- Részletek
- Kategória: Konferencia program
Ion Copoeru Professor, Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca
Participatory sense-making in the context of variable modes of engagement
One of the issues in the enactive theory of sense-making is if sense-making should be seen as an inherently active concept. Therefore, we have to acknowledge that there is not a definitive (stabilised) operational closure at the level of the individual living organism and the emergence of a world of significance does not (at least not always) involve an active sense-making. In an attempt at solving this tension, the paper will take another path than that of Fuchs and de Jaegher, who proposed the concept of “mutual incorporation, i.e. a process in which the lived bodies of both participants extend and form a common intercorporality.” (2009) My proposal will be to take the interaction process as central in participatory sense-making and to bring together insights from interactional sociology and enactivist theories.
The model for the participatory sense-making will be the emergence of the meaning in the organization itself of the action. Therefore, the popping up of a world of significance will be a matter of practical competency. The paper will emphasize the need for a more flexible and encompassing ‘ontology’ of the modes of engagement and, for that purpose, will discuss the concept of “meshed architectures” (Varga and Gallagher 2020) and the performative theory of hybridity (Camilleri 2020).
- Részletek
- Kategória: Konferencia program
István Danka Associate professor, Department for Philosophy and History of Science, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Budapest
Enactivism and the mind-body gap
Enactivism is often characterised as a radically anti-Cartesian view about cognition and the mind. Though it is a fair characterisation, anti-Cartesianism is not specific about enactivism since most of the 20th-century philosophy of mind was about anti-Cartesianism from Peirce via Wittgenstein and Heidegger to Quine and beyond. It is also problematic what radicalism means in this context: the ontologically most radical version of anti-Cartesianism, namely eliminative materialism, does not explain but explains away the mental.
Compared with some other (mainly materialist) forms of anti-Cartesianism, enactivism is radical in its anti-ontological stance: enactivists are much less interested in what elements human cognitive capacities consist of than how human minds interact with their environment. Though often derived from phenomenology, enactivism can also be seen as a logical continuation of Davidson-style non-reductive physicalism, a significant departure from behaviourism and eliminative materialism as ontologically radical anti-Cartesian strategies to a more moderate version in this respect.
Davidson argues that the mental-physical distinction is a linguistic dichotomy between types of descriptions rather than an ontological difference between forms of existence. Hence, there is no reason to talk about mental entities at the ontological level. Davidson’s argument is inconclusive, though, as the same must be applicable to physical entities as well. Insofar as the mental and the physical (to use the old terminology) are in constant interaction, to describe cognition, it is no more meaningful to talk in purely physical terms than in dualistic terms.
A possible solution is a shift of vocabulary from physicalist to enactivist descriptions: applying non-reductivism not only to the physical and the mental but also the physical and the biological, taking humans as describable primarily in biological terms. This way, enactivism can be seen as a response to the old mind-body problem that can manoeuvre between the Scylla of Cartesianism and the Charybdis of materialism.
Finally, I shall briefly discuss a shortcoming of enactivism, placing insufficient emphasis on the social character of humans. This aspect can be a fruitful extension of the theory in the future that is also not without precursors.
- Részletek
- Kategória: Konferencia program
Shaun Gallagher Lillian and Morrie Moss Professor of Excellence, University of Memphis
Enactive problem solving and the pragmatic application of bounded rationality
What can enactive approaches to cognition contribute to the science of economics? Among other things, one contribution is to provide a more embodied conception of decision making and problem solving. I propose to rethink Herbert Simon’s notion of bounded rationality from an enactive perspective, with some help from John Dewey’s pragmatism. I suggest that the notion of bounded rationality lies on a somewhat uneven line that connects pragmatism and enactivism. I set aside justifiable concerns about whether Simon can be considered a pragmatist, and I focus directly on bounded rationality as informing an approach to embodied-enactive problem solving that integrates Dewey’s notion of problematic situation and Simon’s notion of problem space. Problem solving on this account is not primarily an internal reflective deliberation; it rather involves action and recursive feedback in an affordance space.
