This chapter aims to defend the thesis that we can only perceive what we understand. Such a theory would seem to be unable to account for our learning to perceive what we do not yet understand. To address this objection, the paper presents a non-representationalist, direct realist theory of perception. In this, the sensorimotor theory of Noë and O’Regan plays a crucial role (although one important modification to the interpretation of that theory is proposed). The result is an account of how we are in contact with the world itself during perceptual experience; and this leads to an account of how the world itself guides our understanding, as we move from non-sense to sense.

This book asks the sciences of the mind to test their own boundaries, demanding that they account for a number of cognitive and experiential phenomena that are at the edge of the very possibility to cognize. We believe that this is a foundational challenge for the enactive approach to the mind, and, moreover, it is a challenge that – if actually won – might offer a persuasive theoretical framework even to those who have so far been skeptical about enactivism’s capacity to deal with higherlevel cognition.

This chapter considers the ethical and epistemological consequences of the enactive notion of “languaging” as whole-bodied, intersubjective sense-making. Making sense in language is defined as a process of moving from stable, shared sense, through idiosyncratic non-sense, to a locally produced, co-available or interactively afforded sense. Enactive concepts of autonomy, autopoiesis, adaptivity, and precariousness imply radical idiosyncrasy in how individuals incorporate the means and moves needed to cope in enlanguaged environments. Differences in sense-making style s predict misunderstanding in social interactions. How do participants of linguistic sense-making share meaning? Presenting meaning as a consequence of mindfulness and misunderstanding, this chapter attempts to include the interiority and variety of experience in descriptions of linguistic participatory sense-making. It gives semantic weight to particularity without losing sight of interactional sources of normativity and intentionality.

This chapter weaves together surprise and non-sense in order to reveal how they reciprocally enlighten and extend each other anew. It is shown first that they share a core minimal structural common point, namely a broken time-dynamics, that is, the experience of a rupture in the timeembedded flowing continuity. Building such a common ground then allows us to situate the peculiar emotional component in both surprise and non-sense, guided by the hypothesis that emotion does not cover the same scope and intensity in each case, being more radical and negatively polarized in non-sense, more daily and irreducible to valence in surprise. As a third and final step, the cognitive aspect inherent in both phenomena is explored, both its commonality as opened indeterminacy, and also their contrasted cognitive dynamics, which will finally lead us to offer some insights about the crossed relationship between enaction and phenomenology.

Psychopathology of schizophrenia is presented as a core issue for an enactive theory that is confronted by non-sense. The core disturbance of schizophrenia has been recently identified with disembodiment: a lack, or weakening, of sensory-motor self-awareness. The problem of the transition from prodromal disembodiment to acute schizophrenic symptoms (hallucinations and delusions) is discussed. A phenomenological psychology of imagination turns out to be necessary to explain this transition and to conceive of schizophrenic delusion as reified imaginings unchallengeable by perception. The enactive approach to the psychopathology of schizophrenia shows that there can be no radical experience of non-sense without imagination, but also that imagination is a crucial faculty to make sense of non-sense in embodied and embedded psychotherapies.

Merleau-Ponty’s description of Cezanne’s working process reveals two things: first, cognition arises on the basis of perception and action, and, second, cognition arises out of frustration, when an agent confronts non-sense. We briefly present the history of the domain of philosophy and psychology that has claimed that perception-action comes before cognition, especially the work of Merleau-Ponty, Gibson, and Heidegger. We then present an experimental paradigm “front-loading” the Heideggerian phenomenology of encountering tools. The experiments consisted of a dynamical perception-action task and a cognitive task. The results reinforce the distinction between tools being experienced as ready-to-hand and turning into unreadyor present-at-hand when sense-ma kin g was thwarted. A more cognitive attitude towards the task emerged when participants experienced non-sense. We discuss implications of this for the movement sciences.

This chapter endeavors to show that there are ancient and embodied practices in many traditional societies whose shamanic expertise includes taming and transforming non-sense into meaningful experience for the individual and collective welfare. First, the notions of embodiment, sensemaking, experience, and meaning are introduced and elaborated on in the context of philosophy and cognitive science. Then the concept of non-sense is analyzed by way of distinguishing four senses for it. Next is presented the case of traditional Huichol shamanism, which employs the consciousness-modifier peyote plant in its rituals, where non-sense is manifest sometimes. Last, it is argued that the shamanic expertise on sense and non-sense can be interpreted as a traditional wisdom and practice that fosters the mental health of the individual and his community.

This is a selective review of the published literature on object-choice tasks, where participants use directional cues to find hidden objects. This literature comprises the efforts of researchers to make sense of the sense-making capacities of our nearest living relatives. This chapter is written to highlight some nonsensical conclusions that frequently emerge from this research. The data suggest that, when apes are given approximately the same sense-making opportunities as we provide for our children, they will easily make sense of our social signals. The ubiquity of nonsensical contemporary scientific claims to the effect that humans are essentially – or inherently – more capable than other great apes in the understanding of simple directional cues is, itself, a testament to the power of pre-conceived ideas on human perception.

This chapter examines the phenomenon of “nonsensical gender” – that is, cases of breakdown within the domain of gender identity. First, it is argued that gender is a multifaceted system that shapes and subtends cognitive processing. Next, the chapter examines cases of gender breakdown and compares those phenomena with other forms of cognitive breakdown. It is then contended that, while there are some striking similarities among all these failures to “make sense,” a crucial distinction needs to be made: gender interactions, unlike human-tool interactions, are marked by complex intersubjective modes of meaning-making. Thus, in order to “make sense” of gender misidentification, the chapter argues for a more nuanced account of breakdown, one that pays more heed to the interpersonal and intrapersonal dimensions of social sensemaking.