Human thinking uses other peoples’ experience. While often pictured as computation or based on the workings of a language-system in the mind or brain, the evidence suggests alternatives to representationalism. In terms proposed here, embodiment is interlaced with wordings as people tackle the integration problem. Using a case study, the paper shows how a young man uses external resources in an experimental task. He grasps a well-defined problem by using material resources, talking about his doings and switching roles and procedures. Attentional skills enable him to act as an air cadet who, among other things, connects action, leadership and logic. Airforce practices prompt him to draw timeously on non-local resources as, using impersonal experience, he interlaces language, action and perception. He connects the cultural and the metabolic in cognitive work as he finds a way to completion of the task.

Key words: cognitive science, distributed cognition, ecological psychology, enactivism, integration problem, interactivity, problem solving, river problem, systemic cognition, thinking

The concepts of subjectivity and the self permeate the foundations of the philosophy of distributed cognition (DCog). Proponents of DCog argue that cognition extends beyond the confines of the brain and moves into the immediate bio-social environment. Here, as well as in the special issue in general, we extend this argument by looking at multi-scalar temporalities that influence the emergence and potential of the self. In particular, we argue that the self is best understood as a relational entity that immerses contextually in a distributed, non-stable, and temporally multi-scalar manner. This conceptualization of the self points to interesting conclusions concerning the operationalization of reasoning, the foundations of communication, and cognition in general. Together, this bring home at least two major philosophical implications of viewing language and thinking as temporally multi-scalar. First, contextually immersed subjectivity is compatible with tracing language and cognition to how cultural resources extend human embodiment (this frames the potential for cognition, subjectivity, and the self). Second, while distributed and fragmented, the construction of temporal experience can become an organizing principle for the construction of the self. Through this lens, cognition binds what is learned from introspection with contextual immersion that uses skills in temporal integration. This challenges views of self and cognition as stable internal phenomena and, conversely, shows that philosophy and psychology have much to gain from examining how living human beings achieve temporal unity.

Key words: distributed cognition, distributed language, multi-scalar temporalities, systemic cognition, the self, ubjectivity