Abstract

There is a venerable tradition in philosophy that cognition is a mysterious faculty of individual human beings. Increasingly since the late nineteenth century, it has become clear that even when thoughts appear to be expressed by an individual they are the product of more complex factors. Cognitive abilities and perspectives develop over time through one’s embeddedness in a physical, social, cultural and historical world. Thinking is closely related to speaking, a form of communication with others. Particularly in our technological world, thinking is mediated by a broad variety of artifacts and by other features of the context in which we are situated.