This document discusses two opposing paradigms - functionalism and intentionalism - for explaining socially conceived events like the Holocaust. Functionalism focuses on social/structural factors outside individuals, while intentionalism focuses on individual agency and intentions. The document analyzes these perspectives in the debate between Browning and Goldhagen on the motivations of Holocaust perpetrators. It argues that an extended cognition framework can accommodate both views by treating social phenomena as enabling conditions for cognition and action. Social institutions and norms can shape cognition in a distributed, socially extended way. This framework explains what each paradigm alone cannot by linking social structure and individual agency.

1. Critically assess the debate over structure and agency (functionalism and intentionalism) in the
Holocaust
The social sciences and historiography consist of two diametrically oppositional explanatory
paradigms, functionalism (or situationism) and intentionalism, aimed at adequately explaining the
origin and realisation of socially-conceived and achieved events and/or atrocities, such as the
Holocaust. The former focuses primarily on factors residing outside of individuals, their
intentionality and agency, instead identifying features embedded in social circumstances. This view
is commonly associated with Browning in the debate over structure and agency. The latter,
associated with Goldhagen, focuses on agent subjectivity and intentionality, and purposive, wilful
pursuit of a 'just' and 'necessary' project. This essay offers a focused analysis of Browning's
situationist position alongside a consideration of the content of individual mental states (pace
Goldhagen) as 'enabled' by their relation to social structure, from the position of a (liberal) extended
cognition thesis pertaining to social interaction. This I take to be the idea that certain social
practices and institutions are constituted by cognitive relationships of a systemic, coupled nature
which is a strong enabling condition for certain cognitive processes and states.
Clark and Chalmers (henceforth C&C) provide the most sustained extended mind
hypothesis: active externalism. They contend that the traditional dualist boundary between intra and
extra-cranium is illegitimate; skull and skin are not sufficient evidence for the internal exclusivity of
the mind. If, when acting, we designate an operation that would have otherwise been internal to
some artefact in the environment, then the environment becomes a literal constitutive part of the
cognitive process1
. It is important to note that the artefact does not come to constitute part of the
brain or mind itself, but rather the artefact constitutes part of a system that is doing cognitive work,
and achieving cognitive results. It therefore makes sense, with regard to functional equality, to
speak in this way; functional equivalence is determined by “causal dynamics” (C&C, 1998:13)
which are judged by folk psychological standards: for example, from the perspective of any person,
person X2
is guided by information in their notebook in the same manner that they would be guided
by information in their short term memory. This does not merely indicate 'cognitive assistance', but
parity between artefact and short-term memory.
Tollefsen comments that although “This is a loose sense of 'causal dynamics' … it is clearly
the sense which fuels much of our everyday practice of predicting and explaining people's
1 C&C's “parity principle” (1998:8)
2 C&C give the example of Otto and Inga (where Otto would be person X) who both want to go to see an exhibition at
the Museum of Modern Art. Inga consults her onboard, biological memory and recalls that the MoMA is on 53rd
Street before setting off. Otto has mild Alzheimer's and has previously recorded information about the location of
the MoMA in his trusty, regularly endorsed notebook. He reads that the museum is on 53rd
Street, and sets off - “in...
relevant respects the cases are entirely analogous: the notebook plays for Otto the same role that memory plays for
Inga” (C&C 1998:6).

