Distributed Cognition in Medieval and Renaissance Culture

This collection brings together 14 essays by international specialists in medieval and Renaissance culture and provides a general and a period-specific introduction to distributed cognition and the cognitive humanities. The essays revitalise our reading of medieval and Renaissance works in the fields of literature, philosophy, art, music, law, science, medicine and material culture, by bringing to bear recent insights in cognitive science and philosophy of mind on the ways in which cognition is distributed across brain, body and world. This volume explores how medieval and Renaissance practices and ideas make evident earlier expressions of distributed cognition. As many of the texts and practices have influenced later Western European societies and cultures, this book reveals vital stages in the historical development of our attempts to comprehend and optimise the distributed nature of cognition.