Embodied approaches in cognitive science hold that the body is crucial for cognition. What this claim amounts to, however, still remains unclear. This paper contributes to its clarification by confronting three ways of understanding embodiment—the sensorimotor approach, extended cognition and enactivism—with Locked-in syndrome. LIS is a case of severe global paralysis in which patients are unable to move and yet largely remain cognitively intact. We propose that LIS poses a challenge to embodied approaches to cognition requiring them to make explicit (...) the notion of embodiment they defend and its role for cognition. We argue that the sensorimotor and the extended functionalist approaches either fall short of accounting for cognition in LIS from an embodied perspective or do it too broadly by relegating the body only to a historical role. Enactivism conceives of the body as autonomous system and of cognition as sense-making. From this perspective embodiment is not equated with bodily movement but with forms of agency that do not disappear with body paralysis. Enactivism offers a clarifying perspective on embodiment and thus currently appears to be the framework in embodied cognition best suited to address the challenge posed by LIS. (shrink)

Brains, it has recently been argued, are essentially prediction machines. They are bundles of cells that support perception and action by constantly attempting to match incoming sensory inputs with top-down expectations or predictions. This is achieved using a hierarchical generative model that aims to minimize prediction error within a bidirectional cascade of cortical processing. Such accounts offer a unifying model of perception and action, illuminate the functional role of attention, and may neatly capture the special contribution of cortical processing to (...) adaptive success. This target article critically examines this approach, concluding that it offers the best clue yet to the shape of a unified science of mind and action. Sections 1 and 2 lay out the key elements and implications of the approach. Section 3 explores a variety of pitfalls and challenges, spanning the evidential, the methodological, and the more properly conceptual. The paper ends (sections 4 and 5) by asking how such approaches might impact our more general vision of mind, experience, and agency. (shrink)

Context: W. R. Ashby’s work on homeostasis as the basic mechanism underlying all kinds of physiological as well as cognitive functions has aroused renewed interest in cognitive science and related disciplines. Researchers have successfully incorporated some of Ashby’s technical results, such as ultrastability, into modern frameworks (e.g., CTRNN networks). Problem: The recovery of Ashby’s technical contributions has left in the background Ashby’s far more controversial non-technical views, according to which homeostatic adaptation to the environment governs all aspects of all forms (...) of life. This thesis entails that life is fundamentally “heteronomous” and it is conceptually at odds with the autopoiesis framework adopted by Ashby’s recent defenders as well as with the primacy of autonomy in human life that most of the Western philosophical tradition upholds. The paper argues that the use of computer simulations focused on the more conceptual aspects of Ashby’s thought may help us recover, extend and consequently assess an overall view of life as heteronomy. Method: The paper discusses some computer simulations of Ashby’s original electro-mechanical device (the homeostat) that implement his techniques (double-feedback loops and random parameter-switching). Results: First simulation results show that even though Ashby’s claims about homeostatic adaptivity need to be slightly weakened, his overall results are confirmed, thereby suggesting that an extension to virtual robots engaged in minimal cognitive tasks may be successful. Implications: The paper shows that a fuller incorporation of Ashby’s original results into recent cognitive science research may trigger a philosophical and technical reevaluation of the traditional distinction between heteronomous and autonomous behavior. Constructivist content: The research outlined in the paper supports an extended constructionist perspective in which agency as autonomy plays a more limited role. (shrink)

This paper provides an overview over the debate about so-called “situated approaches to cognition” that depart from the intracranialism associated with traditional cognitivism insofar as they stress the importance of body, world, and interaction for cognitive processing. It sketches the outlines of an overarching framework that reveals the differences, commonalities, and interdependencies between the various claims and positions of second-generation cognitive science, and identifies a number of apparently unresolved conceptual and ontological issues.

Perceptual modalities have been traditionally considered the product of dedicated biological systems producing information for higher cognitive processing. Psychological and neuropsychological evidence is offered which undermines this point of view and an alternative account of modality from the enactive approach to understanding cognition is suggested. Under this view, a perceptual modality is a stable form of perception which is structured not just by the biological sensitivities of the agent, but by their goals and the set of skills or expertise which (...) they are deploying at a given time. Such a view suggests that there is no such thing as an experience that is purely visual, auditory, or otherwise modal and that our attempts to understand consciousness and the mind must be conducted within a framework that provides an account of embodied, goal-directed adaptive coping with the world. (shrink)

In sociology, there has been a controversy about whether there is any essential difference between a human being and a tool, or if the tool–user relationship can be defined by co-actor symmetry. This issue becomes more complex when we consider examples of AI and robots, and even more so following progress in the development of various bio-machine hybrid technologies, such as robots that include organic parts, human brain implants, and adaptive prosthetics. It is argued that a concept of autonomous agency (...) based on organismic embodiment helps to clarify the situation. On this view, agency consists of an asymmetrical relationship between an organism and its environment, because the continuous metabolic and regulatory activity of the organism gives rise to its own existence, and hence its specific behavioral domain. Accordingly, most of current technologies are excluded from the class of autonomous agents. Instead, they are better conceptualized as interfaces that mediate our interactions with the world. This has important implications for design: Rather than trying to help humans to achieve their goals by duplicating their agency in artificial systems, it would be better to empower humans directly by enhancing their existing agency and lived experience with technological interfaces that can be incorporated into their embodiment. This incorporation might be especially facilitated by bio-machine hybrid technology that is designed according the principles of biological autonomy and multi-agent coordination dynamics. (shrink)

We argue that progress in our scientific understanding of the `social mind' is hampered by a number of unfounded assumptions. We single out the widely shared assumption that social behavior depends solely on the capacities of an individual agent. In contrast, both developmental and phenomenological studies suggest that the personal-level capacity for detached `social cognition' (conceived as a process of theorizing about and/or simulating another mind) is a secondary achievement that is dependent on more immediate processes of embodied social interaction. (...) We draw on the enactive approach to cognitive science to further clarify this strong notion of `social interaction' in theoretical terms. In addition, we indicate how this interaction theory (IT) could eventually be formalized with the help of a dynamical systems perspective on the interaction process, especially by making use of evolutionary robotics modeling. We conclude that bringing together the methods and insights of developmental, phenomenological, enactive and dynamical approaches to social interaction can provide a promising framework for future research. Keywords: theory of mind; cognitive science; phenomenology; embodied cognition; dynamical systems theory; enactive approach; social cognition; interaction theory; evolutionary robotics. (shrink)

