From his preliminary analysis in 1965, Hubert Dreyfus projected a future much different than those with which his contemporaries were practically concerned, tempering their optimism in realizing something like human intelligence through conventional methods. At that time, he advised that there was nothing “directly” to be done toward machines with human-like intelligence, and that practical research should aim at a symbiosis between human beings and computers with computers doing what they do best, processing discrete symbols in formally structured problem domains. (...) Fast-forward five decades, and his emphasis on the difference between two essential modes of processing, the unconscious yet purposeful mode fundamental to situated human cognition, and the “minded” sense of conscious processing characterizing symbolic reasoning that seems to lend itself to explicit programming, continues into the famous Dreyfus–McDowell debate. The present memorial reviews Dreyfus’ early projections, asking if the fears that punctuate current popular commentary on AI are warranted, and in light of these if he would deliver similar practical advice to researchers today. (shrink)

Recent years have seen growing evidence of a fruitful engagement between phenomenology and cognitive science. This paper confronts an in-principle problem that stands in the way of this intellectual coalition, namely the fact that a tension exists between the transcendentalism that characterizes phenomenology and the naturalism that accompanies cognitive science. After articulating the general shape of this tension, I respond as follows. First, I argue that, if we view things through a kind of neo-McDowellian lens, we can open up a (...) conceptual space in which phenomenology and cognitive science may exert productive constraints on each other. Second, I describe some examples of phenomenological cognitive science that illustrate such constraints in action. Third, I use the mutually constraining relationship at work here as the platform from which to bring to light a domesticated version of the transcendental and a minimal form of naturalism that are compatible with each other. (shrink)

The frame problem is the difficulty of explaining how non-magical systems think and act in ways that are adaptively sensitive to context-dependent relevance. Influenced centrally by Heideggerian phenomenology, Hubert Dreyfus has argued that the frame problem is, in part, a consequence of the assumption (made by mainstream cognitive science and artificial intelligence) that intelligent behaviour is representation-guided behaviour. Dreyfus' Heideggerian analysis suggests that the frame problem dissolves if we reject representationalism about intelligence and recognize that human agents realize the property (...) of thrownness (the property of being always already embedded in a context). I argue that this positive proposal is incomplete until we understand exactly how the properties in question may be instantiated in machines like us. So, working within a broadly Heideggerian conceptual framework, I pursue the character of a representation-shunning thrown machine. As part of this analysis, I suggest that the frame problem is, in truth, a two-headed beast. The intra-context frame problem challenges us to say how a purely mechanistic system may achieve appropriate, flexible and fluid action within a context. The inter-context frame problem challenges us to say how a purely mechanistic system may achieve appropriate, flexible and fluid action in worlds in which adaptation to new contexts is open-ended and in which the number of potential contexts is indeterminate. Drawing on the field of situated robotics, I suggest that the intra-context frame problem may be neutralized by systems of special-purpose adaptive couplings, while the inter-context frame problem may be neutralized by systems that exhibit the phenomenon of continuous reciprocal causation. I also defend the view that while continuous reciprocal causation is in conflict with representational explanation, special-purpose adaptive coupling, as well as its associated agential phenomenology, may feature representations. My proposal has been criticized recently by Dreyfus, who accuses me of propagating a cognitivist misreading of Heidegger, one that, because it maintains a role for representation, leads me seriously astray in my handling of the frame problem. I close by responding to Dreyfus' concerns. (shrink)

This introduction to a special issue of Topoi introduces and summarises the relationship between three main varieties of 'enactivist' theorising about the mind: 'autopoietic', 'sensorimotor', and 'radical' enactivism. It includes a brief discussion of the philosophical and cognitive scientific precursors to enactivist theories, and the relationship of enactivism to other trends in embodied cognitive science and philosophy of mind.

Hermeneutic phenomenology is absent in 4 EAC literature . The aim of this article is to show that hermeneutic phenomenology as elaborated in the work of Heidegger is relevant to 4 EAC research. In the first part of the article I describe the hermeneutic turn Heidegger performs in tandem with his ontological turn of transcendental phenomenology, and the hermeneutic account of cognition resulting from it. I explicate the main thesis of the hermeneutic account, namely that cognition is interaction with the (...) world, followed by a discussion of the modes of cognition distinguished in the hermeneutic account. In the second part of the article I discuss the implications of this account with respect to the status and meaning of first, second and third person perspective of cognition. The article concludes with the draft and discussion of an exploratory model of hermeneutic cognition. (shrink)

This paper explores an approach for autonomous generation of symbolic representations from an agent's subsymbolic activities within the agent-environment interaction. The paper describes a psychologically plausible general framework and its various methods for autonomously creating symbolic representations. The symbol generation is accomplished within, and is intrinsic to, a generic and comprehensive cognitive architecture for capturing a wide variety of psychological processes (namely, CLARION). This work points to ways of obtaining more psychologically/cognitively realistic symbolic and subsymbolic representations within the framework of (...) a cognitive architecture, and accentuates the relevance of such an approach to cognitive science and psychology. (shrink)

The logical problem of artificial intelligence—the question of whether the notion sometimes referred to as ‘strong’ AI is self-contradictory—is, essentially, the question of whether an artificial form of life is possible. This question has an immediately paradoxical character, which can be made explicit if we recast it (in terms that would ordinarily seem to be implied by it) as the question of whether an unnatural form of nature is possible. The present paper seeks to explain this paradoxical kind of possibility (...) by arguing that machines can share the human form of life and thus acquire human mindedness, which is to say they can be intelligent, conscious, sentient, etc. in precisely the way that a human being typically is. (shrink)

