Philosophical exploration of individualism and externalism in the cognitive sciences most recently has been focused on general evaluations of these two views (Adams & Aizawa 2008, Rupert 2008, Wilson 2004, Clark 2008). Here we return to broaden an earlier phase of the debate between individualists and externalists about cognition, one that considered in detail particular theories, such as those in developmental psychology (Patterson 1991) and the computational theory of vision (Burge 1986, Segal 1989). Music cognition is an area in the (...) cognitive sciences that has received little attention from philosophers, though it has relatively recently been thrown into the externalist spotlight (Cochrane 2008, Kruger 2014, Kersten forthcoming). Given that individualism can be thought of as a kind of paradigm for research on cognition, we provide a brief overview of the field of music cognition and individualistic tendencies within the field (sections 2 and 3) before turning to consider externalist alternatives to individualistic paradigms (section 4-5) and then arguing for a qualified form of externalism about music cognition (section 6). (shrink)

ABSTRACT: The Reflexive Theory of Perception (RTP) claims that perception of an object or property X by an organism Z consists in Z being caused by X to acquire some disposition D toward X itself. This broadly behavioral perceptual theory explains perceptual intentionality and correct versus incorrect, plus successful versus unsuccessful, perception in a plausible evolutionary framework. The theory also undermines cognitive and perceptual modularity assumptions, including informational or purely epistemic views of perception in that, according to the RTP, any (...) X-caused and X-directed dispositions are genuinely perceptual—including affective, attitudinal, and immediately activated purely action-directed behavioral dispositions. Thus the RTP has the potential to provide the foundations for a broadly behavioral counter-revolution in cognitive science. (shrink)

The question “What is the nature of experience?” is of perennial philosophical concern. It deals not only with the nature of experience qua experience, but additionally with related questions about the experiencing subject and that which is experienced. In other words, to speak of the philosophical problem of experience, one must also address questions about mind, world, and the various relations that link them together. Both William James and Kitarō Nishida were deeply concerned with these issues. Their shared notion of (...) “pure experience” is the conceptual cornerstone of their attempt to deal with the philosophical problem of experience. This dissertation is an analysis of “pure experience” and its relevance to several issues in contemporary hilosophy of mind. Drawing upon James’s and Nishida’s “pure experience”, I argue both for a sensorimotor-based, “extended” conception of consciousness and a bodily skills-based account of moral psychology. (shrink)

In this paper we challenge the notion of ‘normativity’ used by some enactive approaches to cognition. We define some varieties of enactivism and their assumptions and make explicit the reasoning behind the co-emergence of individuality and normativity. Then we argue that appealing to dispositions for explaining some living processes can be more illuminating than claiming that all such processes are normative. For this purpose, we will present some considerations, inspired by Wittgenstein, regarding norm-establishing and norm-following and show that attributions of (...) normativity to non-social agents are deeply paradoxical. The main conclusions of our discussion are: (1) circular and internal explanations centred on the stability of living systems are insufficient to account for processes where the environment plays an important role, such as adaptation. Enactivism is not an explanatory alternative to evolutionary biology but needs it as a complement to accounts focused on the internal self-assembly of organisms; (2) though we share enactivism’s anti-representational spirit, we argue that ecological psychology can offer a better account of perception. (shrink)

This paper is part of a series in which we had worked in the last 6 months, and, specifically, intend to investigate the notion of timbre through the ecological perspective proposed by James Gibson in his Theory of Direct Perception. First of all, we discussed the traditional approach to timbre, mainly as developed in acoustics and psychoacoustics. Later, we proposed a new conception of timbre that was born in concepts of ecological approach. The ecological approach to perception proposed by Gibson (...) (1966, 1979) presupposes a level of analysis of perceptual stimulated that includes, but is quite broader than the usual physical aspect. Gibson suggests as focus the relationship between the perceiver and his environment. At the core of this approach, is the notion of affordances, invariant combinations of properties at the ecological level, taken with reference to the anatomy and action systems of species or individual, and also with reference to its biological and social needs. Objects and events are understood as relates to a perceiving organism by the meaning of structured information, thus affording possibilities of action by the organism. Event perception aims at identifying properties of events to specify changes of the environment that are relevant to the organism. The perception of form is understood as a special instance of event perception, which is the identity of an object depends on the nature of the events in which is involved and what remains invariant over time. From this perspective, perception is not in any sense created by the brain, but is a part of the world where information can be found. Consequently, an ecological approach represents a form of direct realism that opposes the indirect realist based on predominant approaches to perception borrowed from psychoacoustics and computational approach. (shrink)

