A paradigm instructs in how to do research successfully. Analytic philosophy of science, currently dominant, models paradigmatic rational science as a system of logical inferences. It is, however, an abundantly inadequate paradigm. This paper presents an alternative paradigm: science as an organized collection of problem solving processes. This position is backed, on the one side, by a cognitive model of problem solving process applicable to all problem solving circumstances and, on the other, by a non-formal conception of rationality that provides (...) a wider enriched notion of rational research process than is available to the analytic paradigm. The result is a very different way of looking at science and of doing history and philosophy of science. The position is developed sufficiently to display its nature and merits. (shrink)

This paper engages the extended cognition controversy by advancing a theory which fits nicely into an attractive and surprisingly unoccupied conceptual niche situated comfortably between traditional individualism and the radical externalism espoused by the majority of supporters of the extended mind hypothesis. I call this theory moderate active externalism, or MAE. In alliance with other externalist theories of cognition, MAE is committed to the view that certain cognitive processes extend across brain, body, and world—a conclusion which follows from a theory (...) I develop in “Synergic Coordination: an argument for cognitive process externalism.” Yet, in contradistinction with radical externalism, and in agreement with the internalist orthodoxy, MAE defends the view that mental states are situated invariably inside our heads. This is done, inter alia, by developing a novel hypothesis regarding the vehicles of content (in “Extended cognition without externalized mental states”, and by criticizing arguments in support of mental states externalism (in “Reflections and objections”). The result, I believe, is a coherent theoretical alternative worthy of serious consideration. (shrink)

The paper links discussions of two topics: biological individuality and the simplest forms of mentality. I discuss several attempts to locate the boundary between metabolic activity and ‘minimal cognition.’ I then look at differences between the kinds of individuality present in unicellular life, multicellular life in general, and animals of several kinds. Nervous systems, which are clearly relevant to cognition and subjectivity, also play an important role in the form of individuality seen in animals. The last part of the paper (...) links these biological transitions to the evolutionary history of subjective experience. (shrink)

Standard semantic information processing models—information in; information processed; information out —lend themselves to standard models of the functioning of the brain in terms, e.g., of threshold-switch neurons connected via classical synapses. That is, in terms of sophisticated descendants of McCulloch and Pitts models. I argue that both the cognition and the brain sides of this framework are incorrect: cognition and thought are not constituted as forms of semantic information processing, and the brain does not function in terms of passive input (...) processing units organized as neural nets. An alternative framework is developed that models cognition and thought not in terms of semantic information processing, and, correspondingly, models brain functional processes also not in terms of semantic information processing. As alternative to such models: I outline a pragmatist oriented, interaction based, model of representation; derive from this model a fundamental framework of constraints on how the brain must function; show that such a framework is in fact found in the brain, and develop the outlines of a broader model of how mental processes can be realized within this alternative framework. Part I of this discussion focuses on some criticisms of standard modeling frameworks for representation and cognition, and outlines an alternative interactivist, pragmatist oriented, model. In part II, the focus is on the fact that the brain does not, in fact, function in accordance with standard passive input processing models—e.g., information processing models. Instead, there are multiple endogenously active processes at multiple spatial and temporal scales across multiple kinds of cells. A micro-functional model that accounts for, and even predicts, these multi-scale phenomena in generating emergent representation and cognition is outlined. That is, I argue that the interactivist model of representation outlined offers constraints on how the brain should function that are in fact empirically found, and, in reverse, that the multifarious details of brain functioning entail the pragmatist representational model—a very strong interrelationship. In the sequel paper, starting with part III, this model is extended to address macro-functioning in the CNS. In part IV, I offer a discussion of an approach to brain functioning that has some similarities with, as well as differences from, the model presented here: sometimes called the predictive brain approach. (shrink)

Whole brain failure constitutes the diagnostic criterion for death determination in most clinical settings across the globe. Yet the conceptual foundation for its adoption was slow to emerge, has evoked extensive scientific debate since inception, underwent policy revision, and remains contentious in praxis even today. Complications result from the need to relate a unitary construal of the death event with an adequate account of organismal integration and that of the human organism in particular. Advances in the neuroscience of higher human (...) faculties, such as the self, personal identity, and consciousness, and dynamical philosophy of science accounts, however, are yielding a portrait of higher order global integration shared between body and brain. Such conceptual models of integration challenge a praxis relying exclusively on a neurological criterion for death. (shrink)

