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{{Theory

|Theory Type=Definition

|Formulation Text=Community A is said to be delegating authority over topic ''x'' to community B ''iff'' (1) community A accepts that community B is an expert on topic ''x'' and (2) community A will accept a theory on topic ''x'' if community B says so.

|Formulation File=Authority Delegation (Overgaard-Loiselle-2016).png

|Description=If we consider the fact that scientific research is so specialized that no single research lab can account for all accepted theories in their discipline, we quickly recognize that there exists some form of distribution of labour among subcommunities. Authority delegation is an attempt to capture that distribution of labour, in scientonomic terms.

In recent decades, philosophers and historians of science, along with a few anthropologists and cognitive scientists have adopted a different approach. Focusing on the practice of science, they studied groups of knowers in action – in their natural habitat – and began to pay attention to how knowers talk among themselves. This approach brought us closer to the questions underlying the concept of authority delegation. Where does knowledge reside? Who (or what) counts as a knower? How is knowledge transmitted? Such questions highlight the importance of the division of epistemic labour and therefore of communication within the community (testimony). It also leads some to suggest an epistemic role for artifacts and experiments, and to question the primacy of the individual knower.

The locus classicus of the notion of distributed cognition (D-cog) is anthropologist [[Edwin Hutchins]]’s 1995 book, [[Hutchins (1995)|''Cognition in the Wild'']].[[CiteRef::Hutchins (1995)]] Hutchin’s argues that we will achieve a better understanding of human cognition if we study it not in an artificial laboratory setting, but rather in its natural environment, which is “rich in organizing resources.”[[CiteRef::Hutchins (1995)|p. xiv]] He conducted an ethnographic study of a community of sailors on board a United States Navy ship engaged in the communal cognitive project of navigating the ship’s course into harbour. Focusing on the central importance of the division of labour, Hutchins describes the communal cognitive process as a computational process that entails “the propagation of representational state across a variety of media” in which both persons and tools play an essential role. [[CiteRef::Hutchins (1995)|p. xvi]] He argues that human cognitive powers are critically dependent on the artificially created environment in which they are exercised. From this he concludes that human cognition is not merely embedded in a complex sociocultural world, but is itself actually constituted as a cultural and social process.

Returning to a historical perspective, it is interesting to note the recent suggestion of a conceptual resonance between the current notion of distributed cognition and early twentieth century functional psychology and pragmatic philosophy.[[CiteRef::Osbeck and Nersessian (2014)]] In contrast to experimental psychology, and consonant with recent dynamic systems approaches, functional psychology attended to adaptive cognitive processes of the organism situated in its environment. Similarly, the focus within D-cog on defining the boundaries of the system resonate with the important role of perspective within pragmatism. Moreover, the functionalist emphasis on the interactional nature of meaning resonates with the pragmatist focus on the importance of value in problem solving.

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{{Acceptance Record

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