‘Naturalizing phenomenology’ by limiting it to the ontology of the sciences is problematic on both metaphysical and phenomenological grounds. While most assessments of the prospects for a ‘naturalized phenomenology’ have focused on approaches based in Husserlian transcendental phenomenology, problems also arise for non-reductive approaches based in Heideggerian existential phenomenology. ‘Heideggerian cognitive science’ faces a dilemma. On the one hand, if it is directly concerned with the nature of subjectivity, and this subjectivity is assumed to be ontologically irreducible to its physical (...) enablers yet still metaphysically dependent on them, then Heideggerian cognitive science will either leave that metaphysical dependence an unexplained instance of supervenience, or ground it in speculation about brute metaphysical laws that have an unclear relationship to the ontology of the sciences. On the other hand, if Heideggerian cognitive science is not directly concerned with the nature of subjectivity, but is instead merely aimed at the development of a Heideggerian phenomenological psychology, then it doesn’t fully address the ontological implications of phenomenology’s transcendental approach, and so, while it might succeed in explaining the realization of psychological phenomena scientifically, the existence of subjectivity will remain inexplicable based on the ontology of the sciences. Neither strategy succeeds in ‘naturalizing phenomenology’: either rejects scientific naturalism, or makes its requirements trivial, while either rejects the transcendental dimension of phenomenology, or fails to address its ontological implications. (shrink)

It is a standard understanding that we live in time. In fact, the whole physical world as described in sciences is based on the idea of objective time. For centuries, we have defined time ever so minutely, basing them on finer and finer event measurements that we do not even notice that we have made an inductive leap when it comes to time—we can measure time, so we experience time. In the current work, I wish to critique this inductive leap (...) and examine what it means to experience time. We are embodied and embedded cognitive agents, constrained by our body as well as in continuous interaction with our environment. So another way to ask the question of temporal experience would be—how embodied is time? I posit that experience of time spoken of in general literature is a linguistic construct, in that, the idea of experience of time overshadows the actual phenomenal contents of time perception. Moreover, time perception itself comes from a post-facto judgment of events. It has also been observed that the order of events in time can be altered to create an illusion of violation of causality itself. This points to the possibility that events are arranged in a temporal map that can be read off by higher cognitive substrates. In the current work, we go on to explore the nature of such a map as it emerges from an embodied mind. (shrink)

In this paper, we explore a rationalistic orientation in Western society. We suggest that this orientation is one of the predominant ways in which Western society tends to frame, understand and deal with a majority of problems and questions – namely in terms of mathematical analysis, calculation and quantification, relying on logic, numbers, and statistics. Our main goal in this paper is to uncover the affective structure of this rationalistic orientation. In doing so, we illustrate how this orientation structures the (...) way not only individuals but society as a whole frames and solves problems. We firstly point towards some exemplary instances of the rationalistic orientation, specifically regarding science, society, and lifeworld practice. Crucially, we argue that the rationalistic orientation is not merely based on a set of beliefs we could easily correct; but rather, that it is an affective condition tacitly shaping our engagement with the world in an encompassing way. Relating to the work of Martin Heidegger, we argue that what we have called an orientation in the beginning is in fact a rationalistic attunement. This attunement fundamentally shapes the pre-reflective level of how individuals approach the world. We elaborate this claim by showing how the rationalistic attunement concretely manifests in tangible socio-material affect dynamics. In the end, we motivate a critical stance towards this attunement, providing the ability to reflect upon and question instances where this way of framing and solving problems is counterproductive. (shrink)

Phenomenologists usually insist that their approach involves going “back” to and “starting” with technoscientific experience—that is, returning to the actual existing or living through of technoscientific life—after centuries of privileging the analysis of how things are “objectively” known and denigrating accounts of how they are “subjectively” lived with. But then who says this and how is this understood? “Who” is really a phenomenologist, when so many diverse thinkers claim the title? This paper considers some of the reasons why this is (...) such a difficult question and argues that it is wrong to look for The Answer to it. (shrink)

Abstract No one doubts the radically transformative power of contemporary technologies and technoscientific practices over the material dimensions of our experience. Yet with the coming of all the exciting changes and the promise of ever better material conditions, what kinds of lives are we implicitly being encouraged to live? One would think that current philosophical studies of technology would make this a central question, and indeed, a few have done so. But many do not. Following the lead of thinkers who (...) have made the so-called “empirical turn,” many demur, usually with some remarks about the question being too abstract and general—too likely to suck us into utopian or dystopian speculations—when what is called for are truly informative and “concrete” studies of what it is like to be with actual technologies. My paper considers the good life question—and the philosophical price one pays for not asking it—in light of Auguste Comte’s theory of the three stages of intellectual development. Comte’s depiction of the third, positive scientific stage is much less dated than one might assume. In fact, it is useful to think of our own era as arriving with a Comtean story attached, that is, a story of life in the “developed” world becoming ever better thanks to modern science and technology. Because this story now seems less deserving of the unqualified optimism Comte had about it, I argue that thinking of our own experience as permeated by Comte’s conception of third-stage life gives us a fresh way to consider our misgivings about this default position without either lapsing into utopian or dystopian speculation, or confining one’s focus to purely postphenomenological or pragmatic studies of technoscientific life as it now “appears.” Content Type Journal Article Category Research Article Pages 1-25 DOI 10.1007/s13347-011-0047-2 Authors Robert C. Scharff, Department of Philosophy, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH 03824-3574, USA Journal Philosophy & Technology Online ISSN 2210-5441 Print ISSN 2210-5433. (shrink)

