@ARTICLE{Trybulec_Barbara_The_2020, author={Trybulec, Barbara}, volume={Tom 8}, number={Część 2}, journal={Filozofia i Nauka}, pages={89-113}, howpublished={online}, year={2020}, publisher={Instytut Filozofii i Socjologii PAN}, publisher={Instytut filozofii UMCS}, abstract={The philosophical tradition defines the subject as a reflective being, in principle aware of its agency which makes it capable of making free decisions and taking responsibility for them. Agency, understood in this way, is clearly attributed only to people. However, the technological development of artificial cognitive enhancements and of increasingly autonomous artificial intelligence, that has been taken place in last few decades, casts doubts whether such an approach is not too anthropocentric. This doubt is indicated by some proponents of extending cognitive processes beyond the human brain; they argue for the need of appropriate extension of the subject as well. Moreover, there is an increasing number of proposals attributing agency to artifacts. In the first part of the article, I refer to the two most commonly used philosophical criteria distinguishing the subject of cognition from all information processing systems: being a reflective system, and being the subject of intentional stance. Next, I assess, from such a perspective, the attempts to attribute agency to both one-person extended cognitive systems and artificial systems, such as relatively autonomous computer programs. I argue that the gap between conceptions of the extended subject and the artificial subject, and the standard approach incline toward the usage of the term “agent” designating this phenomenon. The term is already widely used in cognitive science to designate any relatively autonomous information processing system performing a cognitive task. The need of the clear distinction between “the subject” (“subjectivity”) and “the agent” (“agency”) is especially noticeable in Polish, where the difference in meanings of these concepts is not so evident as in English. The awareness of the applying in cognitive science these two different notions of agency prevents against a conceptual misuse which could lead to erroneous explanations and predictions.}, type={Artykuły / Articles}, title={The subject or agent? Understanding subjectivity in the cognitive artefacts era}, URL={http://journals.pan.pl/Content/117955/PDF-MASTER/6_Trybulec.pdf}, keywords={subject, agent, agency, extended mind thesis, extended cognitive system, cognitive enhancement, artificial cognitive system}, }