The enactive approach offers a distinctive view of how mental life relates to bodily activity at three levels: bodily self-regulation, sensorimotor coupling, and intersubjective interaction. This paper concentrates on the second level of sensorimotor coupling. An account is given of how the subjectively lived body and the living body of the organism are related (the body-body problem) via dynamic sensorimotor activity, and it is shown how this account helps to bridge the explanatory gap between consciousness and the brain. Arguments by O’Regan, Noë, and Myin that seek to account for the phenomenal character of perceptual consciousness in terms of ‘bodiliness’ and ‘grabbiness’ are considered. It is suggested that their account does not pay sufficient attention to two other key aspects of perceptual phenomenality: the autonomous nature of the experiencing self or agent, and the pre-reflective nature of bodily self-consciousness.

Key words: Enactive cognitive science, self, sensorimotor, subjectivity.

This paper explores some of the differences between the enactive approach in cognitive science and the extended mind thesis. We review the key enactive concepts of autonomy and sense-making. We then focus on the following issues: (1) the debate between internalism and externalism about cognitive processes; (2) the relation between cognition and emotion; (3) the status of the body; and (4) the difference between ‘incorporation’ and mere ‘extension’ in the body-mind-environment relation.

Key words: Enaction, Extended mind, Autonomy, Sense-making, Emotion, Embodiment, Incorporation

An inter-enactive approach to agency holds that the behavior of agents in a social situation unfolds not only according to their individual abilities and goals, but also according to the conditions and constraints imposed by the autonomous dynamics of the interaction process itself. We illustrate this position with examples drawn from phenomenological observations and dynamical systems models. On the basis of these examples we discuss some of the implications of this inter-enactive approach to agency for our understanding of social phenomena in a broader sense, and how the inter-enactive account provided here has to be taken alongside a theory of larger-scale social processes.

In recent decades, empirical study of experience has been installed as a relevant and necessary element in researching cognitive phenomena. However, its incorporation into cognitive science has been largely done by following an objectivist frame of reference, without reconsidering the practices and standards involved in the process of research and the interpretation and validation of the results. This has given rise to a number of issues that reveal inconsistencies in the understanding and treatment of some crucial aspects of first-person research. In this article, we will outline a research direction aiming at contributing to the establishment of a framework for the study of experience that addresses these inconsistencies. Specifically, we will identify some challenges facing the study of experience – in particular those linked to the understanding of memory, expression and description, and intersubjectivity in exploring experience – and propose to reframe them under the epistemological framework of the enactive approach. Moreover, we will explore the prospect of gaining insight into theoretical and methodological strategies for dealing with these issues by extending our vision beyond the field of cognitive science to its neighboring fields, focusing in particular on the field of somatic practices.

Key words: first-person research, experience research, enactive approach, neurophenomenology, somatic practices, consciousness research

Context: The enactive approach to cognition affirms the relevance of the study of lived experience within cognitive science. Problem: Taking experience as the phenomenon of investigation, while at the same time recognizing it as a necessary medium of any scientific activity implies theoretical, epistemological, and methodological challenges that have to be addressed in order to undertake the scientific study of experience. At the same time, it calls for a development of an alternative, non-objectivist and non-representationalist framework for and by addressing those challenges. Method: After presenting the development of the idea of cognition as enaction and pointing to its consequences for the understanding of science, we situate the study of experience within the enactive approach, presenting neurophenomenology as the methodological implementation of the enactive framework that motivated the development of first-person methods. We distinguish the micro-phenomenological interview and descriptive experience sampling as examples of such methods, reviewing their distinctive features. Results: Understanding first-person research against the background of the enactive approach is shown to be crucial for bringing about the radical epistemological shift that an enactive position entails. Implications: The examination of the relationship between first-person research and enaction makes it possible to clarify the ground from which to address the specific challenges that arise in studying lived experience. Investigating these challenges is necessary for developing a coherent research program for the enactive scientific study of experience.

Key words: Consciousness studies, descriptive experience sampling, enaction, first-person methods, lived experience, micro-phenomenological interview, radical neurophenomenology, reflexivity

Despite evolutionary musicology’s interdisciplinary nature, and the diverse methods it employs, the field has nevertheless tended to divide into two main positions. Some argue that music should be understood as a naturally selected adaptation, while others claim that music is a product of culture with little or no relevance for the survival of the species. We review these arguments, suggesting that while interesting and well-reasoned positions have been offered on both sides of the debate, the nature-or-culture (or adaptation vs. non-adaptation) assumptions that have traditionally driven the discussion have resulted in a problematic either/or dichotomy. We then consider an alternative “biocultural” proposal that appears to offer a way forward. As we discuss, this approach draws on a range of research in theoretical biology, archeology, neuroscience, embodied and ecological cognition, and dynamical systems theory (DST), positing a more integrated model that sees biological and cultural dimensions as aspects of the same evolving system. Following this, we outline the enactive approach to cognition, discussing the ways it aligns with the biocultural perspective. Put simply, the enactive approach posits a deep continuity between mind and life, where cognitive processes are explored in terms of how self-organizing living systems enact relationships with the environment that are relevant to their survival and well-being. It highlights the embodied and ecologically situated nature of living agents, as well as the active role they play in their own developmental processes. Importantly, the enactive approach sees cognitive and evolutionary processes as driven by a range of interacting factors, including the socio-cultural forms of activity that characterize the lives of more complex creatures such as ourselves. We offer some suggestions for how this approach might enhance and extend the biocultural model. To conclude we briefly consider the implications of this approach for practical areas such as music education.