2. behaviour” (2006:144, emphasis added). The theory's basic sentiment regarding the manner in
which our mind is largely reliant on its environment is shown to be ubiquitously illustrated in
modern society; “there are some tasks that are clearly cognitive and, in the circumstances, could not
be carried out by a single individual acting alone” (Giere, 2007:314). This functionalist-based
theory will therefore be an apt tool for achieving some level of Verstehen.
The two paradigms, represented by Browning and Goldhagen in the debate about the origins of the
Holocaust, aim to explain actions not of distanciated, 'desk-murderers', who are lent to the 'cogs-in-
a-large-machine' analogy, but of direct perpetrators of the Holocaust; the actions of the paramilitary
Ordnungspolizei who committed the genocidal task of exporting and executing hundreds of
thousands of Jews, thus significantly contributing to the reversed percentage of 75/80 percent Jews
alive in 1942, to 75/80 percent dead by 1943 (Browning, 1992:xv).
Browning is particularly responsive to the issue of choice. At the beginning of their duties
the men of Reserve Police Battalion 101 were transported to Poland and gathered before their
commander who addressed the task in mildly anti-semitic, albeit regretful, quasi-syllogistic oratory.
Although they were highly unpleasant and regrettable, the orders had come from the highest
authorities. If any man did not feel able to undertake the task, he could desist. For those who
remained, it would help to remember that the Jews had provoked the damaging anti-Nazi boycott,
and the consequent war on German men, women and children (1992:2). Both Browning and
Goldhagen agree that the men of 101 were, for the most part, sociologically 'ordinary', middle-aged
family men.
According to Browning, only a dozen men out of approximately 500 responded reflexively
to the commander's offer to step forward and excuse themselves from the action (ibid.:71). Between
10 to 20 percent abstained at various stages of the first day's events. Browning suggests that it was
a matter of suddenness and lack of forewarning; the men had to react to the offer to step-forward on
the spur of the moment, weighing up their 'duty' to authority and to their new comrades, their
professionalism (their uniform) and the potential humiliation of “losing face”, and appearing “too
weak” or “cowardly”, before the assembled troops (ibid.:72). The situation dictated their decisions,
indecisions, actions and inactions. None of the men were particularly ideologically motivated but
instead relatively apathetic, their anti-semitism manifest in their impartiality of character, rather
than active hatred; analogous to modern-day racism. The causal explanation for their actions lies in
the demands of the social, structural situation.
Alternatively, Goldhagen's identifies that the “anti-Semitic beliefs about Jews were the
central causal agent of the Holocaust” (1997:9). For him, the argument from obedience and
conformity to external forces cannot do the work required to explain the motivation to engage in

3. mass murder. Previous orders of violence had been resisted, arguably showing that official order
and imposed situation was not sufficient to cause extreme violence; Kristallnacht, for example, a
day long pogrom throughout Nazi Germany and Austria in 1938, was criticised by many Germans
who found the savage violence too licentious, and unsettling. Their “hallucinatory understanding”
of the Jews' omnipotence caused anxiety about future backlash (ibid.:101). Conversely, Goldhagen
argues that the particular content of beliefs shared by the majority of the German population took a
particular form: “eliminationist antisemitism” (ibid.:80); disanalogous to modern-day racism. Given
the belief that German people generally held about the Jewish race, they posed a serious threat to
the German way of life. This he presents as a 'cultural, cognitive model', a “discourse”, “structured
by a stable framework with widely accepted reference points, images, and explicit elaborations”
(ibid.), in place for over thirty years; an embedded cultural tradition. As such, the “common sense”
(ibid.) belief of the German population was in the justice and necessity of eliminating the malign
Jewish force.
The problems faced by both paradigms are highlighted by Goldhagen's work. His
characterisation of the beliefs of the German population as “demonological racial antisemitism”
(ibid.:163) is incongruous with the picture of “willing executioners” (ibid.) who shared a Hitlerian
view of Jewish extermination as 'just' and 'necessary'. One can imagine, from Goldhagen's
presentation, that a 'just' and 'necessary' cause might result in efficient execution, but not sadism.
The allusion to Kristallnacht does not support this ambiguous argument; deeply embedded, cultural
beliefs about Jewishness were not sufficient to motivate excessive violence in this case, and excess
is in need of explanation: it is excessive that not more men abstained from police battalion orders
when given the option. Browning cannot explain why some men persisted despite repulsion at the
executions and evident upset (Browning, 1992:2), and some men desisted. He cannot explain the
initial motivation of some, that others lacked. Goldhagen convincingly argues that 'peer pressure'
should have worked conversely: if the perpetrators were morally opposed, 'peer pressure' would
have socially conducted them to, backed by the consensus of their comrades moral agreement,
refuse orders. However, Browning does offer an interesting explanation of how the perpetrators'
actions were sustained, via social structure, where Goldhagen's explanation fails: a belief that
Jewish extermination is 'just' and 'necessary' would not be enough to sustain prolonged, daily, cold-
blooded murder.
Of those men who did not desist, I consider it relevant to analyse the phenomena reportedly
experienced by each individual. Phenomena of interaction such as camaraderie as well as of
obligation to authority and each other, can be seen under the extended mind framework as vehicles
and enabling conditions of the cognition, resulting in action, of the perpetrators; the sadistic

