Connections among Varela’s theory of enactive cognition, his evolutionary theory of natural drift, and his concept of autopoiesis are made clear. Two questions are posed in relation to Varela’s conception of perception, and the tension that exists in his thought between the formal level of organization and the Jonasian notion of the organism.

Review of: Massimiliano Cappuccio and Tom Froese (eds.) Enactive cognition at the edge of sense-making: Making sense of non-sense. PalgraveMacmillan: Basingstoke, UK, 2014

Clear statements of both extended and enactive conceptions of cognition can be found in John Dewey and other pragmatists. In this paper I’ll argue that we can find resources in the pragmatists to address two ongoing debates: (1) in contrast to recent disagreements between proponents of extended vs enactive cognition, pragmatism supports a more integrative view – an enactive conception of extended cognition, and (2) pragmatist views suggest ways to answer the main objections raised against extended and enactive conceptions – specifically objections focused on constitution versus causal factors, and the mark of the mental.

Horses represent a billion dollar industry with an alarming incidence of accidents, mostly resulting from the incorrect use of horse-human communication protocols. This study found significant gaps in research with respect to how horses and humans communicate and learn together. To respond to this gap, this dissertation addresses the topics of communication, learning and cognition in horse-human interactions utilizing the cybersemiotic model developed by Danish philosopher of science Søren Brier. The cybersemiotic model is a transdisciplinary research platform that addresses knowledge creation from an objective and subjective vision of reality. At the center of the model is semiosis, the sign system and spheres of signification through which living beings create meaning and make sense of the world. The methodological tools used in the study include Gregory Bateson’s theories of non-verbal communication and learning, based on the second-order cybernetic science view, as well as Humberto Maturana’s theory of autopoiesis and Evan Thompson’s concept of enactive cognition. The role of the inner life and consciousness in horse–human interaction is analyzed through the phenomenological, pragmaticist philosophy of Charles Sanders Peirce and his triadic conception of semiosis. The results of the study show the importance of constructing ethologically relevant communication protocols in equestrian activities, which also has implications in the larger question of ethics in the relationships of humans to non-human others and the ecology of the Earth at large. Relevance: Methodological tools used in the study include the biology of cognition, autopoiesis, second order cybernetics, and non-duality as expressed in the triadic semiosis of C.S. Peirce.

We introduce an approach to simulate the early mechanisms of emergent cognition based on theories of enactive cognition and on constructivist epistemology. The agent has intrinsic motivations implemented as inborn proclivities that drive the agent in a proactive way. Following these drives, the agent autonomously learns regularities afforded by the environment, and hierarchical sequences of behaviors adapted to these regularities. The agent represents its current situation in terms of perceived affordances that develop through the agent’s experience. This situational representation works as an emerging situation awareness that is grounded in the agent’s interaction with its environment and that in turn generates expectations and activates adapted behaviors. Through its activity and these aspects of behavior (behavioral proclivity, situation awareness, and hierarchical sequential learning), the agent starts to exhibit emergent sensibility, intrinsic motivation, and autonomous learning. Following theories of cognitive development, we argue that this initial autonomous mechanism provides a basis for implementing autonomously developing cognitive systems.

Key words: motivation, autonomous learning, cognitive development, enactive cognition, affordances, constructivism, cognitive architecture.