I approach the idea of empirical turns and transcendental theories indirectly. I do not start “post-“ or “neg-” anything; instead I begin pre-philosophically—that is, before everyone has a position and opposes other positions—with Heidegger’s “preparatory hermeneutical” question: As whom and with what concerns do empirically or transcendentally minded philosophers of technology respond to their experience of technoscientific life? For example, in his second Untimely Meditation, Nietzsche identifies his concern as one of “taking advantage” of historical knowledge “for life,” that is, (...) he understands himself to be motivated by a life-driven, not scientific “need.” But how are “needs” in Nietzsche’s sense to be distinguished? The question leads straight to Heidegger’s idea of a hermeneutics that comes “before philosophy”—a “hermeneutics of facticity” that considers “what goes on in [i.e., motivates] a philosophy before it becomes what it is”? I argue that once Nietzsche’s notion of need is expanded and deepened in Heidegger’s direction, we gain some clarity about how to appropriate any information “for life,” whether it is science-based, culturally operative, or phenomenological. I then consider Ihde, Stiegler, and the future prospects of empirical turns and transcendental theories in light of this idea. (shrink)

One of the central debates in cognitive science is the dispute over the role of representation in cognition: on computational/representational accounts, representations are theoretically central; on dynamic systems approaches in which cognition is investigated as a particular sort of physical process, representations play either no role, or, at best, a derivative one. But these two perspectives lead to a deeply unsatisfying theoretical divide: accounts situated in the representational camp are plagued by the inscrutable problem of intentionality, while those hedging towards (...) anti-representationalism seem incapable of saying anything theoretically interesting about high-level cognition. This unhelpful polarization is due in part, at least, to a muddy debate; while some take representationalism to be a commitment to the necessity of conceptual representations for cognition, representations the having of which require certain conceptual capacities, others do not. Recently, there has been a surge of work on non-conceptual representation. This article aims to add to this movement by suggesting a particular cognitive mechanism for non-conceptual representations, one that plays a pivotal role in making conceptual representations possible. One of the central consequences of this new view of representation is the possibility of a non-question-begging naturalistic account of intentionality. (shrink)

Within philosophy there is not yet an integrative account of unreflective skillful action. As a starting point, contributions would be required from philosophers from both the analytic and continental traditions. Starting from the McDowell-Dreyfus debate, shared Aristotelian-Wittgensteinian common ground is identified. McDowell and Dreyfus agree about the importance of embodied skills, situation-specific discernment and responsiveness to relevant affordances. This sheds light on the embodied and situated nature of adequate unreflective action and provides a starting point for the development of an (...) account that does justice to insights from both philosophical traditions. (shrink)

In this paper I return to Hubert Dreyfus’ old but influential critique of artificial intelligence, redirecting it towards contemporary predictive processing models of the mind (PP). I focus on Dreyfus’ arguments about the “frame problem” for artificial cognitive systems, and his contrasting account of embodied human skills and expertise. The frame problem presents as a prima facie problem for practical work in AI and robotics, but also for computational views of the mind in general, including for PP. Indeed, some of (...) the issues it presents seem more acute for PP, insofar as it seeks to unify all cognition and intelligence, and aims to do so without admitting any cognitive processes or mechanisms outside of the scope of the theory. I contend, however, that there is an unresolved problem for PP concerning whether it can both explain all cognition and intelligent behavior as minimizing prediction error with just the core formal elements of the PP toolbox, and also adequately comprehend (or explain away) some of the apparent cognitive differences between biological and prediction-based artificial intelligence, notably in regard to establishing relevance and flexible context-switching, precisely the features of interest to Dreyfus’ work on embodied indexicality, habits/skills, and abductive inference. I address several influential philosophical versions of PP, including the work of Jakob Hohwy and Andy Clark, as well as more enactive-oriented interpretations of active inference coming from a broadly Fristonian perspective. (shrink)

In this article I will suggest ways in which adding the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze to the mix can complement and extend the 4EA approach to cognitive science. In the first part of the paper, I will show how the Deleuzean tripartite ontological difference (virtual/intensive/actual) can provide an explicit ontology for dynamical systems theory. The second part will take these ontological notions and apply them to three areas of concern to the 4EA approaches: (a) the Deleuzean concept of the virtual (...) will clarify the ontological status of perceptual capacity as sensorimotor skill; (b) the Deleuzean concept of “intensive individuation” will clarify the ontological status of the genesis of perceptually guided behavior; (c) the Deleuzean critique of confusing the actual and the virtual will enable us to intervene in the realism/idealism debate. These aspects will not be addressed sequentially but will be interwoven into an unfolding argument. (shrink)

We are very happy that someone has finally tried to make sense of rationalization. But we are worried about the representational structure assumed by Cushman, particularly the “boxology” belief-desire model depicting the rational planner, and it seems to us he fails to accommodate many of the interpersonal aspects of representational exchange.