There is substantial disagreement among philosophers of embodied cognitive science about the meaning of embodiment. In what follows, I describe three different views that can be found in the current literature. I show how this debate centers around the question of whether the science of embodied cognition can retain the computer theory of mind. One view, which I will label body functionalism, takes the body to play the functional role of linking external resources for problem solving with internal biological machinery. (...) Embodiment is thus understood in terms of the role the body plays in supporting the computational circuits that realize cognition. Body enactivism argues by contrast that no computational account of cognition can account for the role of commonsense knowledge in our everyday practical engagement with the world. I will attempt a reconciliation of these seemingly opposed views. (shrink)

Researchers in the enactivist tradition have recently argued that social interaction can constitute social cognition, rather than simply serve as the context for social cognition. They contend that a focus on social interaction corrects the overemphasis on mechanisms inside the individual in the explanation of social cognition. I critically assess enactivism’s claims about the explanatory role of social interaction in social cognition. After sketching the enactivist approach to cognition in general and social cognition in particular, I identify problems with an (...) enactivist taxonomy of roles for social interaction in the explanation of social cognition (contextual, enabling, and constitutive). In particular, I show that this enactivist taxonomy does not clearly distinguish between enabling conditions and constitutive elements, which would make them in danger of committing the coupling-constitution fallacy found in some attempts to extend cognition. I explore resources enactivism has to more clearly demarcate constitutive parts of a cognitive system, but identify problems in applying them to some of the main cases of social cognition enactivists characterize as being constituted by social interaction. I offer the mechanistic approach to explanation as an alternative that captures much of what enactivists want to say about the relations between social and individual levels, but views social interactions from the perspective of embedded cognition rather than as being constitutive of social cognition. (shrink)

It has been argued that Extended Cognition (EXT), a recently much discussed framework in the philosophy of cognition, would serve as the theoretical basis to account for the impact of Brain Computer Interfaces (BCI) on the self and life of patients with Locked-in Syndrome (LIS). In this paper I will argue that this claim is unsubstantiated, EXT is not the appropriate theoretical background for understanding the role of BCI in LIS. I will critically assess what a theory of the extended (...) self would comprise and provide a list of desiderata for a theory of self that EXT fails to accommodate for. There is, however, an alternative framework in Cognitive Science, Enactivism, which entails the basis for an account of self that is able to accommodate for these desiderata. I will outline some first steps towards an Enactive approach to the self, suggesting that the self could be considered as a form of human autonomy. Understanding the self from an enactive point of view will allow to shed new light on the questions of whether and how BCIs affect or change the selves of patients with LIS. (shrink)

In a recent contribution to this journal, Andrew Fenton and Sheri Alpert have argued that the so-called “extended mind hypothesis” allows us to understand why Brain Computer Interfaces (BCIs) have the potential to change the self of patients suffering from Locked-in syndrome (LIS) by extending their minds beyond their bodies. I deny that this can shed any light on the theoretical, or philosophical, underpinnings of BCIs as a tool for enabling communication with, or bodily action by, patients with LIS: BCIs (...) are not a case of cognitive extension. I argue that Fenton and Alpert’s claim to the contrary is the result of a widespread confusion about some related, but significantly different, approaches to cognition that all fall under the heading of “situated cognition.” I first provide a short taxonomy of various situated approaches to cognition, highlighting (some of) their important commonalities and differences, which should dissolve some of the confusions surrounding them. Then I show why the extended mind hypothesis is unsuitable as a model of BCI enhancements of LIS patients’ capacity to interact with their surroundings, and I argue that the situated approach with obvious bearings on the sort of questions that were driving Fenton and Alpert is not the idea that cognition is extended , but the idea that cognition is enacted. (shrink)

In this paper, I take up the problem of the self through bringing together the insights, while correcting some of the shortcomings, of Indo–Tibetan Buddhist and enactivist accounts of the self. I begin with an examination of the Buddhist theory of non-self ( anātman ) and the rigorously reductionist interpretation of this doctrine developed by the Abhidharma school of Buddhism. After discussing some of the fundamental problems for Buddhist reductionism, I turn to the enactive approach to philosophy of mind and (...) cognitive science. I argue that human beings, as dynamic systems, are characterized by a high degree of self-organizing autonomy. Therefore, human beings are not reducible to the more basic mental and physical events that constitute them. I critically examine Francisco Varela’s enactivist account of the self as virtual and his use of Buddhist ideas in support of this view. I argue, in contrast, that while the self is emergent and constructed, it is not merely virtual. Finally I sketch a Buddhist-enactivist account of the self. I argue for a non-reductionist view of the self as an active, embodied, embedded, self-organizing process—what the Buddhists call ‘I’-making ( ahaṃkāra ). This emergent process of self-making is grounded in the fundamentally recursive processes that characterize lived experience: autopoiesis at the biological level, temporalization and self-reference at the level of conscious experience, and conceptual and narrative construction at the level of intersubjectivity. In Buddhist terms, I will develop an account of the self as dependently originated and empty, but nevertheless real. (shrink)

Descriptions of bodies within the literature of the enactive approach to cognitive science exhibit an interesting dialectical tension. On the one hand, a body is considered to be a unity which instantiates an identity, forming an intrinsic basis for value. On the other, a living body is in a reciprocally defining relationship with the environment, and is therefore immersed and entangled with, rather than distinct from, its environment. In this paper I examine this tension, and its implications for the enactive (...) approach, particularly the enactive conceptions of life and bodies. Following the lead of others, I argue that enactive cognitive science can benefit from a deeper reading and integration with extant work on the complexity and multiplicity of the living body within feminist philosophy and feminist science studies. (shrink)

This paper explores some of the differences between the enactive approach in cognitive science and the extended mind thesis. We review the key enactive concepts of autonomy and sense-making . We then focus on the following issues: (1) the debate between internalism and externalism about cognitive processes; (2) the relation between cognition and emotion; (3) the status of the body; and (4) the difference between ‘incorporation’ and mere ‘extension’ in the body-mind-environment relation.

