Biography
Mason Cash is originally from Gisborne, New Zealand. He moved to Canada in 1995 to do a Ph. D. in philosophy at the University of Alberta, in Edmonton, AB. Before coming to the University of Central Florida in 2003, he taught for three years at Dalhousie University in Halifax, NS, Canada.
Dr Cash has been a member of the UCF Faculty Senate for more than 20 years.
He also is Director of the Cognitive Sciences Graduate Certificate.
Dr. Cash teaches courses in Philosophy of Mind, Philosophy of Cognitive Science, Philosophy of Language, Philosophy of Science, Environmental Ethics, Environmental Philosophy, Metaphysics, and Ethics, among other things.
Education
- Ph.D. in Philosophy from University of Alberta (2000)
Research Interests
- Philosophy of cognitive science
- Philosophy of mind
- Philosophy of language
- Embodied, Embedded, Enactive, Distributed Cognitive Science
- Political Philosophy of mind
- Ethics
Recent Research Activities
Dr. Cash's research revolves around the thesis that human beings are fundamentally members of normative communities. The core of his research program is the thesis that all entities that are held to have meaning (including utterances, actions, images, texts, and neurological representations) are constituted as meaningful by virtue of the role they play in human normative practices; in particular, the practice of ascribing intentional states as reasons for actions. He focuses on the implications of this thesis for our accounts of language, of cognition, and of what it means to be a human being.
Dr. Cash supports an embodied, embedded, distributed, enactivist, approach to cognition. In particular he defends the thesis that it is most productive to see people's ability to think, speak and act intentionally as emerging within a community's shared social practices and institutions, into which people are socialized as they learn and grow. That is, cognition, knowledge, action, and perhaps even skill and know-how, are often best conceived as distributed (not always evenly or fairly) across a population, their artifacts, and their practices and institutions (although we sometimes have reasons to focus ascriptions of responsibility or credit on individuals).
Publications
Articles/Essays
- Mason Cash 2024. “Enactivist Distributed Cognition, and the Role of Distributed Social Practices in Social Change.” Journal of Philosophy of Emotion 6(1)1: 7-19. https://doi.org/10.33497/2024.summer.2
- Mason Cash, 2013. Cognition without borders: 'Third wave' socially distributed cognition and relational autonomy. Cognitive Systems Research. Volumes 25–26, December 2013, Pages 61–71 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cogsys.2013.03.007
- Mason Cash 2010. Extended cognition, personal responsibility, and relational autonomy. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 9: 645–671.
- Cash, M. 2009. Normativity is the mother of intention: Wittgenstein, normative practices and neurological representations. New Ideas in Psychology 27: 133-147
- Cash, M. 2008. The normativity problem: Evolution and naturalized semantics. The Journal of Mind and Behavior 29 (1-2).
- Cash, M. 2008. Thoughts and oughts. Philosophical Explorations 11 (2): 93-119.
Book Reviews
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Mason Cash 2025. “The Ecological Brain needs the rest of E-Cognition.” Philosophical Psychology, 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1080/09515089.2024.2447382
Awards
Dr Cash won a UCF Teaching Incentive Program Award, for excellence in teaching in 2009 and again in 2017.
Courses
| Course # | Course | Title | Mode | Days/Times | Syllabus |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 82999 | PHI2010H | Honors Intro to Philosophy | In Person (P) | M,W,F 10:30 AM - 11:20 AM | Unavailable |
| 83000 | PHI2010H | Honors Intro to Philosophy | In Person (P) | M,W,F 12:30 PM - 1:20 PM | Unavailable |
| 93755 | PHI4321 | Embodiment: Mind Body Self | In Person (P) | M 6:00 PM - 8:50 PM | Unavailable |
| 93756 | PHI5328 | Philosophies of Embodiment | In Person (P) | M 6:00 PM - 8:50 PM | Unavailable |
| Course # | Course | Title | Mode | Days/Times | Syllabus |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11717 | PHI2010 | Introduction to Philosophy | In Person (P) | Tu,Th 12:00 PM - 1:15 PM | Unavailable |
| 19667 | PHI3626 | Adv Ethics in Science & Tech | In Person (P) | Tu,Th 1:30 PM - 2:45 PM | Unavailable |
| 19660 | PHI4221 | Philosophy of Language | In Person (P) | Tu 6:00 PM - 8:50 PM | Unavailable |
| 20276 | PHI5225 | Philosophy of Language | In Person (P) | Tu 6:00 PM - 8:50 PM | Unavailable |