Worrying is the central feature of generalized anxiety disorder . Many people worry from time to time, but in GAD the worrying is prolonged and difficult to control. Worrying is a specific way of coping with perceived threats and feared situations. Meanwhile, it is not considered to be a helpful coping strategy, and the phenomenological account developed in this paper aims to show why. It builds on several phenomenological notions and in particular on Michael Wheeler's application of these notions to (...) artificial intelligence and the cognitive sciences. Wheeler emphasizes the value of 'online intelligence' as contrasted to 'offline intelligence'. I discuss and apply these concepts with respect to worrying as it occurs in GAD, suggesting that GAD patients overrate the value of detached contemplation , while underrating their embodied-embedded adaptive skills . I argue that this phenomenological account does not only help explaining why worrying is used as a coping strategy, but also why cognitive behavioral therapy is successful in treating GAD. (shrink)

Education theorists have emphasized that transformative learning is not simply a matter of students gaining access to new knowledge and information, but instead centers upon personal transformation: it alters students’ perspectives, interpretations, and responses. How should learning that brings about this sort of self-transformation be understood from the perspectives of philosophy of mind and cognitive science? Jack Mezirow has described transformative learning primarily in terms of critical reflection, meta-cognitive reasoning, and the questioning of assumptions and beliefs. And within mainstream philosophy (...) of mind, there has been a long-standing assumption that cognition and thought are brain-based, computational, disembodied processes that occur separately from emotion and affect. According to this view, selftransformation might be construed as the forging of new neural connections and the development of new cognitive “programs.” However, I will argue that the literature on embodiment and enactivism that has emerged in recent years offers us a different and more productive way to conceptualize the intended effects of transformative learning. From the standpoint of enactivism, the experience of transformative learning is thoroughly bound up with the cognitive shifts that it involves, and it also involves significant changes to the neurobiological dynamics of the living body. Moreover, personal transformation is not simply something that happens to subjects, but rather a process in which they are actively and dynamically engaged. In addition, this enactivist approach emphasizes that the learning process is fully embodied and fundamentally affective. From a phenomenological perspective, personal transformation can be understood as a pronounced alteration in cognitive-affective orientation; and from a neurobiological perspective, the development of new habits of mind can be understood as the formation of highly integrated patterns of bodily engagement and response. The upshot is that it is not just subjects’ brains that are altered over the course of transformative learning, but also their overall bodily and affective attunement to their surroundings. (shrink)

Existing research on the “weapons effect” indicates that simply seeing a weapon can prime aggressive thoughts and appraisals and increase aggressive behavior. But how and why does this happen? I begin by discussing prevailing explanations of the weapons effect and propose that these accounts tend to be over-intellectualistic insofar as they downplay or overlook the important role played by affectivity. In my view, insights from the fields of situated affectivity and enactivism help us to understand how cognitive and affective processes (...) jointly contribute to the weapons effect. Insofar as the presence of weapons alters subject’s bodily-affective orientation and thereby brings about embodied mindshaping, it changes the way they engage with and understand their surroundings. To understand the weapons effect, we will need to examine the constitutive interdependency of appraisal and affectivity and the way in which they jointly motivate action. My proposed account emphasizes the role of affectivity in affordance perception and the way in which subjects gauge the meaning of an object according to its action-possibilities. (shrink)

The DSM characterizes major depressive disorder partly in temporal terms: the depressive mood must last for at least two weeks, and also must impact the subject "most of the day, nearly every day." However, from the standpoint of phenomenological psychopathology, the long-lasting quality of the condition hardly captures the distinctiveness of depression. While the DSM refers to objective time as measured by clocks and calendars, what is especially striking about depression is the distortions to lived time that it involves. But (...) is there any relation between a) these disruptions to temporal experience and b) the tendency for depressive symptoms to persist and endure? To explore the connection between lived time and objective time, I investigate the embodied and enactive nature of intentionality among subjects suffering from depression. What I call 'affective framing' is a spontaneous, pre-reflective way of filtering information that involves bodily attunement and allows subjects to focus their attention on what they feel is important. I will argue that affective framing ordinarily has a forward-looking temporal structure and a "teleological direction" that is rooted in our embodiment. However, depression involves a distortion in future-directed intentionality, so that a subject becomes temporally desituated and cut off from the future. This contributes to many of the characteristic features of depression, including apparent lack of motivation, inability to imagine future possibilities, alterations in lived time, and a sense that one is "stuck." To gain a better understanding of this disruption to the futuredirected structure of affective framing in cases of depression, I look to concepts from complex dynamic systems theory and the notion of 'habit.' My proposed account aims to shed light on how a disruption to future-directedness impacts bodily attunement and reinforces depression as a long-term condition. (shrink)

The long-standing debate between cognitive and feeling theories of emotion stems, in part, from the assumption that cognition and thought are abstract, intellectual, disembodied processes, and that bodily feelings are non-intentional and have no representational content. Working with this assumption has led many emotions theorists to neglect the way in which emotions are simultaneously bodily and cognitive-evaluative. Even hybrid theories, such as those set forth by Prinz and Barlassina and Newen, fail to account fully for how the cognitive and bodily (...) elements of emotion are integrated. As a result, such accounts are unable to provide an adequate characterization of the intentionality or phenomenology of emotions. I will argue that an enactive account of emotions, one which characterizes them as a way of engaging with and making sense of one’s surroundings, can help us to overcome this false dichotomy between cognitive and body elements. What I call ‘ affective framing’ is at the core of emotional experience. It is the way in which we engage with and appraise our surroundings in and through bodily feelings of caring, so that the bodily and cognitive elements of emotion necessarily are fused. The notion of affective framing not only helps to clarify the relationship between bodily and cognitive elements of emotion, but also offers a useful way to make sense of both the intentional directedness and phenomenal character of emotional experience. (shrink)

