This paper provides a critical discussion of the views of Merleau-Ponty and contemporary enactivism concerning the phenomenological dimension of the continuity between life and mind. I argue that Merleau-Ponty’s views are at odds with those of enactivists. Merleau-Ponty only applied phenomenological descriptions to the life-worlds of sentient animals with sensorimotor systems, contrary to those enactivists who apply them to all organisms. I argue that we should follow Merleau-Ponty on this point, as the use of phenomenological concepts to describe the “experience” (...) of creatures with no phenomenal consciousness has generated confusion about the role of phenomenology in enactivism and prompted some enactivists to ignore or turn away from phenomenology. Further, Merleau-Ponty also emphasizes the stark distinction between the vital order of animals and the human order to a greater degree than many phenomenologically inspired enactivists. I discuss his view in connection with recent research in developmental and comparative psychology. Despite the striking convergence of Merleau-Ponty’s visionary thought with the most recent findings, I argue that he somewhat overstates the difference between human experience and cognition, and that of our closest animal kin. I outline a developmental-phenomenological account of how the child enters the human order in the first years of life, thereby further mitigating the stark difference between orders. This results in a modified Merleau-Pontian version of the phenomenological dimension of life-mind continuity which I recommend to enactivism. (shrink)

In this paper I develop a novel account of the phenomenality of language by focusing on characteristics of perceived speech. I explore the extent to which the spoken word can be said to have a horizonal structure similar to that of spatiotemporal objects: our perception of each is informed by habitual associations and expectations formed through past experiences of the object or word and other associated objects and experiences. Specifically, the horizonal structure of speech in use can fruitfully be compared (...) to that of a tool in use. The comparison suggests an account of our linguistic faculty as continuous with more foundational faculties of perception and action. I provide empirical corroboration of this account by drawing on recent neuroimaging studies of the multimodal, sensorimotor bases of speech comprehension. I then discuss how such an understanding of our linguistic ability helps advocates of embodied, non-representationalist accounts of cognition respond to a common objection. Critics grant that embodied approaches may be adequate to account for lower-level, online modes of cognition, such as perception and action, which directly engage their object. But they question whether such approaches can “scale up” to higher modes of cognition, such as imagination, memory, thought, and language, which can entertain absent, non-existent, or abstract objects. By providing a plausible account of the continuity of lower cognition and language-involving cognition, my approach responds to this objection, at least where language is concerned. (shrink)