- Részletek
- Kategória: Konferencia program
Jan Halák Assistant professor, Palacký University, Olomouc
The Challenges of Relationality
In contrast to naturalistic accounts, enactivists have long argued that cognition depends on the inherent organisation and sense-making of a cognitive agent and that it is therefore a relational phenomenon. More recently, it has been clarified that cognition emerges from the confluence of material processes and the sense-making of the cognitive agent, rather being unilaterally dependent on one of these factors. In this view, cognition is relational in a stronger sense because sense-making and relevant causal factors dynamically shape each other. My presentation will explore some of the challenges implied by the ambition to provide a comprehensive, strongly relational account of cognition. I will focus on three issues that seem to remain unsettled. First, some proponents of the enactive/embodied theories of cognition argue that some cognitive structures cannot be strongly relational because this would undermine their specific epistemic value. For example, the universality and necessity of mathematical insights may be incompatible with relational status. Second, scientific observations and third-person explanations are frequently used to support enactivist arguments, but not much effort is invested in explaining how to reconcile these views with the proclaimed relational character of cognition. More generally, it remains unclear how sense-making agents, including enactivist theorists themselves, ought to interact with the results of natural sciences without thereby falling back into an objectivist stance. Finally, accepting the enactive paradigm implies that the cognitive results presented by the enactivists should themselves be viewed as correlates of a process of enaction. In other words, enactivist accounts must systematically implement into themselves that they are interventions into the configuration of the problem, or interactions with it, rather than neutral descriptions. I will explore these issues by building on examples from recent enactivist literature. To articulate a path forward, I will also return to some of Merleau-Ponty’s ideas, in particular his insights related to the phenomenon of cognitive transponibility.
- Részletek
- Kategória: Konferencia program
Balázs Kékesi Assistant professor, Dharma Gate Buddhist College, Budapest
Gains and inefficacy in enactivism
In my presentation, I will argue that the enactivist approach is one of the most foreshadowing progresses in cognitive science and philosophy of mind, if one could set aside or bracket the metaphysical explanatory burdens, which are closely tied to the term: embodied mind. In other words, if one not consider above all, that the embodied approach is the final strike on Cartesian dualism (Damasio 1996) as a solution of the mind-body problem, or it is the end of the seeking ways of Western thought (Lakoff-Johnson 1999), then the philosophical suspicion towards the embodied mind paradigm decreases, and the progressive aspect of embodied approach will be apparent.
First of all, I will make a careful conceptual distinction among cognition (the capacity to learn and know something about the world), mind (a set of higher-order mental faculties, and functions) and consciousness (intentionality and phenomenal character). I will argue, that the famous slogan in the embodied approach, that cognition is for action and the theory that perception and bodily action are literally cognitive (Cain 2016), almost completely changes the view of what mind for, and how it functions (but cannot properly explain, what mind is). For example, emphasizing the imaginative nature of cognition in embodied cognitive science give a new light on how mind faculties, like representing, remembering, planning, deliberating, deciding work. In enactivism, this idea – among others – have found shape in the theory of re-enact epistemic situations during linguistic activity (Barsalou 2008) or re-living the phenomenal (‘what was it like”) character of former experiences during the representational processes of working memory (Thompson 2007). Recent developments in cognitive science, particularly the idea of brain simulation (Damasio 2011) and the theory of predictive mind (Friston 2007, Metzinger-Wiese 2017) support the idea of the inherently imaginative nature of mentality, including mind and cognition. But I will argue that despite of the fruitful new way of understanding mentality in enactivism, consciousness still remains a mystery. One of the possible explanations for that: enactivism is opposed to the classical cognitive science, but it is still a cognitive science, and it bears the impediments of understanding consciousness as such a science (Chalmers 1996).
- Részletek
- Kategória: Konferencia program
Zsuzsanna Kondor Senior research fellow, Institute of Philosophy, hun-ren Research Centre for the Humanities, Budapest
Enacting Metaphysics: Representation and Sense-making in Enactivism
We encounter numerous criticisms when considering the incompleteness of enactivism. As an umbrella term, enactivism refers to an approach that takes a radical stance as compared to traditional cognitive science. Consequently, much of the criticism is rooted in the absence of supportive scientific evidence, though certain assessments draw attention to the lack of a clear metaphysical commitment.