A gestão da Covid no Brasil está entre as piores do mundo, com número de óbitos inaceitavelmente alto. É inclusive estranho que esses resultados não tenham sido capazes de disparar entre os brasileiros nenhuma mobilização social mais decisiva. Não obstante o reconhecimento da importância do debate mais estritamente político, o objetivo deste artigo é ensaiar uma reflexão fenomenológica sobre a respiração, tendo Heidegger como referência principal. A Covid é afinal uma doença respiratória, que nos convida – ou deveria convidar – (...) a pensar sobre a respiração sob perspectivas históricas, ontológicas e existenciais. São dois os temas a discutir: nossa empobrecida relação com o respirar, e a dificuldade de, mesmo diante de mais de 600 mil mortes direta ou indiretamente causadas no Brasil por asfixia – e mais de 5 milhões no mundo –, encontrarmos caminho para discutir o assunto com mais profundidade. (shrink)

This article deals with the links between the enaction paradigm and artificial intelligence. Enaction is considered a metaphor for artificial intelligence, as a number of the notions which it deals with are deemed incompatible with the phenomenal field of the virtual. After explaining this stance, we shall review previous works regarding this issue in terms of artificial life and robotics. We shall focus on the lack of recognition of co-evolution at the heart of these approaches. We propose to explicitly integrate (...) the evolution of the environment into our approach in order to refine the ontogenesis of the artificial system, and to compare it with the enaction paradigm. The growing complexity of the ontogenetic mechanisms to be activated can therefore be compensated by an interactive guidance system emanating from the environment. This proposition does not however, resolve that of the relevance of the meaning created by the machine (sense-making). Such reflections lead us to integrate human interaction into this environment in order to construct relevant meaning in terms of participative artificial intelligence. This raises a number of questions with regards to setting up an enactive interaction. The article concludes by exploring a number of issues, thereby enabling us to associate current approaches with the principles of morphogenesis, guidance, the phenomenology of interactions and the use of minimal enactive interfaces in setting up experiments which will deal with the problem of artificial intelligence in a variety of enaction-based ways. (shrink)

This paper proposes a new interpretive stance for interpreting artistic works and performances that is relevant to artificial intelligence research but also has broader implications. Termed the expressive stance, this stance makes intelligible a critical distinction between present-day machine art and human art, but allows for the possibility that future machine art could find a place alongside our own. The expressive stance is elaborated as a response to Daniel Dennett's notion of the intentional stance, which is critically examined with respect (...) to his specialized concept of rationality. The paper also shows that temporal scale implicitly serves to select between different modes of explanation in prominent theories of intentionality. It also considers the implications of the phenomenological background for systems that produce art. (shrink)

In the spirit of Slavoj Žižek’s book, Hegel in a Wired Brain, this article asks how the questions central to Hans-Georg Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics are changed and complicated by the possibility of brain-to-brain communication and the datafication of thought made potential through brain-computer interfaces. By taking a phenomenological approach to understanding the nature of communication through a technology that does not require language for the transmission of ideas, this article explores how BCI communication confronts the ontological character of interpretation as (...) presented by Gadamer while also juxtaposing how the insights of Gadamer and Heidegger concerning temporality problematize materialist foundations of BCI communication. In the final analysis, it is argued that thought only becomes meaningful in accord with the temporality of Dasein and that hermeneutics remains central in BCI communication because the material replication of thought does not overcome the particular temporalities of historically effected consciousnesses. (shrink)

Although pragmatism and phenomenology have both contributed significantly to the genealogy of so-called “4E” – embodied, embedded, enactive and extended – cognition, there is benefit to be had from a systematic comparative study of these roots. As existing 4E cognition literature has tended to emphasise one or the other tradition, issues remain to be addressed concerning their commonalities – and possible incompatibilities. We begin by exploring pragmatism and phenomenology’s shared focus on contesting intellectualism, and its key assumption of mindedness as (...) representation. We then outline distinctive insights from both traditions regarding the nature and role of habits, in order to put forward a habit-based epistemology as an alternative to the Cartesian idea-based epistemology that has dominated modern philosophy. We pay particular attention to the work of classical pragmatist C.S. Peirce, arguing that his semiotics, which analyses sign-use as habit, shows how theorists of embodied cognition can break a certain false dichotomy between embodiment and logical or intellectual structure which has prevented them from fully theorising propositional knowledge. In this way, our work both augments and challenges the Dewey/Merleau-Ponty connection that has been much more extensively explored by the field. (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)

I argue that Hubert Dreyfus’ work on embodied coping, the intentional arc, solicitations and the background as well as his anti-representationalism rest on introspection. I denote with ‘introspection’ the methodological malpractice of formulating ontological statements about the conditions of possibility of phenomena merely based on descriptions. In order to illustrate the insufficiencies of Dreyfus’ methodological strategy in particular and introspection in general, I show that Heidegger, to whom Dreyfus constantly refers as the foundation of his own work, derives ontological statements (...) about the conditions of possibility of phenomena not merely from descriptions, but also from analyses. I further show that deriving ontological statements directly from descriptions entails implausible results. I do so by discussing representative cases. Based on these general methodological considerations, I show that Dreyfus’ work on action, skill and understanding is introspective. First, I demonstrate that Dreyfus’ influential claim that rules and representations do not govern skillful actions is the result of introspection, because it is merely founded on the absence of rules and representations in representative descriptions of skillful actions. Second, I show that Dreyfus’ work on embodied coping, the intentional arc, solicitations and the background is also based on introspection. These ontological structures are merely reifications of descriptions and are not further substantiated by analyses. (shrink)