Enactive approaches to psychiatry have recently argued for an understanding of psychiatric conditions based within relational interactions between individuals and their environments. A central motivation for these enactive approaches is the goal of social integration: the integration of a naturalistic approach to psychiatric conditions with their broader sociocultural dimensions. One possible issue, however, is whether appeals to the autonomy and authenticity of relationally constituted enactive individuals can provide a means of adjudicating between harmful and beneficial social constraints upon individual behaviour. (...) This paper seeks to provide enactive approaches to psychiatry with a possible means of evaluating normative influences of social contexts beyond direct interactions with relationally constituted individuals. Some of the most significant influences of the sociocultural dimension of psychiatric conditions consist not in direct interaction with individuals, but in setting the terms for interactions and interactants alike. Insofar as some social influences precede and predefine dyadic relations between individuals and their social context, these cannot be accounted for as features of interactions, but must be assessed as independent structures of the sociocultural dimension. I will provide one potential means for enactive models to assess social norms using Canguilhem’s distinction between health and pathology. I will argue that Canguilhem’s conceptualization of health in terms of adaptive normative structure provides a potential tool for social integration which strongly complements enactive approaches to psychiatry. (shrink)

Enactivism does not have its primary philosophical roots in pragmatism: phenomenology (from Husserl to Jonas) is its first source of inspiration (with the exception of Hutto & Myin’s radical enactivism). That does not exclude the benefits of pragmatist readings of enactivism, and of enactivist readings of pragmatism. After having sketched those readings, this paper focuses on the philosophical concept of intentionality. I show that whereas enactivists endorse the idea that intentionality is a base-level property of cognition, pragmatism offer(ed) us some (...) reasons not to proceed this way. It is therefore doubtful to hold that pragmatists and enactivists would converge in the defence of a common, non-representational conception of intentionality. (shrink)

I aim to develop an alternative theoretical model for the direct cognition of the elementary states of others called the theory of interaction (henceforth TI), also known as the “second person” approach. The model I propose emerges from a critical reformulation of the displaced perception model proposed by FRED DRETSKE (1995) for the introspective knowledge of our own mental states. Moreover, against Dretske, I argue that no meta-representation (second-order representation of a first-order representation as a representation) is involved in the (...) process, but only concepts, rudimentary enough, of others’ emotions: contentment and discontentment. Strictly speaking, all the empirical data and findings in developmental psychology only support the hypothesis that children in the pre-linguistic phase understand perceptual facial expressions of contentment and discontentment. My proposal consists of the following thesis: The direct perception of others' elementary mental states is not a perception in the usual sense of the word according to which we just perceive things, but rather a “perception of facts.” But how to understand that? It is nothing more than an epistemological process that is automatic and reliable at the same time. It is reliable in the epistemological-externalist sense of not involving any inference, reflection, theorizing or epistemic justification: a baby’s perception of her mom’s facial expression of discontentment (in the usual sense of “per- ception”) does not constitute a reason supporting the belief that mommy is discontent. The very word “belief” should not be understood in the usual sense but rather in the sense of a natural inclination for truth. But at the same time, it is automatic because the belief is a result or output of a process entirely subliminal and computational in nature. Thus, for instance, a child perceives that her mom is discontent (fact-awareness) by perceiving consciously (“perception” in the usual sense) a facial expression of discontentment (sensorial input) but recognizes that her mother is discontent as a result (output) of an entirely subliminal process. (shrink)

The extended mind thesis claims that a subject’s mind sometimes encompasses the environmental props the subject interacts with while solving cognitive tasks. Recently, the debate over the extended mind has been focused on Markov Blankets: the statistical boundaries separating biological systems from the environment. Here, I argue such a focus is mistaken, because Markov Blankets neither adjudicate, nor help us adjudicate, whether the extended mind thesis is true. To do so, I briefly introduce Markov Blankets and the free energy principle (...) in Section 2. I then turn from exposition to criticism. In Section 3, I argue that using Markov Blankets to determine whether the mind extends will provide us with an answer based on circular reasoning. In Section 4, I consider whether Markov Blankets help us track the boundaries of the mind, answering in the negative. This is because resorting to Markov Blankets to track the boundaries of the mind yields extensionally inadequate conclusions which violate the parity principle. In Section 5, I further argue that Markov Blankets led us to sidestep the debate over the extended mind, as they make internalism about the mind vacuously true. A brief concluding paragraph follows. (shrink)

This thesis explores and discusses foundational issues concerning the relationship between phenomenological philosophy and the enactive approach to cognitive science, with the aim of clarifying, developing, and promoting the project of enactive phenomenology. This project is framed by three general ideas: 1) that the sciences of mind need a phenomenological grounding, 2) that the enactive approach is the currently most promising attempt to provide mind science with such a grounding, and 3) that this attempt involves both a naturalization of phenomenology (...) and a phenomenologization of the concept of nature. More specifically, enactive phenomenology is the project of pursuing mutually illuminative exchanges between, on the one hand, phenomenological investigations of the structures of lived experience and embodied existence and, on the other, scientific accounts of mind and life – in particular those framed by theories of biological self-organization. The thesis consists of two parts. Part one is an introductory essay that seeks to clarify some of enactive phenomenology’s overarching philosophical commitments by tracing some of its historical roots. Part two is a compilation of four articles, each of which intervenes in a different contemporary debate relevant to the dissertation’s project. (shrink)

