Enactivism

Enactivism is a theoretical approach within the cognitive science . It is based on the idea that cognition develops from the interaction of living beings with their environment. It is central that the living being interacts physically with the environment as a complete agent ( embodiment ; embodied and situated cognition ). The enactivist approach largely overlaps with that of Embodied Cognitive Science .

Enactivism criticizes older approaches in the cognitive sciences, which want to reduce the mind to mental representations , and see itself as an alternative to cognitivism , computationalism and dualism .

The term goes back to the book The Tree of Knowledge by Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela .

Today's representatives of enactivism include Ralph D. Ellis, Daniel D. Hutto, Shaun Gallagher, Alva Noë and Evan Thompson .

literature

Miriam Kyselo: Enactivism. In: A. Stephan , S. Walter (ed.): Handbuch Kognitionswissenschaft. Stuttgart, JB Metzler 2013, pp. 197-202.
Daniel D. Hutto: Knowing what? Radical versus conservative enactivism. In: Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences. 4, 2005, pp. 389-405. (PDF file; 179 kB)
Shaun Gallagher: How the Body Shapes the Mind. Oxford University Press, New York 2005, ISBN 0-19-920416-0 .
Humberto Maturana, Francisco Varela: The Tree of Knowledge. The biological roots of human knowledge. Goldmann, Munich 1987, ISBN 3-442-11460-8 .
Richard Menary (Ed.): Radical Enactivism: Intentionality, phenomenology, and narrative. Focus on the philosophy of Daniel D. Hutto. John Benjamin, Amsterdam 2006, ISBN 90-272-4151-1 .
Maurice Merleau-Ponty : Phenomenology of Perception. de Gruyter, Berlin 1966.
Alva Noë: Action in Perception. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA. 2004.
Rolf Pfeifer, Josh C. Bongard: How the Body Shapes the Way We Think. A New View of Intelligence. MIT Press, Cambridge 2006.
Kevin O'Regan, Alva Noë: A sensorimotor account of vision and visual consciousness. In: Behavioral and Brain Sciences. 24, 2001, pp. 939-1031 (with comments) (PDF file; 799 kB)
Patrick Spät : Enactivism, bodily qualia and panpsychism. In: General journal for philosophy. 33 (3), 2008, pp. 237-262.
Maja Storch, Benita Cantieni, Gerald Hüther , Wolfgang Tschacher: Embodiment. Understand and use the interaction between body and mind. Huber, Bern 2006, ISBN 3-456-84323-2 .
Evan Thompson: Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind. Harvard University Press, Cambridge 2007, ISBN 978-0-674-02511-0 .
Francisco Varela, Evan Thompson, Eleanor Rosch: The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA 1991.

Individual evidence

↑ From the article Enactivism of the English language Wikipedia: In The Tree of Knowledge: The Biological Roots of Human Understanding, Francisco Varela claims to have "proposed using the term enactive to designate this view of knowledge, to evoke the view that what is known is brought forth, in contraposition to the more classical views of either cognitivism or connectionism. [Tree of Knowledge pg. 255] Within the book, the analogies of the Razor's Edge and the Scylla and Charybdis are used to describe the "epistemologic Odyssey" between the notions of solipsism and representationalism. Enactivism, therefore is the middle ground between the two extremes [Tree of Knowledge, pgs. 133,134,253]. "

[1] From the article Enactivism of the English language Wikipedia: In The Tree of Knowledge: The Biological Roots of Human Understanding, Francisco Varela claims to have "proposed using the term enactive to designate this view of knowledge, to evoke the view that what is known is brought forth, in contraposition to the more classical views of either cognitivism or connectionism. [Tree of Knowledge pg. 255] Within the book, the analogies of the Razor's Edge and the Scylla and Charybdis are used to describe the "epistemologic Odyssey" between the notions of solipsism and representationalism. Enactivism, therefore is the middle ground between the two extremes [Tree of Knowledge, pgs. 133,134,253]. "