For most archaeologists the meaning of prehistoric art appears to be grounded upon, if not synonymous with, the notion of representation and symbolism. This paper explores the possibility that the depictions we see already 30,000 years before present, for instance, at the caves of Chauvet and Lascaux, before and beyond representing the world, they first bring forth a new process of acting within this world and at the same time of thinking about it. It is argued that the unique ability (...) of those early depictions to disrupt or question the ways the world is experienced under normal conditions makes possible for the visual apparatus to interrogate itself and thus acquire a sense of perceptual awareness not previously available. (shrink)

Naturalistic thinking and knowing, the tacit, experiential, and intuitive reasoning of everyday interaction, have long been regarded as inferior to formal reason and labeled primitive, fallible, subjective, superstitious, and in some cases ineffable. But, naturalistic thinking is more rational and definable than it appears. It is also relevant to design. Inquiry into the mechanisms of naturalistic thinking and knowledge can bring its resources into focus and enable designers to create better, human-centered designs for use in real-world settings. This article makes (...) a case for the explicit, formal study of implicit, naturalistic thinking within the fields of design. It develops a framework for defining and studying naturalistic thinking and knowledge, for integrating them into design research and practice, and for developing a more integrated, consistent theory of knowledge in design. It will (a) outline historical definitions of knowledge, attitudes toward formal and naturalistic thinking, and the difficulties presented by the co-presence of formal and naturalistic thinking in design, (b) define and contrast formal and naturalistic thinking as two distinct human cognitive systems, (c) demonstrate the importance of naturalistic cognition in formal thinking and real-world judgment, (d) demonstrate methods for researching naturalistic thinking that can be of use in design, and (e) briefly discuss the impact on design theory of admitting naturalistic thinking as valid, systematic, and knowable. (shrink)

I argue for an enactive account of musical experience — that is, the experience of listening ‘deeply’(i.e., sensitively and understandingly) to a piece of music. The guiding question is: what do we do when we listen ‘deeply’to music? I argue that these music listening episodes are, in fact, doings. They are instances of active perceiving, robust sensorimotor engagements with and manipulations of sonic structures within musical pieces. Music is thus experiential art, and in Nietzsche’s words, ‘we listen to music with (...) our muscles’. This paper attempts to explicate and defend this claim. First, I discuss enactive approaches to consciousness and cognition generally. Next, I apply an enactive model of perceptual consciousness to the experience of listening to music. To clarify what is at stake, I use Peter Kivy’s ‘enhanced formalism’ as a philosophical foil. I then look at how the animate body shapes musical experience. (shrink)

This paper is in two parts. Part 1 examines the phenomenon of making space as a process involving one or other kind of legal decision-making, for example when a state authority authorizes the creation of a new highway along a certain route or the creation of a new park in a certain location. In cases such as this a new abstract spatial entity comes into existence – the route, the area set aside for the park – followed only later by (...) concordant changes in physical reality. In Part 2 we show that features identified in studying this phenomenon of legal spacemaking can be detected in other spheres of human activity, for example in planning (where spacemaking is projected into the future), and in reasoning about history (where spacemaking is projected back through time). We shall see that these features display themselves in especially complex ways in our everyday use of language, and we conclude by examining the implications of this complexity for attempts to create an artificial intelligence that would enjoy a mastery of language that would be equivalent to that of human beings. (shrink)

Concept formation is a crucial milestone for cognitive development. In the last 40 years, empirical evidence obtained in laboratory settings suggested that babies have a rich conceptual system that expresses in responses to stimuli. However, very little is still known about how concepts develop in every day, ecological contexts. This is due to a lack of studies addressing (i) the intersubjective contexts of activity in which concepts develop and (ii) the meanings that objects that are part of those contexts acquire (...) through material engagement. This paper presents a qualitative analysis of six observations from a longitudinal pilot study carried out at an infant school in Madrid (Spain), with children from ages 5 to 17 months. Children’s interactions with each other, with their teacher, and with objects were recorded every 21 days for 6 months. Results show that when children, in their first year of life, grasp the canonical uses of objects they stop interacting with isolated things and start to interact with members of functional classes. Knowledge about the canonical function of objects grants children access to new forms of interaction with the material world, with others, and with themselves. I, therefore, propose that, in early childhood, general forms of material engagement that take place within culturally organised activities are central to conceptual development. Specifically, I hold that canonical uses of objects are conceptual in nature. Results are discussed in relation to the need for more studies addressing the active role of material culture for cognition in early childhood. (shrink)