The statement everyone wants to live a fulfilled and happy life may seem simple, self-evident, and even trivial at first glance. However, upon closer philosophical analysis, can we unequivocally assert that people are truly focused on well-being? Assuming they are, the question becomes: what guidelines should be followed and how should one behave in order to achieve true well-being and attain their goals? One popular viewpoint is that cultivating moral virtues and personal qualities is essential for a life of "true" (...) well-being, rather than mere pleasure. This perspective is not particularly original, as it was advocated quite clearly by Aristotle. However, we must ask: what guarantees that virtue will lead to well-being? Can we really ignore the common-sense doubt that virtue (and moral life), as Kant points out, may not be rewarded with any form of well-being or "happiness" in the broadest sense during our earthly existence? How might we address this doubt? If questions about the relationship between happiness and virtue have been asked since ancient times, why don't we have definitive answers yet? Perhaps there is something wrong with the questions themselves, as is often the case in philosophy. Views on this relationship have influenced the modification of theories that philosophers have put forth in order to provide satisfactory answers. One such theory is the renewed and modernized ethics of virtue, which places the greatest emphasis on building an individual's moral character, assuming that Aristotelian character virtues such as courage, honesty, generosity, prudence, self-control, and compassion will enable us to lead a happy and fulfilling life. "Virtues" refer to a wide range of "excellences" or activities that individuals can use to perfect themselves. For example, an ordinary person might accept that courage can make their life more fulfilling, but it's important to recognize that virtues cannot be acquired overnight. Furthermore, many people believe that virtues are innate qualities that one either possesses or lacks. In contrast, ethics of virtue provides guidance and instructions for developing virtues over extended periods of time, as well as for continuously "practicing" the development of moral characteristics that will make us better individuals. The central and most significant concept in ethics of virtue is the golden mean, which can be interpreted in various ways. Essentially, ethics of virtue offers a path to a life filled with pleasure, harmony, and virtuous action. However, this collection of essays, Virtues and Vices: Between Ethics and Epistemology, is not exclusively concerned with virtues or ethics. Knowledge, as well as the processes of belief formation and justification of those beliefs, are also essential to ethics of virtue. Going back to the systematic Greek philosopher and his teacher, we can emphasize that virtues and knowledge are inseparable. Without the epistemology of virtues, even a thematic collection like this one would be incomplete. The Epistemology of Virtue is a relatively new branch of philosophy that has emerged as a response to questions about the value-neutrality of science. For a long time, the separation of values and scientific inquiry has been viewed as the correct methodological approach. However, it is clear that every scientist is also a human being with their own virtues and flaws. It is naive to assume that a scientist can leave their values and moral qualities outside the laboratory and treat their colleagues in the team differently than they would treat other people in their everyday life. Taking this into account, we can notice that Epistemology of Virtue is a theory that examines the influence of virtues on the processes of acquiring knowledge. Epistemic virtues refer to qualities that enable individuals to acquire knowledge and make reliable judgments. These virtues include traits such as openness to diverse testimonies and arguments, critical thinking, a tendency to question one's own assumptions, and the ability to identify errors in one's own thought processes. Just like in virtue ethics, the Epistemology of Virtue raises the question of how we can cultivate the necessary virtues and how these virtues can have a positive impact on both individuals and society. The field also explores how epistemic virtues can be put into practice, such as in educational settings, scientific research, and various social activities. Finally, we turn to a topic that is often overlooked in philosophy - human flaws. While ethics typically views flaws as the opposite of virtues, requiring correction both individually and socially, the Epistemology of Virtue questions what happens when flaws occur in knowledge-related qualities. Do these flaws also need to be eliminated, or are they an inherent part of the process of acquiring knowledge and making judgments? At first glance, prejudices, stereotypes, dogmatism, conformism, closed-mindedness towards arguments and evidence, as well as uncritical acceptance of authority, can all hinder our ability to acquire knowledge. Epistemologists view these qualities as vices, rather than flaws like ethicists do. The Epistemology of Vices is the newest of the three branches of philosophy covered in this thematic collection, and it examines the ways in which false and untrue beliefs develop and persist in society. This area of study seeks to answer questions about how people form delusions and whether it is possible to overcome them. On the other hand, the Epistemology of Virtue is like the "older brother" that supervises these vices. It contributes to the investigation and overcoming of vices by developing virtues that enable individuals to more accurately assess the truthfulness of their beliefs. However, even though vices can have a destructive impact on knowledge acquisition, the question remains: are vices always detrimental in every context? Conversely, can virtues be detrimental? For example, does a virtue like solidarity sometimes hinder the efficient formation of true beliefs in time-sensitive situations such as finding a vaccine to combat a virus pandemic? Can vices be useful? Can stubbornness and uncooperativeness sometimes help a research team by allowing two sides to reach the same goal through different paths? Within this collection, some of these questions will receive answers, some of which may confirm existing impressions, while others may surprise readers. The thematic collection, Virtues and Vices: Between Ethics and Epistemology, consists of four interesting chapters and 21 papers that cover the selected topic through the prism of philosophical disciplines such as ethics, epistemology, the history of philosophy, philosophy of mind, political philosophy, and philosophy of science. In this introduction, we will not discuss the contents of the articles so as not to disrupt the intended integral approach to reading the collection. A significant feature of this collection is the continuity that extends from one paper to another, from topic to topic, and from problem to problem. Lastly, we would like to express our gratitude to the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Belgrade for their support in realizing this collection, as well as to our colleagues from the Department and Institute of Philosophy who have made this collection a relevant and significant achievement with their contributions. We are also thankful to the reviewers of the collection as a whole, as well as to the referees of individual articles, who have provided us with detailed comments and remarks that have made this collection clearer and more comprehensive. We owe a special thanks to our colleagues from Zagreb, Rijeka, and Maribor, whose exceptional papers have contributed to making this collection an unabashed international contribution to debates about the ethics and epistemology of virtues and vices. (shrink)

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a psychopathological condition characterized by persistent deficits in social interaction and communication, and restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior and interests. To build an ecological-enactive account of autism, I propose we should endorse the affordance-based approach of the skilled intentionality framework (SIF). In SIF, embodied cognition is understood as skilled engagement with affordances in the sociomaterial environment of the ecological niche by which an individual tends toward the optimal grip. The human econiche offers a whole landscape (...) of affordances, and situated individuals respond to a field of relevant affordances. An important part of SIF is an ecological-enactive interpretation of the free energy principle and predictive processing. Predictive processing accounts indicate that in ASD too much precision is assigned to prediction errors. Autistic persons depend heavily on current sensory information and less on prior beliefs and cannot attune to stable regularities. To reduce uncertainty, they over-rely on routines, strict habits, and a familiar environment—a predictable ecological niche they construct. I argue that skilled intentionality gives us the framework from which to analyze the autistic field of affordances. Autistic patterns of affordance-related bodily states of action readiness are only sensitive to very specific solicitations in the environment and achieve optimal grip in well-known situations. Autism is to be understood as a disorder of bodily normativity. Taking this approach helps us figure out what neurotypical people can do to attune their environment in order to scaffold the needs of autistic individuals by redesigning the landscape of affordances. (shrink)

This thesis investigates how recurrent face-to-face social interactions engender relatively invariant patterns of being together that cause those who instantiate them to act in ways that support their reproduction. Existing accounts within both cognitive science and sociology offer important insights into the consideration of patterns of being together. However, given their explanatory strategies, they struggle to integrate both ‘social’ and ‘individual’ levels of explanation. Herein a compatibilist account is developed, intended as a ‘third way’ that obviates the limitations of existing (...) accounts. This compatibilist account — by integrating insights from across disciplines and theoretical frameworks — develops a philosophical vocabulary with which to maintain explanatory consistency when articulating patterns of being together and moving between individual and social levels of explanation. It relies heavily on an extension of the enactive notion of autonomous habits to the social domain, redescribing patterns of being together as habituated participatory sense-making frames. Participatory sense-making frames result from processes of coenhabiting, i.e. processes of ongoing social habit making implicit in the dynamics of recurrent social interactions. Such processes are one primary means by which we produce and reproduce the relatively stable forms that characterise our shared worlds. These habituated frames embed much of the normativity of social life, and can serve our felicitous coordinations therein, allowing us to feel well situated, particularly in contexts within which we have some history of interacting. However, when they are not well aligned, they lead to tensions that result in either the production of novel frames or breakdowns in social interaction. The account developed has implications for many domains of human action, from psychotherapy to epistemology, and from critical studies to the development of political and ecological praxes. (shrink)

