This chapter situates the conception of language (and communication) in enaction in the context of the research program of the cognitive sciences. It focuses on the formulation of the synthesis of hermeneutics and speech acts and the vision of language according to the metaphor of structural coupling. The exclusion of expressive speech acts in this design is problematized. An examination is offered of the critical steps to the theory of language as a reflection and the linguistic correspondence of cognitivism. We examine the foundations of the proposal in the line of language and social enaction as emergent phenomena which are not reducible to autopoiesis but which constitute a new neurophenomenological position in the pragmatic language dimension. A proposal is made for the integration of hermeneutic phenomenology with genetic and generative phenomenology in social semiotics. The inclusion of expressive speech acts based on the functions of language in the Habermas–Bühler line is also addressed. An opening is proposed of enaction to the expressive dimension of language and meaning holism with the referential use of language.

Key words: enaction, neurophenomenology, performative speech acts, expressive speech acts, background, meaning holism.

Open peer commentary on the article “Enaction as a Lived Experience: Towards a Radical Neurophenomenology” by Claire Petitmengin. Upshot: Why has the neurophenomenological approach not been adopted as a common and even obligatory tool in the study of consciousness? I suggest that the problem with the neurophenomenological approach is its effectiveness on the one hand and its almost impossible demands from the scientist on the other: One cannot accept the neurophenomenological approach without rejecting not only the paradigm of cognitive science, but the scientific paradigm as a whole.

Open peer commentary on the article “Interactivity and Enaction in Human Cognition” by Matthew Isaac Harvey, Rasmus Gahrn-Andersen & Sune Vork Steffensen. Upshot: To sort out their differences with enactive theory, interactivity theorists would do better to focus on operational closure only insofar as it constitutes a condition of intrinsic normativity or self-regulated coupling.

Open peer commentary on the article “Enaction as a Lived Experience: Towards a Radical Neurophenomenology” by Claire Petitmengin. Upshot: The neurophenomenological project is too ambitious technically, but highly appealing on the philosophical level, as can be learned from the extremely high ratio between theoretical and empirical work concerning neurophenomenology accumulated thus far. While “radical” neurophenomenology could possibly create, in highly unique projects, “mutual generative constraints,” will the hard problem be dissolved? I argue that although using micro phenomenology, as long as experimental designs inspired by front-loading phenomenological insights are reviewed by the regular scientific mind, the question of validating the phenomenology with objective measures remains, and will keep blocking the outbreak in this promising field. Since “we cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them,” it is timely for the scientific community to practice an attitude shift.

Open peer commentary on the article “Enaction as a Lived Experience: Towards a Radical Neurophenomenology” by Claire Petitmengin. Upshot: Petitmengin’s strategy of dissolution of the “hard problem” of consciousness is shown to rely on some radical phenomenological premises that are listed and analyzed. It presupposes a starting point of research in a state of epoché (or suspension of judgment); it unfolds into a participatory conception of truth; and it ends in a quest for non-dual pristine experience. Each one of these moves is endorsed and amplified.

In this paper, I describe what I consider to be some of the similarities between semiotics and second-order cybernetics. Particular attention is paid to the importance of interpretation and recursion in both fields. A distinction is made between the concept of representation in representational realism and representation as the stand-for relationship. Two models derived from cybernetic theory, ‘a recursive theory of communication’ and ‘levels of experience, ’ are discussed from a semiotic perspective and possible educational implications are described

Key words: semiotics, cybernetics, second-order cybernetics, systems, autopoiesis enaction, communication theory.

This Introduction is our attempt to clarify further the cluster of key notions: autonomy, viability, abduction and adaptation. These notions form the conceptual scaffolding within which the individual contribution contained in this volume can be placed. Hopefully, these global concepts represent fundamental signposts for future research that can spare us a mere flurry of modelling and simulations into which this new field could fall.

Key words: cognitivism, connectionism, enaction, autonomy, viability, abduction, adaptation

The main contribution of this paper is a naturalized account of the phenomenon of computation. The key idea for the development of this account is the identification of the notion of syntactical processing (or information processing) with the dynamical evolution of a constrained physical process, based on the observation that both evolve according to an arbitrary set of rules. This identification, in turn, revealed that, from the physical point of view, computation could be understood in terms of the operation of a component subdivided into two parts, (a) the constrained process and (b) the constraints that control its dynamics, where the interactions with the rest of the system are mediated by configurational changes of the constrained process. The immediate consequence of this analysis is the observation that this notion of computation can be readily integrated into the enactive paradigm of cognition.

Key words: enaction, computation, syntax, arbitrariness, computation, varela, organism, searle.

In this paper, we argue for a theoretical separation of the free-energy principle from Helmholtzian accounts of the predictive brain. The free-energy principle is a theoretical framework capturing the imperative for biological self-organization in information-theoretic terms. The free-energy principle has typically been connected with a Bayesian theory of predictive coding, and the latter is often taken to support a Helmholtzian theory of perception as unconscious inference. If our interpretation is right, however, a Helmholtzian view of perception is incompatible with Bayesian predictive coding under the free-energy principle. We argue that the free energy principle and the ecological and enactive approach to mind and life make for a much happier marriage of ideas. We make our argument based on three points. First we argue that the free energy principle applies to the whole animal–environment system, and not only to the brain. Second, we show that active inference, as understood by the free-energy principle, is incompatible with unconscious inference understood as analagous to scientific hypothesis-testing, the main tenet of a Helmholtzian view of perception. Third, we argue that the notion of inference at work in Bayesian predictive coding under the free-energy principle is too weak to support a Helmholtzian theory of perception. Taken together these points imply that the free energy principle is best understood in ecological and enactive terms set out in this paper.

Key words: Free-energy principle, predictive-coding, skilled intentionality, affordances, enaction, active inference, action-readiness, metastability.

This article focuses on a scientific approach to the study of cognition that Warren McCulloch introduced in the era of cybernetics as “experimental epistemology.” In line with recent attempts to highlight its contribution to cognitive science and AI, our article intends to draw attention to its unexplored influence on contemporary embodied approaches to the investigation of mind and consciousness. To this end, we will survey a series of models of cognitive systems genealogically related to the McCulloch-Pitts networks-based modeling approach, i.e., von Foerster’s model of the biological computer, the Maturana-Varela model of the autopoietic system, and Varela’s model of emergent selves. Based on examination of the relevant aspects of these models, we will argue that they offered the McCulloch-Pitts “cybernetic of networks” a coherent methodological and theoretical line of development, complementary to the well-known computationalist one. As we will show, this alternative evolutionary line empowered the biological orientation of McCulloch’s experimental epistemology, laying foundations for contemporary “radically embodied” approaches to mind and consciousness – in particular the Thompson-Varela approach. We will identify the heritage of this tradition of inquiry for future research in cognitive science and AI by proposing guidelines that synthetize how its methodological and theoretical insights suggest taking into account the role(s) played by the biological body in cognitive processes – consciousness included.

Key words: autonomy, autopoiesis, constructivism, cybernetics of networks, (radical) embodiment, enaction, experimental epistemology, synthetic modeling