This paper argues that deciding on whether the cognitive sciences need a Representational Theory of Mind matters. Far from being merely semantic or inconsequential, the answer we give to the RTM-question makes a difference to how we conceive of minds. How we answer determines which theoretical framework the sciences of mind ought to embrace. The structure of this paper is as follows. Section 1 outlines Rowlands’s (2017) argument that the RTM-question is a bad question and that attempts to answer it, one way or another, have neither practical nor theoretical import. Rowlands concludes this because, on his analysis, there is no non-arbitrary fact of the matter about which properties something must possess in order to qualify as a mental representation. By way of reply, we admit that Rowlands’s analysis succeeds in revealing why attempts to answer the RTM-question simpliciter are pointless. Nevertheless, we show that if specific formulations of the RTM-question are stipulated, then it is possible, conduct substantive RTM debates that do not collapse into merely verbal disagreements. Combined, Sections 2 and 3 demonstrate how, by employing specifying stipulations, we can get around Rowlands’s arbitrariness challenge. Section 2 reveals why RTM, as canonically construed in terms of mental states exhibiting intensional (with-an-s) properties, has been deemed a valuable explanatory hypothesis in the cognitive sciences. Targeting the canonical notion of mental representations, Section 3 articulates a rival nonrepresentational hypothesis that, we propose, can do all the relevant explanatory work at much lower theoretical cost. Taken together, Sections 2 and 3 show what can be at stake in the RTM debate when it is framed by appeal to the canonical notion of mental representation and why engaging in it matters. Section 4 extends the argument for thinking that RTM debates matter. It provides reasons for thinking that, far from making no practical or theoretical difference to the sciences of the mind, deciding to abandon RTM would constitute a revolutionary conceptual shift in those sciences.

Key words: mental content, radically enactive cognition, computational theory of mind, representational theory of mind, teleosemantics

Open peer commentary on the article “The Past, Present and Future of Time-Consciousness: From Husserl to Varela and Beyond” by Shaun Gallagher. Upshot: In this commentary I invert Gallagher’s argument and argue that the account he gives of temporality should be applied to enactive cognition across the board. Instead of enactivising phenomenological accounts of time-consciousness, I suggest Gallagher ought also to be read as arguing for a temporalizing of enactive cognition.

:The modem conception of enactive cognition is under discussion from the standpoint concerning the notions of nonlinear dynamics and synergetics. The contribu-tion of Francisco Varela and his precursors is considered. It is shown that the perceptual and mental processes are bound up with the “architecture” of human body and nonlinear and circular connecting links between the subject of cognition and the world constructed by him can be metaphorically called a nonlinear cobweb of cognition. Cognition is an autopoietic activity because it is directed to the search of elements that are missed; it serves to completing integral structures.

Key words: Autopoiesis, complex systems, embodied cognition, enaction, non-linearity.

We analyse Hutto & Myin’s three arguments against computationalism [Hutto D., E. Myin A. Peeters, and F. Zahnoun. Forthcoming. “The Cognitive Basis of Computation: Putting Computation In Its Place.” In The Routledge Handbook of the Computational Mind, edited by M. Sprevak, and M. Colombo. London: Routledge.; Hutto D., and E. Myin. 2012. Radicalizing Enactivism: Basic Minds Without Content. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press; Hutto D., and E. Myin. 2017. Evolving Enactivism: Basic Minds Meet Content. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press]. The Hard Problem of Content targets computationalism that relies on semantic notion of computation, claiming that it cannot account for the natural origins of content. The Intentionality Problem is targeted against computationalism using non-semantic accounts of computation, arguing that it fails in explaining intentionality. The Abstraction Problem claims that causal interaction between concrete physical processes and abstract computational properties is problematic. We argue that these arguments are flawed and are not enough to rule out computationalism.

Key words: radical enactive cognition, radical enactivism, computationalism, computational theory of mind, semantic computation, non-semantic computation

The paper discusses two recent approaches to schizophrenia, a phenomenological and a neuroscientific approach, illustrating how new directions in philosophy and cognitive science can elaborate accounts of psychopathologies of the self. It is argued that the notion of the minimal and bodily self underlying these approaches is still limited since it downplays the relevance of social interactions and relations for the formation of a coherent sense of self. These approaches also illustrate that we still lack an account of how 1st and 3rd person observations can fruitfully go together in an embodied account of disorders of the self. Two concepts from enactive cognitive science are introduced, the notions of autonomy and sense-making. Based on these, a new proposal for an enactive approach to psychopathologies of the self is outlined that integrates 1st and 3rd person perspectives, while strongly emphasising the role of social interactions in the formation of self. It is shown how the enactive framework might serve as a basis for an alternative understanding of disorders of the self such as schizophrenia, as a particular form of socially constituted self-organisation.

Key words: enactive cognition, autonomy, sense-making, enactive self, disorders of the self, meaning of symptoms, enactive approach to psychopathology, self-organisation, schizophrenia