With Jan Degenaar and Kevin O’Regan’s (D&O) critique of (what they call) ‘autopoietic enactivism’ as point of departure, this article seeks to revisit, refine, and develop phenomenology’s significance for the enactive view. Arguing that D&O’s ‘sensorimotor theory’ fails to do justice to perceptual meaning, the article unfolds by (1) connecting this meaning to the notion of enaction as a meaningful co-definition of perceiver and perceived, (2) recounting phenomenological reasons for conceiving of the perceiving subject as a living body, and (3) (...) showing how the phenomenological perspective does a better job at fulfilling D&O’s requirement for grounding notions of mentality in ‘outer’ criteria than they do. The picture that thus emerges is one of perceptual meaning as an integration of lived, living, and behavioral aspects – a structure of behavior that cannot be captured by appeal to sensorimotor capacities alone but that is adequately illuminated by the enactive notion of adaptive autonomy. (shrink)

Questions about phenomenology’s role in non-philosophical disciplines gained renewed attention. While we claim that phenomenology makes indispensable, unique contributions to different domains of scientific practice such as concept formation, experimental design, and data collection, we also contend that when it comes to explanation, phenomenological approaches face a dilemma. Either phenomenological attempts to explain conscious phenomena do not satisfy a central constraint on explanations, i.e. the asymmetry between explanans and explanandum, or they satisfy this explanatory asymmetry only by largely merging with (...) non-phenomenological explanation types. The consequence of this dilemma is that insofar as phenomenological approaches are explanatory, they do not provide an own type of explanation. We substantiate our two claims by offering three case studies of phenomenologically inspired experiments in cognitive science. Each case study points out a specific phenomenological contribution to experimental practice while also illustrating how phenomenological approaches face the explanatory dilemma we outline. (shrink)

The extended mind thesis states that the mind is not brain-bound but extends into the physical world. The philosophical debate around the thesis has mostly focused on extension towards epistemic artefacts, treating the phenomenon as a special capacity of the human organism to recruit external physical resources to solve individual tasks. This paper argues that if the mind extends to artefacts in the pursuit of individual tasks, it extends to other humans in the pursuit of collective tasks. Mind extension to (...) other humans corresponds essentially to the ‘we-mode’ of cognition, the unique power of human minds to be jointly directed at goals, intentions, states of affairs, or values (which, importantly, differs from having a ‘group mind’). Because the capacity for collective intentionality holds evolutionary and developmental primacy over human-epistemic artefacts relations, the extended mind should not be seen as a special phenomenon, but as a central aspect of the human condition. The original extended mind thesis carried important implications for how the cognitive sciences should proceed. In a version of the thesis that accommodates collective intentionality, these implications would go far deeper than originally assumed. (shrink)

We characterize Hegel’s stance on biological purposiveness as consisting in a twofold move, which conceives organisms as intrinsically purposive natural systems and focuses on their behavioral and cognitive abilities. We submit that a Hegelian stance is at play in enactivism, the branch of the contemporary theory of biological autonomy devoted to the study of cognition and the mind. What is at stake in the Hegelian stance is the elaboration of a naturalized, although non-reductive, understanding of natural purposiveness.

People display recognizably characteristic behavioral patterns across time and situations, with a given degree of regularity. These patterns may justify the attribution of personality traits. It is arguably the commonsense view that the proper explanation of these behavioral regularities is given by intrinsic properties of the agent’s psychology. In this paper, I argue for an externalistic view of the causal basis of personality-characteristic behaviors. According to the externalistic view, the relevant behavioral regularities are better understood as the result of a (...) systematic interaction between features internal to the agent and environmental-situational factors. Moreover, if the premise is granted that people are typically able to exercise a certain degree of control over the environmental-situational conditions they find themselves in, the resulting picture is of active sort of externalism, as people may at times engage in selection and manipulation of environmental-situational conditions as a way of managing their own behavioral tendencies. (shrink)

4Es approaches to cognition draw an unconventional picture of cognitive processes and of the mind. Instead of conceiving of cognition as a process that always takes place within the boundaries of the skull and the skin, these approaches hold that cognition is a situated process that often extends beyond human agents’ physical boundaries. In particular, supporters of the extended mind theory and of the enactive approach claim that embodied action in a perceptually complex environment is constitutive of cognitive processes, and (...) thus of the mind. (Chapter 1). Although both draw an extended picture of cognition and of the mind, supporters of the extended mind and supporters of the enactive approach disagree on the value of internal representations in perceptually-guided action. The extended mind theory holds that we need to posit internal action-oriented representations (AORs). AORs are valuable -the argument goes- because they account for action-selection, action-control, and for the prediction of incoming perceptual information. Advocates of the enactive approach to cognition, instead, argue against AORs. Firstly, they argue that AORs do not fulfill the necessary conditions for the identification of representational entities. Therefore, that of AOR is an ill-conceived epistemic construct. Secondly, they argue that AORs are expressive of an internalist prejudice, which makes the extended mind theory weaker than it should be from an explanatory and metaphysical point of view. I endorse both these arguments advanced by supporters of the enactive approach. Moreover, through a semiotic analysis of the construct and of the workings of AORs, I show that AORs are not active at all. Hence, I argue that AORs do not do the job they are supposed to do: extending the mind’s boundaries by explaining our perceptual relation with the world as an active, embodied, and world-involving process. Therefore, I suggest that the construct of AOR ought to be dismissed - at least in current projects in 4Es cognition (Chapter 2). I argue that similar arguments apply to recent attempts to make predictive processing accounts of perceptually-guided action more aligned with 4Es approaches to cognitive science by appealing to predictive internal models of our perceptual world. I thus propose an alternative explanation of the key features of perceptually-guided action that AORs and these internal models are supposed to be grasp. Action-control, action-selection, and the anticipatory aspects of action-perception loops can be explained by appealing to embodied actions in a field of relevant affordances, which are perceived as such based on the agent’s motor skills and motives. Furthermore, I suggest that, by combining the enactive approach to cognition with an analysis of the indexical features of our perceptual environment, we can explain perceptually-guided action in a way that truly accounts for our minds as entities that often extend beyond our skulls and skin. And we can do so without holding onto spooking entities like AORs and internal predictive models. (Chapter 3). (shrink)

What does it mean to enact a jazz beat as a creative performer? This article offers a critical reading of Iyer’s much-cited theory on rhythmic enaction. We locate the sonic environment approach in Iyer’s theory, and criticize him for advancing a one-to-one relationship between everyday perception and full-fledged aural competence of jazz musicians, and for comparing the latter with non-symbolic behaviour of non-human organisms. As an alternative, we suggest a Merleau-Ponty-inspired concept of rhythmic enaction, which we call the enactive communicative (...) approach. Key to this approach is the fact that jazz musicians play by ear, and that the beat emerges because of reciprocal, real-time aural communication. From this perspective, we outline the temporality of a jazz beat as a holistic and dialectical temporal structure. Throughout the discussions, we use John Coltrane’s ‘Trane’s Slo Blues’ as a point of reference. (shrink)

