Postcognitivist Beckett

74 Pages·2020·1.334 MB·English

by  Olga Beloborodova

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The aim of this Element is to offer a reassessment of Beckett’s L
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alleged Cartesianism using the theoretical framework of B
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extended cognition – a cluster of present-day philosophical R
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theories that question the mind’s brain-bound nature and see D
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cognition primarily as a process of interaction between the V
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human brain and the environment it operates in. The principal Beckett
argument defended here is that despite the Cartesian bias
introduced by early Beckett scholarship, Beckett’s fictional
minds are not isolated scullscapes. Instead, they are grounded
in interaction with their fictional storyworlds, however
impoverished those may have become in the later part of his
writing career.
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About the Series Series Editors
This series presents cutting-edge research Dirk Van Hulle
by distinguished and emerging scholars, University of
providing space for the most relevant Antwerp Olga Beloborodova
debates informing Beckett studies as well Mark Nixon
as neglected aspects of his work. In times University of
of technological development, religious Reading
radicalism, unprecedented migration,
gender fluidity, environmental and social
crisis, Beckett’s works find increased
resonance. Cambridge Elements in
Beckett Studies is a key resource for
readers interested in the current state of
the field.
Cover image: Keystone Press / Alamy Stock Photo

ElementsinBeckettStudies
editedby
DirkVanHulle
UniversityofOxford
MarkNixon
UniversityofReading
POSTCOGNITIVIST
BECKETT
Olga Beloborodova
University of Antwerp
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DOI:10.1017/9781108771108
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Postcognitivist Beckett
ElementsinBeckettStudies
DOI:10.1017/9781108771108
Firstpublishedonline:April2020
OlgaBeloborodova
UniversityofAntwerp
Authorforcorrespondence:OlgaBeloborodova,
[email protected]
Abstract:TheaimofthisElementistoofferareassessmentofBeckett’s
allegedCartesianismusingthetheoreticalframeworkofextended
cognition–aclusterofpresent-dayphilosophicaltheoriesthat
questionthemind’sbrain-boundnatureandseecognitionprimarilyas
aprocessofinteractionbetweenthehumanbrainandtheenvironment
itoperatesin.Theprincipalargumentdefendedhereisthatdespitethe
CartesianbiasintroducedbyearlyBeckettscholarship,Beckett’s
fictionalmindsarenotisolated‘skullscapes’.Instead,theyaregrounded
ininteractionwiththeirfictionalstoryworlds,howeverimpoverished
thosemayhavebecomeinthelaterpartofhiswritingcareer.
Keywords:Beckettstudies,extendedcognition,postcognitivism,fictional
minds,Cartesiandualism
©OlgaBeloborodova2020
ISBNs:9781108708616(PB),9781108771108(OC)
ISSNs:2632-0746(online),2632-0738(print)
Contents
Introduction 1
1 SurveyofBeckettCriticism 4
CartesianisminEarlyAnglophoneBeckettStudies 5
(Anti-)CartesianisminBeckettStudiesToday 16
2 ExtendedCognitioninBeckett’sProse 27
Story:ExtendedMind 29
Discourse:Enactivism 44
Conclusion 58
ListofAbbreviations 60
References 61
ElementsinBeckettStudies 1
Introduction
The aim of this study is to present a new perspective on Beckett’s fictional
minds.Itstheoreticalbackboneistherecentlydevelopedpostcognitivistpara-
digmofextendedcognition:theideathattheminddoesnotresideexclusivelyin
thehead,butratherextendsintotheworldinacontinuousandconstitutiveway.
In foregrounding the hybridity of cognitive processes and states, postcogniti-
vismrejectstraditionalbrain-boundmindmodels,whichinturnderivefromthe
Cartesian principle of mind/world dualism. The Cartesian dualist doctrine,
which has dominated philosophy of mind and cognitive science since the
inceptionofbothdisciplines,treatsthemindasanisolated,hermeticallysealed,
computer-like container that turns on mental representations and operates
entirelyindependentlyfromthelived,phenomenalworlditinhabits.
Beckett’sengagementwithCartesianphilosophyhasbeenwidelyacknowl-
edgedinBeckettstudies.Manyfirst-generationBeckettscholarshadinterpreted
Beckett’s oeuvre through the prism of Descartes’ dualist doctrine, and their
views became firmly entrenched in the decades that followed. More recently,
however, the Cartesian Beckett hypothesis has been losing ground, due in no
small measure to archival research which has revealed numerous other philo-
sophicalsourcesofinfluence,aswellasBeckett’srelativelylimitedknowledge
ofDescartes’work.