Over the course of the past few decades 4E approaches that theorize cognition and agency as embodied, embedded, extended, and/or enactive have garnered growing support from figures working in philosophy of mind and cognitive science (Cf. Chemero 2009; Dreyfus 2005; Gallagher 2005; Haugeland 1998; Hurley 1998; Noë 2004; Thompson 2007; Varela et al. 1991). Correspondingly, there has been a rising interest in the wider conceptual and practical implications of 4E views. Several proposals have for instance been made regarding 4E’s bearing on ethical theory (Cf. Colombetti and Torrance, Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 8(4), 505–526, 2009; Cash, Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 9, 645–671 2010). In this paper I contribute to this trend by critically examining the enactive contribution made by Colombetti and Torrance, Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 8(4), 505–526 (2009) and by laying the foundations for an alternative enactive approach. Building off recent enactive approaches to social interaction, Colombetti and Torrance, Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 8(4), (2009, 518) maintain that many of our actions and intentions “and in particular the ethical significance of what we do and mean” are “emergent from the interactions in which we participate”. Taking this seriously, they argue, entails a radical shift away from moral theory’s traditional emphasis on individual or personal responsibility. I challenge their suggestion that accepting a broadly enactive 4E approach to cognition and agency entails the kind of wholesale shift they propose. To make my case I start by revisiting some of the general theoretical commitments characteristic of enactivism, including some relevant insights that can be gathered from Vasudevi Reddy’s broadly enactive approach to developmental psychology. After that I examine both the arguments internal to Colombetti and Torrance’s proposal and, in an effort to sketch the beginnings of an alternative view, I draw some connections between enactivism, the ethics of care and P. F. Strawson’s work on personal responsibility. I believe that a consideration of the commonalities but also the differences between these views helps advance the important conversation concerning the link between enactivism and questions of personal responsibility in ethical theory that Colombetti and Torrance have undeniably helped jumpstart.

Key words: enactivism, second-person engagement, social interaction, participatory sensemaking, personal responsibility, ethics of care, p. f. strawson.

The enactive approach is usually associated with a revolutionary project that aims to transform in a radical way our understanding of mind and cognition. Bold theoretical moves such as the rejection of cognitive representations or the assumption of a deep continuity between life and mind, among other enactive ideas, justify this perception. Nonetheless, when we assume a broader historical perspective, including the long cybernetic tradition that preceded the emergence of cognitive sciences, the image of the enactive approach looks different. Put in the context of the paradigmatic shift that took place between first-order and second-order cybernetics, especially in the case of Maturana’s autopoietic theory, the enactive paradigm, so I will try to show in this work, appears rather like a conservative or revisionist project. Better said, it appears as a slightly hybrid paradigm, wherein original and progressive elements coexist with revisionist components. The paper aims to offer an alternative interpretation of the enactive approach and contribute to a better understanding of its identity as a research program, and its present and its possible future challenges. Relevance: The paper offers a reconstruction of the historical relationship between autopoietic theory and the enactive approach, and evaluates the internal consistency of the enactive approach.

This paper examines a fundamental philosophical difference between two radical postcognitivist theories that are usually assumed to offer (more or less) the same view of cognition; namely the autopoietic theory (AT) and the enactive approach. The ways these two theories understand cognition, it is argued, are not compatible nor incompatible but rather incommensurable. The reason, so it is argued, is that while enactivism, following the traditional stance held by most of the cognitive theories, understands cognitive systems as constituting a (sort of) natural kind, the autopoietic theory understands them as constituting only a conventional kind. Additionally, the paper shows that AT’s conventionalist stance about cognition, far from being an undesirable or useless position, offers some methodological virtues that might be timely and welcome in the agitated and revolutionary climate of current cognitive science.

Key words: autopoietic theory, enactivism, the mark of the cognitive, conventional kind, pluralism, strict naturalism.

The autopoietic, theory and the enactive approach are two theoretical streams that, in spite of their historical link and conceptual affinities, offer very different views on the nature of living beings. In this paper, we compare these views and evaluate, in an exploratory way, their respective degrees of internal coherence. Focusing the analyses on certain key notions such as autonomy and organizational closure, we argue that while the autopoietic, theory manages to elaborate an internally consistent conception of living beings, the enactive approach presents an internal tension regarding its characterization of living beings as intentional systems directed at the environment.

Key words: Autonomy, organizational closure, autopoietic theory, enactive approach