In the following I show that Hubert Dreyfus’ account of skill rests on a misguided interpretation of Martin Heidegger’s work on understanding in Being and Time. Dreyfus separates understanding according to the analytic philosophical concept pair, so called ‘know-how’ and ‘knowledge-that’, that corresponds for him to the pragmatist differentiation between skillful acting and theoretical conceptual thinking. Contrary to that, Heidegger argues that only one form of understanding exists that is neither captured by ‘know-how’, ‘knowledge-that’ or a combination of both. Instead (...) of presupposing two radically different ways to engage with the world, one practical-agential, the other theoretical-conceptual, Heidegger shows that all genuine forms of comportments rest on the same form of understanding that exhibits the highest degree of intelligibility when we deal with the world ordinarily. The Heideggerian account therefore comes without the many dichotomies so often criticized in the literature on skill and understanding, and offers a radically different view of world disclosure and of what we do when we ‘theorize’. (shrink)

In this paper I analyze constitution embodiment, a particular conception of embodiment. Proponents of constitution embodiment claim that the body is a condition of the constitution of entities. Constitution embodiment is popular with phenomenologically-inspired Embodied Cognition, including research projects such as Enactivism and Radical Embodied Cognitive Science. Unfortunately, PEC’s use of constitution embodiment is neither clear nor coherent; in particular, PEC uses the concept of constitution embodiment so that a major inconsistency is entailed. PEC conceives of the body in a (...) transcendental sense as a condition of the constitution of entities, and, in an ontic sense, as a scientifically describable entity. Yet, a condition of the constitution of entities cannot be itself an entity—rather, it is the very condition of the possibility of an entity. This inconsistency entails further problems, among them PEC’s misguided focus on the location of the embodied mind. In order to correct these mistakes, I develop a conception of constitution embodiment based on the work of Heidegger, Husserl and to a lesser degree Merleau-Ponty. This has two purposes. First, it provides the conceptual groundwork to secure the status of PEC as a consistent and coherent research project and to clarify PEC’s conception of the relationship between phenomenology and the sciences. In that spirit, my approach provides further guidelines for fruitful research alliances between PEC and other research programs such as Grounded Cognition and identifies current research alliances, such as those with Radical Enactivism, as undesirable. Second, my account provides an elaborate concept of constitution embodiment that can function as the basis for more sophisticated work in the future. (shrink)

This paper will argue that intellectualism about skill—the contention that skilled performance is without exception guided by proposition knowledge—is fundamentally flawed. It exposes that intellectualists about skill run into intractable theoretical problems in explicating a role for their novel theoretical conceit of practical modes of presentation. It then examines a proposed solution by Carlotta Pavese which seeks to identify practical modes of presentation with motor representations that guide skilled sensorimotor action. We argue that this proposed identification is problematic on empirical (...) and theoretical grounds, and—as such—it fails to deliver on its explanatory ambitions. In the final analysis, it will be argued that intellectualism about skill is, in any case, superfluous when it comes to accounting for the aspects of skilled performance it purports to explain. (shrink)

Airline pilots are attributed ultimate responsibility and final authority over their aircraft to ensure the safety and well-being of all its occupants. Yet, with the advent of automation technologies, a dissonance has emerged in that pilots have lost their actual decision-making authority as well as their ability to act in an adequate fashion towards meeting their responsibilities when unexpected circumstances or emergencies occur. Across the literature in human factor studies, we show how automated algorithmic technologies have wrestled control away from (...) airline pilots. The inter-related ethical and pragmatic consequences resulting from such a dissonance are presented. This includes pilots serving as ‘legal sponges’, being caught in ‘moral crumple zones’, as well as real impacts on safety and well-being of passengers and crew. One potential avenue presented in the literature involves a redistribution of responsibility towards all agential entities within the cockpit system. We discuss the possible pitfalls to this approach, including the reinforcement of pilot skills erosion as well as technology’s own limitations in adaptively dealing with unexpected circumstances. We justify our position by showing how algorithmic technology’s representational frames mask or severely limit the pilots’ natural reflex to ‘practically cope’ and gain an ‘optimal grip’ with a given context/situation at hand. Here, we present the concept of relevant or meaningful control, which pilots, when allowed to develop their natural brain-body reflexes, gain across gradual mastery of the aircraft. Finally, we propose a socio-technical design approach in which pilots can re-appropriate full human meaningful control of the aircraft, thus allowing them to meet their attributed responsibilities. (shrink)

This paper argues that the normative character of our unreflective situated behaviour is not factual. We highlight a problematic assumption shared by the two most influential trends in contemporary philosophy of cognitive science, reductionism and enactivism. Our intentional, normative explanations are referential, descriptive or factual. Underneath this assumption lies the idea that only facts can make true or false our attributions of cognitive, mental and agential abilities. We will argue against this view by describing the main features and problems of (...) reductionism and enactivism and then we will offer two arguments against this shared factualist assumption: (1) normative vocabulary is ineliminable if we want a complete explanation of our situated practices; and (2) the factualist assumption is a species of the is-ought fallacy. Finally, we will claim that a folk psychological explanation of our normative practices is fully compatible with ontological naturalism when such descriptivist or factualist assumption is rejected. (shrink)

As artificial intelligence (AI) becomes progressively more engaged with society, its shift from technical tool to participating in society raises questions about AI personhood. Drawing upon developmental psychology and systems theory, a mediating structure for AI proto-personhood is defined analogous to an early stage of human development. The proposed AI bridges technical, psychological, and theological perspectives on near-future AI and is structured by its hardware, software, computational, and sociotechnical systems through which it experiences its world as embodied (even for putatively (...) disembodied AI). Further social and moral construction can occur building upon a simple “self” for AI synthesized from symbolic and statistical approaches to AI. (shrink)