WithoutdisputingtheimmensevalueofearlyBeckettscholarship, thepre-
sentstudyprovidesacontributiontopost-CartesianBeckettstudiesbyanalys-
ing Beckett’s extended fictional minds in his prose. The principal argument
defendedhereisthatdespitetheCartesianbiasintroducedbythefirstgeneration
of Beckett scholars, Beckett’s fictional minds are not isolated ‘skullscapes’.1
Instead, more often than not they are grounded in the interaction with their
fictional storyworlds, however impoverished those may have become in the
later part of his writing career. The postcognitivist reassessment of Beckett’s
workaimsatfosteringanewapproachtotheBeckettianmind,awayfromthe
canonical critical focus on introspection and towards a hybrid model of
cognition.
Thepresent studyhasthefollowing structure: intheIntroduction,postcog-
nitivisttheoriesofextendedcognitionwillbebrieflyelucidatedandcontrasted
withCartesiandualism.Section1willthentracetheemergenceoftheCartesian
bias in early Beckett studies and its evolution in recent decades. What this
1 LindaBen-ZviderivedhercanonicaltermfromanequallyfamousBeckettianimage:‘[w]hether
lightordark,smallorspacious,alltheseenclosuresarevariationsofthesameskullscapefirst
exploredbytheUnnamable:“theinsideofmydistantskullwhereIoncewandered,nowam
fixed”’(1986,4).
2 PostcognitivistBeckett
survey demonstrates is that, in many cases, early Beckett scholars had good
reasonsforforegroundingCartesianelementsinBeckett’stexts;however,other
influenceswereoftenoverlookedandalternativeinterpretationswerelacking.
Section 2 engages in a dialogue with this Cartesian perspective by discussing
Beckett’s prose works in order to flesh out his extended fictional minds. For
reasons of scope, drama does not feature in Section 2 (and features only
marginally in Section 1), although a postcognitivist reading certainly applies
toBeckett’splaysjustasmuchasitdoestoBeckett’sprose.2
Theideaofacloseinteractionbetweenthehumanbrainandtheenvironmentit
operatesingoesbackalongwayandrosetounprecedentedprominenceduringthe
early modernist period. William James, for example, treated consciousness as
afunctionratherthananentity,3andtheemergingfieldofphenomenologyplaced
the emphasis on subjective experience. However, the twentieth century also
witnessed a paradigm shift away from the notion of experience, partially as
a reaction to the proliferation of ‘unscientific’ psychologism and behaviourism.
Thebirthofanalyticphilosophyattheturnofthecenturyanditslatertransforma-
tionintocognitivescienceinthe1950s,withrudimentaryyetrapidlydeveloping
computers,hasledtoafixationontherepresentationalandcomputationalmodels
for the human brain. Such models assume that sensorimotor and environmental
factorsmerelycausecognitiveprocessestooccurinsidethebrain;innowaydo
theyparticipateincognitionproperlyso-called(Rowlands,2010,30).Fortunately,
in recent decades it has become clear that the clinical abstraction that underlies
brain-bound models of cognition does not bring us much closer to solving the
mysteryofthehumanmind.Asaresult,analternative,postcognitivistparadigm
has emerged both in philosophy and cognitive science – one that brings the
environmentandmaterialobjectsbackunderthespotlightofscientificscrutiny.
Extendedcognition–anumbrellatermforpostcognitivistmodelsusedinter-
changeably with active externalism, 4E cognition,4 and distributed cognition –
insistsonadynamicandconstitutiveinteractionbetweenthebiologicalbrain,the
2 Totakejustoneexample,theshortplayPlay(1964)isgroundedintheconstitutiveinteraction
betweenthecharactersandthelightbeamthatpromptsandcutstheirspeechesbyjumpingfrom
onefacetoanother,thusregulatingtheircognitiveactivity.Fordetailsonextendedcognitionin
Beckett’sdrama,seeBeloborodova2018.
3 Inhis1904essay,provocativelytitled‘DoesConsciousnessExist?’,Jamesexplainsthatheonly
deniestheexistenceofconsciousnessasoneofthepolesinadualistsystem:‘Imeanonlytodeny
thatthewordstandsforanentity,buttoinsistmostemphaticallythatitdoesstandforafunction.
Thereis,Imean,noaboriginalstufforqualityofbeing,contrastedwiththatofwhichmaterial
objectsaremade,outofwhichourthoughtsaremade;butthereisafunctioninexperiencewhich
thoughtsperform,andfortheperformanceofwhichthisqualityisbeingevoked’(1996,1–2;
emphasisadded).
4 4Ecognitionstandsforembodied,embedded,enacted,andextendedcognition(thefourmain
strandsinpostcognitivism).
ElementsinBeckettStudies 3
restofthebody,andtheenvironment.Departingfromasimplequestion–‘Where
doesthemindstopandtherestoftheworldbegin?’(ClarkandChalmers,2010,
27)–theproponentsofextendedcognitionattempttodealasignificantblowto
thehegemonyoftheCartesianmindthathasreignedsupremeforcenturiesinthe
Western world, and thus dispense with the ubiquitous principle of mind/world
dualismitentails.