The extended mind thesis claims that a subject’s mind sometimes encompasses the environmental props the subject interacts with while solving cognitive tasks. Recently, the debate over the extended mind has been focused on Markov Blankets: the statistical boundaries separating biological systems from the environment. Here, I argue such a focus is mistaken, because Markov Blankets neither adjudicate, nor help us adjudicate, whether the extended mind thesis is true. To do so, I briefly introduce Markov Blankets and the free energy principle (...) in Section 2. I then turn from exposition to criticism. In Section 3, I argue that using Markov Blankets to determine whether the mind extends will provide us with an answer based on circular reasoning. In Section 4, I consider whether Markov Blankets help us track the boundaries of the mind, answering in the negative. This is because resorting to Markov Blankets to track the boundaries of the mind yields extensionally inadequate conclusions which violate the parity principle. In Section 5, I further argue that Markov Blankets led us to sidestep the debate over the extended mind, as they make internalism about the mind vacuously true. A brief concluding paragraph follows. (shrink)

This paper considers the epistemic role that embodiment plays in imagining. We focus on two aspects of embodied cognition understood in its strong sense: explicit motoric processes related to performance, and neuronal processes rooted in bodily and action processes, and describe their role in imagining. The paper argues that these two aspects of strongly embodied cognition can play distinctive and positive roles in constraining imagining, thereby complementing Amy Kind's argument for the epistemic relevance of imagination "under constraints" and Magdalena Balcerak (...) Jackson's argument for justification by imagination. (shrink)

In this review, we describe some of the central philosophical issues facing origins-of-life research and provide a targeted history of the developments that have led to the multidisciplinary field of origins-of-life studies. We outline these issues and developments to guide researchers and students from all fields. With respect to philosophy, we provide brief summaries of debates with respect to (1) definitions (or theories) of life, what life is and how research should be conducted in the absence of an accepted theory (...) of life, (2) the distinctions between synthetic, historical, and universal projects in origins-of-life studies, issues with strategies for inferring the origins of life, such as (3) the nature of the first living entities (the “bottom up” approach) and (4) how to infer the nature of the last universal common ancestor (the “top down” approach), and (5) the status of origins of life as a science. Each of these debates influences the others. Although there are clusters of researchers that agree on some answers to these issues, each of these debates is still open. With respect to history, we outline several independent paths that have led to some of the approaches now prevalent in origins-of-life studies. These include one path from early views of life through the scientific revolutions brought about by Linnaeus (von Linn.), Wöhler, Miller, and others. In this approach, new theories, tools, and evidence guide new thoughts about the nature of life and its origin.We also describe another family of paths motivated by a” circularity” approach to life, which is guided by such thinkers as Maturana & Varela, Gánti, Rosen, and others. These views echo ideas developed by Kant and Aristotle, though they do so using modern science in ways that produce exciting avenues of investigation. By exploring the history of these ideas, we can see how many of the issues that currently interest us have been guided by the contexts in which the ideas were developed. The disciplinary backgrounds of each of these scholars has influenced the questions they sought to answer, the experiments they envisioned, and the kinds of data they collected. We conclude by encouraging scientists and scholars in the humanities and social sciences to explore ways in which they can interact to provide a deeper understanding of the conceptual assumptions, structure, and history of origins-of-life research. This may be useful to help frame future research agendas and bring awareness to the multifaceted issues facing this challenging scientific question. (shrink)

In this paper I look into a problem concerning the characterization of the main conceptual commitments of the ‘post-cognitivist’ theoretical framework. I first consider critically a proposal put forward by Rowlands (2010), which identifies the theoretical nucleus of post-cognitivism with a convergence of the theses of the extended and the embodied mind. The shortcomings I find in this proposal lead me to an indepedent and wider issue concerning the apparent tensions between functionalism and the embodied and enactive approaches.

In this paper, we introduce an enactive account of loving as participatory sense-making inspired by the “I love to you” of the feminist philosopher Luce Irigaray. Emancipating from the fusionist concept of romantic love, which understands love as unity, we conceptualise loving as an existential engagement in a dialectic of encounter, in continuous processes of becoming-in-relation. In these processes, desire acquires a certain prominence as the need to know (the other, the relation, oneself) more. We build on Irigaray’s account of (...) love to present a phenomenology of loving interactions and then our enactive account. Finally, we draw some implications for ethics. These concern language, difference, vulnerability, desire, and self-transformation. (shrink)

Distributed cognition is an umbrella term for the overlapping, competing, and sometimes conflicting theories in current philosophy and cognitive science which claim that cognition is distributed across brain, body, and world. 4E cognition is another name used for this framework, with the 4Es representing embodied, enactive, embedded, and extended cognition (for a more comprehensive overview, see Anderson et al. 2018). This framework can help bring to the fore neglected ideas of the mind and the cognitive roles of bodies and environments (...) (along with related resources, tools, practices, and institutions) in other historical periods. The early modern period inherited and developed concepts of the mind from classical antiquity and medieval traditions that accorded a cognitive role to the body and world. Furthermore, it underwent transformative sociocultural, scientific, and technological shifts, which led to a heightened awareness of, and at times anxiety about, the distributed nature of the mind. This entry focuses on early modern notions and practices of distributed cognition in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, alongside an exploration of the nature and origins of Cartesian substance dualism. In the early modern period, the humors, passions, spirits, and faculties of the soul were believed to interconnect human minds with each other and with the surrounding world. In addition, gestures; spoken, written, and printed language; clothes and other objects; living things (particularly other people); and practices and institutions were understood as diversely expressing, enabling, and constitutive of human minds. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-20791-9_586-2. (shrink)

What is the relationship between mental states and items of material culture, like notebooks, maps or lists? The extended mind thesis offers an influential and controversial answer to this question. According to ExM, items of material culture can form part of the material basis for our mental states. Although ExM offers a radical view of the location of mental states, it fits comfortably with a traditional, representationalist account of the nature of those states. I argue that proponents of ExM would (...) do better to adopt a fictionalist approach to mental states. In so doing, I suggest, they could retain the important insights underlying the extended mind thesis, while avoiding its more problematic consequences. (shrink)