Practical wisdom enables moral decision-making and action by aligning one’s apprehension of proximate goods with a distal, socially embedded interpretation of a more ultimate Good. A focus on purpose within the overall process mutually informs human moral psychology and moral AI development in their examinations of practical wisdom. AI practical wisdom could ground an AI system’s apprehension of reality in a sociotechnical moral process committed to orienting AI development and action in light of a pluralistic, diverse interpretation of that Good. (...) Defining AI purpose in terms of the human struggle to determine the moral “ought” (versus the way reality is) can overcome practical and normative limitations of principle-based approaches to AI ethics without requiring idiosyncratic moral reasoning or a premature commitment to a single ethical theory, which could hinder navigating the moral implications of future unknowns. Dividing practical wisdom into proximate, mediating, and distal processes enables each division to incorporate the moral dimensions of the situation, individual AI system, and sociotechnical community, respectively. Drawing upon externalist (4E) and ecological cognitive psychology theories to extend Xavier Zubiri’s sentient intelligence, proximate apprehension of what an object affords the perceiver includes affordances for practical and moral purposes. Those apprehensions are structured by moral and other social-cognitive schemas that mediate moral constructs, the apprehended situation, and individual commitments and other motivating identifications in a process Ignacio Ellacuria calls historical reality. Distally, Josiah Royce’s community of interpretation characterizes one way of organizing a sociotechnical process to synthesize diverse interpretations of the Good, orient AI moral practice, and align AI development with human and AI moral purpose. (shrink)

This contribution investigates the idea that an act of signification can be understood in terms of the self-referentiality that is typical of the biological organization. The capacity of a living being to interpret and appreciate its own environment can be understood as being grounded in its ability to perform self-referential experiences. We may call this the living being’s capacity of sense. In any act that generates sense, it is possible to distinguish a process of signification from its outcome, but such (...) a distinction between logical levels inevitably demands an external observer’s point of view. Hence, the concept of ‘subjectivity’ can be defined in terms of an absence of such distinction between logical levels. This absence is considered pivotal both for the self-referential organization of the living and for the generation of sense. A case example from the field of psychotherapy is added to illustrate the distinction as well as the non-distinction between logical levels of description. (shrink)

In this paper, I review recent contributions of phenomenology to a variety of disciplines, including the cognitive sciences and psychiatry, and explore (1) controversies about phenomenological methods and naturalization; (2) relations between phenomenology and the enactive and extended mind approaches; and (3) the promise of phenomenology for addressing a number of controversial philosophical issues.

I examine the following question: Do actions require representations that are intrinsic to the action itself? Recent work by Mark Rowlands, Michael Wheeler, and Andy Clark suggests that actions may require a minimal form of representation. I argue that the various concepts of minimal representation on offer do not apply to action per se and that a non‐representationalist account that focuses on dynamic systems of self‐organizing continuous reciprocal causation at the sub‐personal level is superior. I further recommend a scientific pragmatism (...) regarding the concept of representation. (shrink)

The invention of the computer has revolutionized science. With respect to finding the essential structures of life, for example, it has enabled scientists not only to investigate empirical examples, but also to create and study novel hypothetical variations by means of simulation: ‘life as it could be’. We argue that this kind of research in the field of artificial life, namely the specification, implementation and evaluation of artificial systems, is akin to Husserl’s method of free imaginative variation as applied to (...) the specific regional ontology of biology. Thus, at a time when the clarification of the essence of our biological embodiment is of growing interest for phenomenology, we suggest that artificial life should be seen as a method of externalizing some of the insurmountable complexity of imaginatively varying the phenomenon of life. (shrink)

An important part of David Hume’s work is his attempt to put the natural sciences on a firmer foundation by introducing the scientific method into the study of human nature. This investigation resulted in a novel understanding of the mind, which in turn informed Hume’s critical evaluation of the scope and limits of the scientific method as such. However, while these latter reflections continue to influence today’s philosophy of science, his theory of mind is nowadays mainly of interest in terms (...) of philosophical scholarship. This paper aims to show that, even though Hume’s recognition in the cognitive sciences has so far been limited, there is an opportunity to reevaluate his work in the context of more recent scientific developments. In particular, it is argued that we can gain a better understanding of his overall philosophy by tracing the ongoing establishment of the enactive approach. In return, this novel interpretation of Hume’s ‘science of man’ is used as the basis for a consideration of the current and future status of the cognitive sciences. (shrink)

It is well known that John Dewey was very far from embracing the traditional idea of cognition as something happening inside one’s own mind and consisting in a pictorial representation of the alleged purely external reality out there. His position was largely convergent with enactivist accounts of cognition as something based in life and consisting in human actions within a natural environment. The paper considers Dewey’s conception of cognition by focusing on its potential contributions to the current debate with enactivism. (...) It claims that Dewey’s anti-substantial, continuistic, and emergentistic conception of the mind as a typically human conduct pulls the rug out of the idea of cognition as representation, as well as pushes the current discussion towards a serious reconsideration of representationalist assumptions about conceptuality and language. The paper emphasises that Dewey—differently from enactivists—frames the role of cognition within experience: he argues that cognition concerns those intermediate phases of our experiences of the world which are characterised by an indeterminate or troubled situation, because he claims that human beings’ interactions with their own environment are qualitatively richer and broader than cognition, including as they do many different and intertwined modes of experience. Finally, the author suggests that a coherent development of Dewey’s lines of thought should avoid rigid distinctions and hierarchies between lower and higher degrees of cognition in humans, which are still maintained in certain forms of radical enactivism. Differently, we should consider the impact of the cultural and broadly linguistic configuration of the human–environment even on perception, motor action, and affective sensibility. (shrink)