The aim for this thesis is to motivate, critically evaluate and defend the claim that subjects are able to consciously perceive the affordances of objects. I will present my protagonist, the ‘Conscious Affordance Theorist’, with what are two main obstacles to this claim. The first of these is that affordance perception correctly understood refers only to a kind of subpersonal visual processing, and not to a kind of conscious visual experience. I claim that this results in an explanatory gap at (...) the level of intentional action, which in order to correct we need to redefine the notion of affordance perception to include conscious as well as subpersonal affordance perception. Precisely, I claim that ‘affordance awareness’ has a crucial epistemological role to play, and that subjects must be able to consciously experience affordances in order to gain this awareness. In answer to this claim, I supplement the objection that affordance perception is defined as subpersonal perception to include the claim that any awareness subjects have of the affordances of objects they visually experience is due to them having thoughts about those affordances, and not visual experience of them. I then consider the Conscious Affordance Theorist’s response to this supplemented account. The second obstacle is the claim that conscious visual affordance perception is an impossible notion given that affordances are dispositional properties, and the dispositional properties of objects cannot be ‘seen’. In facing this objection I look to the supporting claims and motivations that lie behind it, in order to find a way for the Conscious Affordance Theorist to challenge its central claim that affordances cannot be seen. I end this thesis with an account of the Conscious Affordance Theorist’s own positive position, and a consideration of how his account has the ability to provide for conscious affordance perception in the case of non-human animals. (shrink)

Although widely used across psychology, economics, and philosophy, the concept ofeffort is rarely ever defined. This article argues that the time is ripe to look for anexplicit general definition of effort, makes some proposals about how to arrive at thisdefinition, and suggests that a force-based approach is the most promising. Section 1presents an interdisciplinary overview of some chief research axes on effort, and arguesthat few, if any, general definitions have been proposed so far. Section 2 argues thatsuch a definition is (...) now needed and proposes a basic methodology to arrive at it, whosefirst step is to make explicit the various tacit assumptions about effort made acrosssciences and ordinary thinking. Section 3 unearths 4 different conceptions of effortfrom research on effort so far:primitive-feelings accounts,comparator-based accounts,resource-based accountsandforce-based accounts. It is then argued that the first 2kinds of accounts, although interesting in their own right, are not strictly speaking abouteffort. Section 4 considers the 2 most promising general approaches to efforts: re-source-based and force-based accounts. It argues that these accounts are not only compatible but actually extensionally equivalent. This notwithstanding, it explains why force-based accounts should be regarded as more fundamental than resource-basedaccounts -/- . (shrink)

Neuroscience is a multidisciplinary effort to understand the structures and functions of the brain and brain-mind relations. This effort results in an increasing amount of data, generated by sophisticated technologies. However, these data enhance our descriptive knowledge, rather than improve our understanding of brain functions. This is caused by methodological gaps both within and between subdisciplines constituting neuroscience, and the atomistic approach that limits the study of macro- and mesoscopic issues. Whole-brain measurement technologies do not resolve these issues, but rather (...) aggravate them by the complexity problem. The present article is devoted to methodological and epistemic problems that obstruct the development of human neuroscience. We neither discuss ontological questions nor review data, except when it is necessary to demonstrate a methodological issue. As regards intradisciplinary methodological problems, we concentrate on those within neurobiology and psychology. As regards interdisciplinary problems, we suggest that core disciplines of neuroscience can be integrated using systemic concepts that also entail human-environment relations. We emphasize the necessity of a meta-discussion that should entail a closer cooperation with philosophy as a discipline of systematic reflection. The atomistic reduction should be complemented by the explicit consideration of the embodiedness of the brain and the embeddedness of humans. The discussion is aimed at the development of an explicit methodology of integrative human neuroscience, which will not only link different fields and levels, but also help in understanding clinical phenomena. (shrink)