that produce it) and the targets (the kinds of selective mechanism it works on). The whole thing is six chapters long, and I’m engaging with a possible publisher now. Many people provided feedback on draft chapters (some even taught a selection) and the result is much better because of their time and attention.
Here is the table of contents:
Whose Mind is it Anyway?
Hostility and Scaffolded Cognition
Preface
Chapter 1: Optimists and Pessimists
1.1 Dumb in Peace?
1.2 External (cognitive) Affairs
1.3 Good News, Bad News
1.4 Here’s the Plan
Chapter 2: Situated Parasites
2.1 Enemies within and without
2.2 Extended analogies
2.3 Hostile epistemic Actions
2.4 Let’s get psychological
Chapter 3: Body Blows
3.1 Embodied Cognition
3.2 The original wearable technology
3.3 Hostility incorporated
3.4 Breathing bad
3.5 Socially distributed hostility
Chapter 4: Scaffolded Hostility
4.1 Appliances of all kinds
4.2 Landscaping choice
4.3 Reels and deals
4.4 Complicating dimensions
Chapter 5: Nasty Niches
5.1 All who live in it
5.2 Niches can be Nasty
5.3 Separated development
5.5 Running like a girl
5.5 The Valley of Temptation
Chapter 6: Engines of Hostility
6.1 Surprising variety
6.2 Dennett’s outrageous oversimplification
6.3 The tower of sabotage and hack
6.3 Interests and their bearers
6.5 Getting Ahead in a Hostile World
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