In the 1960s, without realizing it, AI researchers were hard at work finding the features, rules, and representations needed for turning rationalist philosophy into a research program, and by so doing AI researchers condemned their enterprise to failure. About the same time, a logician, Yehoshua Bar-Hillel, pointed out that AI optimism was based on what he called the “first step fallacy”. First step thinking has the idea of a successful last step built in. Limited early success, however, is not a (...) valid basis for predicting the ultimate success of one’s project. Climbing a hill should not give one any assurance that if he keeps going he will reach the sky. Perhaps one may have overlooked some serious problem lying ahead. There is, in fact, no reason to think that we are making progress towards AI or, indeed, that AI is even possible, in which case claiming incremental progress towards it would make no sense. In current excited waiting for the singularity, religion and technology converge. Hard headed materialists desperately yearn for a world where our bodies no longer have to grow old and die. They will be transformed into information, like Google digitizes old books, and we will achieve the promise of eternal life. As an existential philosopher, however, I suggest that we may have to overcome the desperate desire to digitalize our bodies so as to achieve immortality, and, instead, face up to and maybe even enjoy our embodied finitude. (Paper from PT-AI 2011 conference. Volume ed. Vincent C. Müller). (shrink)

This article deals with the links between the enaction paradigm and artificial intelligence. Enaction is considered a metaphor for artificial intelligence, as a number of the notions which it deals with are deemed incompatible with the phenomenal field of the virtual. After explaining this stance, we shall review previous works regarding this issue in terms of artificial life and robotics. We shall focus on the lack of recognition of co-evolution at the heart of these approaches. We propose to explicitly integrate (...) the evolution of the environment into our approach in order to refine the ontogenesis of the artificial system, and to compare it with the enaction paradigm. The growing complexity of the ontogenetic mechanisms to be activated can therefore be compensated by an interactive guidance system emanating from the environment. This proposition does not however, resolve that of the relevance of the meaning created by the machine (sense-making). Such reflections lead us to integrate human interaction into this environment in order to construct relevant meaning in terms of participative artificial intelligence. This raises a number of questions with regards to setting up an enactive interaction. The article concludes by exploring a number of issues, thereby enabling us to associate current approaches with the principles of morphogenesis, guidance, the phenomenology of interactions and the use of minimal enactive interfaces in setting up experiments which will deal with the problem of artificial intelligence in a variety of enaction-based ways. (shrink)

Though there are many challenges to Ekman’s thesis that there are basic emotions with universal corresponding facial expressions, our main criticism revolves around the extent to which grounding situations alter how people read faces. To that end, we recruit testifying experimental studies that show identical faces expressing varying emotions when contextualized differently. Rather than dismissing these as illusions, we start with the position—generally favored by embodied thinkers—that situations are primary: they are where specifiable and hence knowable properties first show up. (...) We further argue that situationally inflected emotional expressions are informationally meaningful. We reject the idea that reading expressions is primarily about ascertaining internal mental states, arguing instead that people are registering overall situations when looking at faces. However, if mind is understood as a situated phenomenon that extends into active ecological frames, then one can still argue that mindreading is going on. Although we do not claim isolated things like cliffs or cars have agency, we speculate networked systems with cliffs, people, cars, bears, etc., collectively function with intentionality, more so if advancing a robust situated mind thesis, contra figures like Dennett who argue that people over-impute mind to things. Our position has practical implications insofar as it casts doubts on recent attempts to develop AI systems that extract emotional intent out of facial expressions since many of these systems are grounded on Ekman’s basic view. (shrink)

Especialistas em desenvolvimento de Inteligência Artificial prevêem que o avanço no desenvolvimento de sistemas e agentes inteligentes irá remodelar áreas vitais em nossa sociedade. Contudo, se tal avanço não for realizado de maneira prudente e crítico-reflexiva, pode resultar em desfechos negativos para a humanidade. Por este motivo, diversos pesquisadores na área têm desenvolvido uma concepção de IA robusta, benéfica e segura para a preservação da humanidade e do meio-ambiente. Atualmente, diversos dos problemas em aberto no campo de pesquisa em IA (...) advêm da dificuldade de evitar comportamentos indesejados de agentes e sistemas inteligentes, e ao mesmo tempo especificar o que realmente queremos que tais sistemas façam, especialmente quando prospectamos a possibilidade de agentes inteligentes atuarem em vários domínios ao longo prazo. É de suma importância que agentes inteligentes artificiais tenham seus valores alinhados com os valores humanos, dado ao fato de que não podemos esperar que uma IA desenvolva valores morais humanos por conta de sua inteligência, conforme é discutido na Tese da Ortogonalidade. Talvez tal dificuldade venha da maneira que estamos abordando o problema de expressar objetivos, valores e metas, utilizando de métodos cognitivos representacionais. Uma solução para este problema seria a abordagem dinâmica proposta por Dreyfus, que com base na filosofia fenomenológica mostra que a experiência humana do ser-no-mundo em diversos aspectos não é bem representada pelo método cognitivo simbólico ou conexionista, especialmente na questão de aprendizagem de valores. Uma possível abordagem para esse problema seria a utilização de modelos téoricos como SED para abordar o porblema de aprendizagem de valores em IA. (shrink)