The relations between life and cogntion have been addressed through different perspectives [Stewart 1996, Boden 2001, Bourgine and Stewart 2004, van Duijn & all 2006, Di Paolo 2009]. We would like here to address that subject by relating life to cognition through a process of meaning generation. Life emerged on earth as a far from thermodynamic equilibrium performance that had to maintain herself. Life is charactertized by a ‘stay alive’ constraint that has to be satisfied (such constraint can be included (...) in the constraint of being able to maintain far from equilibrium thermodynamic conditions [Bickhard 2011]). The local ‘stay alive‘ constraint has to be satisfied in an environment containing elements potentially supportive or harmfull. A key activity for the living entity is to characterize these elements in terms of meaningfulness relatively to the ‘stay alive’ constraint. This process can be modeled with an existing tool where a system submitted to an internal constraint generates meaningful information characterizing elements of the environment: the Meaning Generator System (MGS) [Menant, 2003, 2014 a]. In a few words: when a system submitted to an internal constraint receives from the environment an information that has a connection with the constraint it generates a meaning usable for the implementation of an action satisfying the constraint.The generated meaning is the connection existing between the received information and the constraint. The MGS models this process and interfaces to the action implementation for constraint satisfaction The meaning is generated by and for the system. The MGS grounds meaning generation in constraint satisfaction and links the living entity to her environment in a relational process. A simple example is with a paramecium close to a drop of acid. The paramecium which is submitted to a ‘stay alive’ constraint will move away from the acid area. The received information ‘presence of acid’ generates the meaning ‘acid not compatible with the ‘stay alive’ constraint‘ which triggers the moving away action (that example is close to Varela’s bacteria swimming up a sugar gradient. What the MGS brings in addition is a modeling of the significance of the chemical gradient for the organism). The action implemented to satisfy the constraint modifies the environment and the received information, establishing an interactive process linking the living entity to her environment. During its evolution animal life has elaborated new constraints (like ‘live group life’) and new functions enriching meaning generation and action scenarios. As a result the build up of meaningful representations has improved the constraint satisfaction processes of animals, embedding them in their environments in relational and interactive terms [Menant, 2011]. Cognition can be defined by proposing that ‘a system is cognitive if and only if sensory inputs serve to trigger actions in a specific way, so as to satisfy a viability constraint’ [Bourgine, Stewart 2004]. Cognition can also be considered as exemplifying a ‘vital criterion of responsiveness’ [Boden, 2001 ]. Consequently the MGS can be positioned as an elementary and generic version of animal cognition. For animal life, meaning generation for internal constraint satisfaction links life and cognition in a relational and interactive process. Cognition for human life is more complex as new performances have to be taken into account like self-consciousness and free-will. Meaning generation at human level is a challenging subject as human constraints are not clearly understood [Menant, 2011]. Many research activities are in process looking for some understanding of human mind [Philpapers]. One area of investigation is an evolutionary approach to self-consciousness using meaning generation where anxiety limitation comes up as a generic human constraint [Menant, 2014 b]. Assuming that we can have clear enough an understanding of some human constraints, we can look at the MGS for partly extending to humans the link between life and cognition that has been established for animals. So overall, we can consider that the MGS approach makes available an evolutionary link between life and cognition for animals, and partly for humans. A characteristic of the proposed system approach to meaning generation is the possibility to use it for any type of agent, be it organic (with intrinsic constraints ) or artificial (with derived constraints). Such characterization of agents through meaning generation can be used to discriminate artificial itelligence from human intelligence (see the MGS usage to support Searle’s chinese room argument [Menant, 2013]). On a more general basis, the proposed system approach can positions the MGS as a simple model for an internal source of normativity. It’s usage as a simple building block allows a bottom-up modeling for normativity in the sensorimotor approach. The ‘stay alive’ constraint could also be taken as a starting point for an evolutionary grounding of sensorimotor norms ‘in the biological normativity of the agent as a whole’ [Di Paolo & all 2014]. The proposed presentation will develop the points summarized here above and position them relatively to the autopoietic and enactive approaches. Several possible continuations will also be highlighted. (shrink)

Technological artefacts have, in recent years, invited increasingly intimate ways of interaction. But surprisingly little attention has been devoted to how such interactions, like with wearable devices or household robots, shape our minds, cognitive capacities, and moral character. In this thesis, I develop an embodied, enactive account of mind--technology interaction that takes the reciprocal influence of artefacts on minds seriously. First, I examine how recent developments in philosophy of technology can inform the phenomenology of mind--technology interaction as seen through an (...) enactivist lens. Second, I show how an enactive account of remembering can improve operationalizations of the memory palace mnemonic through virtual reality devices. Third, I draw on virtue ethics to argue that an enactivist approach allows us to better grasp the morally shaping aspects of artefacts by looking at social robots. Fourth, I fend off an underlying metaphysical concern about enactivism by arguing that an embodied, enactive account is compatible with the multiple realization of cognitive processes. This principle is often seen as a crucial test favouring accounts such as extended functionalism over enactivism and I argue that some forms of enactivism pass this test as well. Finally, I conclude by considering what the future relationship between enactivism and functionalism may have in store for the study of mind--technology interaction. (shrink)

Investigamos o problema da continuidade entre (1) cognições básicas e (2) complexas, especificamente em relação à linguagem. Nossa hipótese é a de que visões contemporâneas da linguagem não inviabilizam necessariamente a abordagem bottom-up ― abordagens tipicamente enativistas. Primeiro apresentamos a posição de Daniel Hutto e Erik Myin (2013, 2017), representantes do Radically Enactive Cognition (REC), a qual assume o desafio da continuidade e identifica na linguagem o critério para uma distinção de tipo entre (1) e (2). Em seguida, estabelecemos a (...) posição Wittgensteiniana defendida por Moyal-Sharrock (2019), na qual a linguagem seria apenas mais uma habilidade de possível desenvolvimento para (1) e (2). Haveria, portanto, somente uma distinção de grau , não de tipo. Por mais que a avaliação de Moyal-Sharrock seja interessante no sentido de que parece evitar um ceticismo de continuidade (identificado por ela no REC), também encontramos problemas em sua visão. (shrink)

We develop a truism of commonsense psychology that perception and action constitute the boundaries of the mind. We do so however not on the basis of commonsense psychology, but by using the notion of a Markov blanket originally employed to describe the topological properties of causal networks. We employ the Markov blanket formalism to propose precise criteria for demarcating the boundaries of the mind that unlike other rival candidates for “marks of the cognitive” avoids begging the question in the extended (...) mind debate. Our criteria imply that the boundary of the mind is nested and multiscale sometimes extending beyond the individual agent to incorporate items located in the environment. Chalmers has used commonsense psychology to develop what he sees as the most serious challenge to the view that minds sometimes extend into the world. He has argued that perception and action should be thought of as interfaces that separate minds from their surrounding environment. In a series of recent papers Hohwy has defended a similar claim using the Markov blanket formalism. We use the Markov blanket formalism to show how both of their objections to the extended mind fail. (shrink)