Historically, investigations have revealed that the concept of the embodied mind and the active nature of perception and cognition have deep-seated roots in philosophy. However, earlier attempts in this direction were explicit about their metaphysical commitment. Recent approaches within enactivism seem to sidestep metaphysical questions. While one of enactivism’s primary goals is to transcend the dualistic divide between external and internal aspects of cognition, aiming to establish a process-based, dynamically changing view of worldly existence, it avoids explicit commitment to dualism vs. monism, or realism, vs. idealism.
Nonetheless, the active collaboration with and reliance on cognitive psychology and neurology imply that enactivism leans towards a realist and materialist stance. Science is primarily engaged in the observation and measurement of material entities, striving to unveil the workings of these material assemblages. Therefore, it readily aligns itself with realism concerning its subjects and objectives. In the case of recent embodied mind theories, the situation is different.
In this presentation, I will delve into two central issues of enactivism: representation and sense-making. My aim is to shed light on what these topics entail for metaphysical questions.
- Részletek
- Kategória: Konferencia program
Bálint Őry PhD Student, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest
Forms of reflexivity in cognitive science. How does phenomenology affect the way enactivism reflects on itself?
Cognitive science has always found itself in an epistemic circularity: a cognitive apparatus is studying its own cognition. Unlike classical empirical scientific disciplines such as physics or biology, in the case of cognitive science the subject of study overlaps precisely with the epistemic process itself that the given field carries out in studying its subject. Such a circularity requires a form of self-reflexivity from the given discipline. This talk seeks to give an overview as to how this self-reflexivity has evolved in cognitive science. We ask whether there is an increasing inherent importance of such a reflexivity over the development of cognitive science and look at what exact shape and form reflexivity has taken in the various approaches – with a special focus on enactivism. With the import of phenomenology into cognitive science, enactivism has put self-reflexivity on centre stage and has raised reflexivity on an ontologically different level by introducing the phenomenological understanding of the body in its double sense: as Körper and as Leib. As much as this initial import of phenomenology at the birth of enactivism was mostly inspired by Husserlian transcendental phenomenology, where questions regarding the phenomenological reduction dominated the discussions. This time however, I propose to look at existential rather than transcendental phenomenological accounts mostly from the second generation French authors such as Merleau-Ponty and Sartre to examine how phenomenology reflects on its own enquiry in their works and how it can influence that in the enactive approach. This move could provide a new step in how the enactive framework could carry out its own self-reflective circles with an “existential turn” that could potentially lead to a new kind of epistemology in enactive cognitive science.
- Részletek
- Kategória: Konferencia program
Sebastjan Vörös Associate Professor, Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana
The Slumbering Ouroboros: Enactivism and the Varelian Heritage
Francisco J. Varela is widely acknowledged as one of the founding fathers of the contemporary enactivist movement. What is less widely recognized, however, is that that the notion of “enaction” played a very specific role in his investigative journey, and that, when this broader context is taken on board, the notion can be shown to entail radical implications not only for our understanding of cognition and mind, but also for the nature and practice of science itself. More often than not, these implications seem to be downplayed, if not completely ignored, by many contemporary enactivists. In my presentation, I will endeavour to address this omission by shedding light on the wider scope of Varela’s research and explaining why I believe it matters. More specifically, I will argue that Varela’s conception of enaction has to be understood in the context of his novel - circular or ouroboric - theory of life, which, in turn, has to be situated within a larger historico-cultural movement (termed by Varela as “ontological turn”), seeking to undermine the classical subject/object divide. My main point will be that the notion of enaction, rooted in the Varelian idea of the circularity of vitality, cannot be - to use the famous Chalmer’s phrase - taken “on the cheap”, but calls for a radical rethinking of the onto-epistemological foundations of science.
További cikkeink...
Korábbi cikkeink megtalálhatók a Hírarchívumban.