Our aim in the present paper is to approach the nature of life from the perspective of autonomy, showing that this perspective can be helpful for overcoming the traditional Cartesian gap between the physical and cognitive domains. We first argue that, although the phenomenon of life manifests itself as highly complex and multidimensional, requiring various levels of description, individual organisms constitute the core of this multifarious phenomenology. Thereafter, our discussion focuses on the nature of the organization of individual living entities, (...) proposing autonomy as the main concept to grasp it. In the second part of the article we show how autonomy is also fundamental to explaining major evolutionary transitions, in an attempt to rethink evolution from the point of view of the organizational structure of the entities/organisms involved. This gives further support to the idea of autonomy not only as a key to understanding life in general but also the complex expressions of it that we observe on our planet. Finally, we suggest a possible general principle that underlies those evolutionary transitions, which allow for the open-ended redefinition of autonomous systems: namely, the relative dynamic decoupling that must be articulated among distinct parts, modules or modes of operation in these systems. (shrink)

In affective neuroscience, constructivist models are acutely influenced by the modern technological evolution, which underwrites an ongoing epistemological substitution of techne for episteme. Evidenced symptomatically in the influence of artificial intelligence (AI), affective artefacts, these models inform an ontological incursion of techne seen to coincide with posthumanist aspirations and anthropology. It is from the perspective of this neuroscientific techne that posthumanism views the human being as increasingly ill adapted to the modern technological civilization, which, conversely, is understood to require a (...) technical governance of the sort envisioned through AI. Among the projects thought necessary for implementing this framework is a recasting of the human emotional spectrum. Revealed through its techne recasting, however, are explanatory commitments to a metaphysic of extrinsic and contiguous causes, where malleability is ontologically constitutive. Aligned with posthumanist assertions malleability is invoked to argue for a rapid advance of the human form, normatively driven by enlightenment ideals. The ontological claim, however, dispenses with the stability of an a priori, intersubjective and interrelational metaphysical form that undergirds the emotions, leading to the collapse of a definitional anthropos. This paper will argue that techne models of the emotions selectively endorse philosophy of science commitments, thereby introducing a normative inversion that deconstructs the notion of anthropology pursued in posthumanist aspirations. (shrink)

In this paper we explore the organizational conditions underlying the emergence of organisms at the multicellular level. More specifically, we shall propose a general theoretical scheme according to which a multicellular organism is an ensemble of cells that effectively regulates its own development through collective mechanisms of control of cell differentiation and cell division processes. This theoretical result derives from the detailed study of the ontogenetic development of three multicellular systems and, in particular, of their corresponding cell-to-cell signaling networks. The (...) case study supports our claim that a specific type of functional integration among the cells of a multicellular ensemble , is required for it to qualify as a proper organism. Finally, we argue why a multicellular system exhibiting this type of functionally differentiated and integrated developmental organization becomes a self-determining collective entity and, therefore, should be considered as a second-order autonomous system. (shrink)

The point of this paper is to provide a principled framework for a naturalistic, interactivist-constructivist model of rational capacity and a sketch of the model itself, indicating its merits. Being naturalistic, it takes its orientation from scientific understanding. In particular, it adopts the developing interactivist-constructivist understanding of the functional capacities of biological organisms as a useful naturalistic platform for constructing such higher order capacities as reason and cognition. Further, both the framework and model are marked by the finitude and fallibility (...) that science attributes to organisms, with their radical consequences, and also by the individual and collective capacities to improve their performances that learning organisms display. Part A prepares the ground for the exposition through a critique of the dominant Western analytic tradition in rationalising science, followed by a brief exposition of the naturalist framework that will be employed to frame the construction. This results in two sets of guidelines for constructing an alternative. Part B provides the new conception of reason as a rich complex of processes of improvement against epistemic values, and argues its merits. It closes with an account of normativity and our similarly developing rational knowledge of it, including (reflexively) of reason itself. (shrink)

The Aristotle-Kant tradition requires that autonomous activity must originate within the self and points toward a new type of causation (different from natural efficient causation) associated with teleology. Notoriously, it has so far proven impossible to uncover a workable model of causation satisfying these requirements without an increasingly unsatisfying appeal to extra-physical elements tailor-made for the purpose. In this paper we first provide the essential reason why the standard linear model of efficient causation cannot support the required model of agency: (...) its causal thread model of efficient causation cannot support the core requirement that an action is determined by, and thus an expression of, the agent’s nature. We then provide a model that corrects these deficiencies, constructed naturalistically from within contemporary biology, and argue that it provides an appropriate foundation for all the features of genuine agency. Further, we provide general characterisations of freedom and reason suitable to this bio-context (but that also capture the core classical conceptions) and show how this model reconciles them. (shrink)