In search of our highest capacities, cognitive scientists aim to explain things like mathematics, language, and planning. But are these really our most sophisticated forms of knowing? In this paper, I point to a different pinnacle of cognition. Our most sophisticated human knowing, I think, lies in how we engage with each other, in our relating. Cognitive science and philosophy of mind have largely ignored the ways of knowing at play here. At the same time, the emphasis on discrete, rational (...) knowing to the detriment of engaged, human knowing pervades societal practices and institutions, often with harmful effects on people and their relations. There are many reasons why we need a new, engaged—or even engaging—epistemology of human knowing. The enactive theory of participatory sense-making takes steps towards this, but it needs deepening. Kym Maclaren’s idea of letting be invites such a deepening. Characterizing knowing as a relationship of letting be provides a nuanced way to deal with the tensions between the knower’s being and the being of the known, as they meet in the process of knowing-and-being-known. This meeting of knower and known is not easy to understand. However, there is a mode of relating in which we know it well, and that is: in loving relationships. I propose to look at human knowing through the lens of loving. We then see that both knowing and loving are existential, dialectic ways in which concrete and particular beings engage with each other. (shrink)

We present a multiscale integrationist interpretation of the boundaries of cognitive systems, using the Markov blanket formalism of the variational free energy principle. This interpretation is intended as a corrective for the philosophical debate over internalist and externalist interpretations of cognitive boundaries; we stake out a compromise position. We first survey key principles of new radical views of cognition. We then describe an internalist interpretation premised on the Markov blanket formalism. Having reviewed these accounts, we develop our positive multiscale account. (...) We argue that the statistical seclusion of internal from external states of the system—entailed by the existence of a Markov boundary—can coexist happily with the multiscale integration of the system through its dynamics. Our approach does not privilege any given boundary, nor does it argue that all boundaries are equally prescient. We argue that the relevant boundaries of cognition depend on the level being characterised and the explanatory interests that guide investigation. We approach the issue of how and where to draw the boundaries of cognitive systems through a multiscale ontology of cognitive systems, which offers a multidisciplinary research heuristic for cognitive science. (shrink)

This paper starts by considering an argument for thinking that predictive processing (PP) is representational. This argument suggests that the Kullback–Leibler (KL)-divergence provides an accessible measure of misrepresentation, and therefore, a measure of representational content in hierarchical Bayesian inference. The paper then argues that while the KL-divergence is a measure of information, it does not establish a sufficient measure of representational content. We argue that this follows from the fact that the KL-divergence is a measure of relative entropy, which can (...) be shown to be the same as covariance (through a set of additional steps). It is well known that facts about covariance do not entail facts about representational content. So there is no reason to think that the KL-divergence is a measure of (mis-)representational content. This paper thus provides an enactive, non-representational account of Bayesian belief optimisation in hierarchical PP. (shrink)

The viability of enactivist philosophy in providing descriptions of biological phenomena across the phylogenetic spectrum relies in large part on the scalability of its central concepts, i.e. whether they remain operative at varying levels of biological complexity. In this paper, I will examine the possibility of scaling two deeply intertwined concepts: cognition and surrounding world. Contra some indications from Varela and others, I will argue that the concept of embodied cognition can be scaled down below the level of the organism. (...) I will draw upon the “cognitive biology” espoused by Kováč and Monod’s studies of protein behaviour to make this case. The downscaling of embodied cognition below the level of the organism has ramifications for how we understand the concept of surrounding world. Reconfiguring the relation between these two central bioenactive concepts has further consequences for what ontological commitments bioenactive thinking leads to, and what paths of investigation it points us toward. (shrink)

The life–mind continuity thesis is difficult to study, especially because the relation between life and mind is not yet fully understood, and given that there is still no consensus view neither on what qualifies as life nor on what defines mind. Rather than taking up the much more difficult task of addressing the many different ways of explaining how life relates to mind, and vice versa, this paper considers two influential accounts addressing how best to understand the life–mind continuity thesis: (...) first, the theory of autopoiesis (AT) developed in biology and in enactivist theories of mind; and second, the recently formulated free energy principle in theoretical neurobiology, with roots in thermodynamics and statistical physics. This paper advances two claims. The first is that the free energy principle (FEP) should be preferred to the theory of AT, as classically formulated. The second is that the FEP and the recently formulated framework of autopoietic enactivism can be shown to be genuinely continuous on a number of central issues, thus raising the possibility of a joint venture when it comes to answering the life–mind continuity thesis. (shrink)

This work addresses the autonomous organization of biological systems. It does so by considering the boundaries of biological systems, from individual cells to Home sapiens, in terms of the presence of Markov blankets under the active inference scheme—a corollary of the free energy principle. A Markov blanket defines the boundaries of a system in a statistical sense. Here we consider how a collective of Markov blankets can self-assemble into a global system that itself has a Markov blanket; thereby providing an (...) illustration of how autonomous systems can be understood as having layers of nested and self-sustaining boundaries. This allows us to show that: (i) any living system is a Markov blanketed system and (ii) the boundaries of such systems need not be co-extensive with the biophysical boundaries of a living organism. In other words, autonomous systems are hierarchically composed of Markov blankets of Markov blankets—all the way down to individual cells, all the way up to you and me, and all the way out to include elements of the local environment. (shrink)

The paper discusses the concept of the cognitive niche and distinguishes the latter from the metabolic niche. By using these posits I unpack certain ideas that are crucial for the enactivist movement, especially for its original formulation proposed by Varela, Thompson and Rosh. Drawing on the ontology of location, boundaries, and parthood, I argue that enacting the world can be seen as the process of cognitive niche construction. Moreover, it turns out that enactivism—as seen through the lens of the conceptual (...) framework proposed in the paper—considers cognition as a kind of connection between the subject and the world. This post is pointed to as the key idea laid down in enactivism. (shrink)

In this paper, we offer a criticism, inspired by Wittgenstein’s rule-following considerations, of the enactivist account of perception and action. We start by setting up a non-descriptivist naturalism regarding the mind and continue by defining enactivism and exploring its more attractive theoretical features. We then proceed to analyse its proposal to understand normativity non-socially. We argue that such a thesis is ultimately committed to the problematic idea that normative practices can be understood as private and factual. Finally, we offer a (...) characterization of normativity as an essentially social phenomenon and apply our criticisms to other approaches that share commitments with enactivism. (shrink)