Forthepresentstudy,twotheoriesofextendedcognitionwillbeofrelevance,
one more radically anti-Cartesian than the other. The less radical one is the
extendedmindthesis:accordingtoitsfoundingfathers,AndyClarkandDavid
Chalmers, the extended mind thesis straddles the internal human brain and
externalobjects(bothmaterialandimmaterial)inaso-calledhybridorextended
cognitivesystem.Theideaisthatbothelements–neuralandextracranial–are
equallyimportant:‘[T]hehumanorganismislinkedwithanexternalentityin
atwo-wayinteraction,creatingacoupledsystemthatcanbeseenasacognitive
systeminitsownright....Ifweremovetheexternalcomponentthesystem’s
behavioural competence will drop, just as it would if we removed part of its
brain’(ClarkandChalmers,2010,29).Theextendedmindthesisunderwrites
thetraditionalassumptionthatcognitionisessentiallyinformationprocessing,
and the only way to process information is to turn it into some form of
representation. Whatitdisputes,however,isthenecessarily intracranial loca-
tionofrepresentations,claimingthattheycanalsobeexternalandfunctionally
similartotheirinternalcounterparts.
Weusecoupledcognitivesystemsallthetimeinoureverydaylives.Consider
the ways we rely on our content-bearing devices, such as smartphones and
computers, to offload our long-term memory. However, the extended mind
thesis goes beyond purely mnemonic functions, and a good example here is
creative writing.As Richard Menarynotes, ‘anact of writingissupported by
neural enabling processes as well as manipulations of the bodily external
environment. We create and manipulate words and sentences in conjunction
withrelevantbodilyandneuralfunctions’(Menary,2007,622).MarcoBernini
alsoreferstoauthorsoffictionas‘extended-mindworkers’(2014),foreground-
ingmaterialagencyasaconstitutivepartofahybridcognitivesystem.
Unliketheextendedmindthesis,enactivism,themoreradicalmemberofthe
postcognitivist family, categorically rejects the representational account of
cognitionandclaimsthatcognitiveprocessestakeplaceduringtheintelligent
agent’sunmediatedinteractionwiththeirsurroundings.Itdrawsonthetheories
of the French phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty, who emphasised the
importance of the body for human cognition and saw ‘our bodies both as
physical structures and as lived, experiential structures’ (Varela et al., 1991,
xv).ThisishowVarela,Thompson,andRoschformulatethechallengeoftheir
4 PostcognitivistBeckett
enactivisttheory:‘Intheenactiveprogram,weexplicitlycallintoquestionthe
assumption–prevalentthroughoutcognitivescience–thatcognitionconsistsof
therepresentationofaworldthatisindependentofourcognitiveandperceptual
capacitiesbyacognitivesystemthatexistsindependentoftheworld’(pagexx).
Morerecently,DiPaolo,Rohde,andDeJaegher(2010)developedasetoffive
elements that constitute an enactive cognitive system: namely, autonomy or
self-generation, sense-making, emergence, embodiment, and experience. The
keyfeatureofsuchasystemisthatitisnotonlyshapedbytheworlditinteracts
with,butit alsoplays a constitutive role inshaping thatworldevery time the
interaction takes place. In other words, enactivism goes beyond rejecting the
conceptofmentalrepresentationsasthemotorofcognitiveactivity:itquestions
the very idea of a stable, pre-given world out there that only needs to be
discovered by an otherwise passive organism. The idea is that the organism’s
cognitiveactions‘modifytheenvironmentand/ortherelationoftheorganismto
its environment, and hence modify in return the sensory input’ (Stewart,
2010,3).
Even this brief description of two major postcognitivist strands reveals
important differences in the way they situate the cognising agent within its
environment. While the extended mind thesis, with its foregrounding of
external objects as parts of a hybrid cognitive system, still underwrites the
representationalmindmodelandimplicitlyacknowledgestheexistenceofthe
internal/externaldivide,enactivismabandonsbothofthesepremises–intheir
eyesstillCartesian–andreconceptualisescognitionasaperpetualfeedback
loopwithnopre-givenrepresentationalstructuresstoredintheneuralbrainor
elsewhere.
1SurveyofBeckettCriticism
ThissectionseekstoexplorethecriticalappraisalofBeckett’sengagementwith
philosophy.ThefirstpartinvestigatestheCartesianbiasinearlyBeckettcriti-
cismanditsgradualundoinginmorerecentscholarship,focusingontherigid
mind/world(orsubject/object)dualismadvocatedbyDescarteshimselfaswell
ashisfollowers,suchasArnoldGeulincx.Thesecondpartintroducesanumber
ofalternativephilosophicalschools(suchasearlyGreekphilosophy,phenom-
enology,andextendedcognition)thathavebeengainingincreasingprominence
asBeckettstudiesmatured.
Ironically,Beckettstudieshavebeenplaguedbyallmannerofdualismsfrom
the very start: French-speaking vs Anglophone, modernist vs postmodernist,
humanistvspoststructuralist,andsoon.Inthisconnection,theCartesianbiasin
early Anglophone Beckett studies has been seen as a counterweight to the