4. voluntarism and supererogation of some, and the coping strategies such as desensitisation, resulting
in 'sadistic' behaviour, of others. In simpler terms, the social phenomena illustrated by Browning's
position can be seen as enabling conditions of certain forms of cognition (such as belief, motivation
and intention) and action, illustrated by Goldhagen's position. I argue that this tackles Goldhagen's
qualm with 'conventional explanations' (non-cognitive, structural explanations that pay no attention
to agency, thoughts and motivations of individual actors) by treating cognition as partially
constituted by, and realised within, social institution and structure, which serves to shape and
conduct the active, thinking, interpreting, morally principled nature of human agents.
Something that C&C allude to, but do not entertain, is the notion of cognition extended socially (as
opposed to, though not strictly, physically): “Could my mental states be partly constituted by the
states of other thinkers? We see no reason why not, in principle” (1998:17). Socially extended
cognition can be understood in two mutually consistent ways. Firstly as collective, coupled systems
that are constituted primarily by humans, rather than by agent and physical artefact. These groups,
constitutive of a mental system, have properties (including mental states) and do mental work that is
not reducible to the mental states of its constitutive individuals. Secondly, social institutions can be
understood to “operate in ways similar to the hand-held conveniences (notebooks, calculators) that
are often used as examples of extended mind” (Gallager & Crisafi, 2008:46), and can therefore
either be understood as partially constitutive of this same mental system and/or as an enabling
condition of the collectively constituted cognitive system. Regardless of the strength of claim
preferred, I refer to the collective, socially extended mind as almost always effected, enabled,
facilitated, enhanced or partially constituted by socio-cultural practices – in this case, a Third Reich
police battalion. These institutions and practices, when carried out in interactive coordination by a
group of agents, acting within the augmented social and cultural constraints of prior generations and
tradition, could be considered instances of distributed, embodied or extended cognition (ibid.:2009).
In 1931 diary entries, Wittgenstein (1980) reflects on how non-Jews related to Jews “as to an
alien human element seeking to affiliate itself with a cherished national and cultural enterprise,
experiencing them as a diseased growth on the healthy national body” (Lurie, 2012:23). This belief
was deeply embedded in German culture and tradition, part of the phenomenological reality of the
perpetrators' worldview. Gallagher and Crisafi (2008) offer an illuminating explanation of how
norms, rules and regulations can be facilitated and enhanced by institutions and social tools. The
institution works as a cognitive vehicle in the way that the norm (the belief about Jewishness) is
cognitively reinforced in the perpetrators via the authority of the commander who serves to
represent the general German consensus about the damage done by the Jews (Browning, 1992:2).
The interactive nature of such a process has been highlighted in the study of different forms of

5. coordination in dynamical systems, and is reliant on notions of coupling and self-stimulating loops,
where two or more systems reciprocally influence and constrain the behaviour of the other, and can
therefore be modelled as a single system. Such co-regulation can serve to augment and reduce the
autonomy of individual agents involved, although does not destroy it (Jaegher et. al. 2010). The
same amount of cognition, as would occur in the head of a single agent when retrieving their own
belief, evaluating it in the context of the situation, and making a decision, exists, but is distributed
across the system of institution, commander and agent. Thus, I contend, the general German belief
was extended into, facilitated, 'ubiquitised' and enhanced by, the social structure and situation.
Conclusively, I contend that Goldhagen's suggestion that “The structures … are always interpreted
by the actors, who if they shared similar cognitions and values will respond to them in a like
manner” (1997:20) alludes to this explanatorily powerful idea of cognition extended and distributed
socially, and thus accommodates such a consideration. While this discussion only offers an
introductory glance at how notions of the socially extended (embodied, embedded and distributed)
mind might be applied to a historical example of a social, “mental institution” (Gallagher, 2013), I
have shown that it can serve as an illuminant to both theories, explaining what they cannot, as well
as providing a mediating analysis of the debate.

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