Complex systems are used, studied and instantiated in science, with what con-sequences? To be clear and systematic in response it is necessary to distin-guish the consequences, for science, of science using and studying complex systems, for philosophy of science, of science using and studying complex systems, for philosophy of science, of philosophy of science modelling sci-ence as a complex system. Each of these is explored in turn, especially. While has been least studied, it will be shown how modelling science as (...) a complex process may change our conception of science and thereby query what a philosophy of science adequate to this complexity might look like. (shrink)

In 1895 sociologist and philosopher Georg Simmel published a paper: ‘On a connection of selection theory to epistemology’. It was focussed on the question of how behavioural success and the evolution of the cognitive capacities that underlie it are to be related to knowing and truth. Subsequently, Simmel’s ideas were largely lost, but recently an English translation was published by Coleman in this journal. While Coleman’s contextual remarks are solely concerned with a preceding evolutionary epistemology, it will be argued here (...) that Simmel pursues a more unorthodox, more radically biologically based and pragmatist, approach to epistemology in which the presumption of a wholly interests-independent truth is abandoned, concepts are accepted as species-specific and truth tied intimately to practical success. Moreover, Simmel’s position, shorn of one too-radical commitment, shares its key commitments with the recently developed interactivist–constructivist framework for understanding biological cognition and naturalistic epistemology. There Simmel’s position can be given a natural, integrated, three-fold elaboration in interactivist re-analysis, unified evolutionary epistemology and learnable normativity. (shrink)

The interactivist model has explored a number of consequences of process metaphysics. These include reversals of some fundamental metaphysical assumptions dominant since the ancient Greeks, and multiple further consequences throughout the metaphysics of the world, minds, and persons. This article surveys some of these consequences, ranging from issues regarding entities and supervenience to the emergence of normative phenomena such as representation, rationality, persons, and ethics.

Cognitive science depends on abstractions made from the complex reality of human behaviour. Cognitive scientists typically wish the abstractions in their theories to be universals, but seldom attend to the ontology of universals. Two sorts of universal, resulting from Galilean abstraction and materialist abstraction respectively, are available in the philosophical literature: the abstract universal—the one-over-many universal—is the universal conventionally employed by cognitive scientists; in contrast, a concrete universal is a material entity that can appear within the set of entities it (...) describes, of which it represents the essential, paradigmatic case. The potential role of concrete universals in cognitive science is discussed. (shrink)

Complexity arises from interaction dynamics, but its forms are co-determined by the operative constraints within which the dynamics are expressed. The basic interaction dynamics underlying complex systems is mostly well understood. The formation and operation of constraints is often not, and oftener under appreciated. The attempt to reduce constraints to basic interaction fails in key cases. The overall aim of this paper is to highlight the key role played by constraints in shaping the field of complex systems. Following an introduction (...) to constraints, the paper develops the roles of constraints in specifying forms of complexity and illustrates the roles of constraints in formulating the fundamental challenges to understanding posed by complex systems. (shrink)

Error is protean, ubiquitous and crucial in scientific process. In this paper it is argued that understanding scientific process requires what is currently absent: an adaptable, context-sensitive functional role for error in science that naturally harnesses error identification and avoidance to positive, success-driven, science. This paper develops a new account of scientific process of this sort, error and success driving Self-Directed Anticipative Learning (SDAL) cycling, using a recent re-analysis of ape-language research as test example. The example shows the limitations of (...) other accounts of error, in particular Mayo’s (Error and the growth of experimental knowledge, 1996) error-statistical approach, and SDAL cycling shows how they can be fruitfully contextualised. (shrink)

In this essay I offer a theory of the outward directedness of intentional states, namely, an account of what makes intentional states directed at their respective intentional objects. The theory is meant to be complementary to the canonical interactivist account of mental content in that the latter emphasizes the predicative, intensional, and internal aspects of representation whereas here I shall focus on its denotative, extensional, and external aspects. Thus, the aim is to establish that the two projects are not only (...) consistent but mutually supportive. Further, it is hoped that supplementing the interactivist conception of representation with a theory of intentional directedness along such lines will increase its overall appeal to critical readers. Based on the core idea that the directedness of a representation is a function of the manner in which it is constructed within, and contributes to the ongoing unfolding of a dynamical interactive loop connecting information to focused action, the theory is subsequently extended to cover many problem domains familiarly associated with representation and reference. (shrink)