Neurophenomenology is a research programme aimed at bridging the explanatory gap between first-person subjective experience and neurophysiological third-person data, through an embodied and enactive approach to the biology of consciousness. The present proposal attempts to further characterize the bodily basis of the mind by adopting a naturalistic view of the phenomenological concept of intentionality as the a priori invariant character of any lived experience. Building on the Kantian definition of transcendentality as “what concerns the a priori formal structures of the subject’s mind” and as a precondition for the very possibility of human knowledge, we will suggest that this transcendental core may in fact be rooted in biology and can be examined within an extension of the theory of autopoiesis. The argument will be first clarified by examining its application to previously proposed elementary autopoietic models, to the bacterium, and to the immune system; it will be then further substantiated and illustrated by examining the mirror-neuron system and the default mode network as biological instances exemplifying the enactive nature of knowledge, and by discussing the phenomenological aspects of selected neurological conditions (neglect, schizophrenia) In this context, the free-energy principle proposed recently by Karl Friston will be briefly introduced as a rigorous, neurally-plausible framework that seems to accomodate optimally these ideas. While our approach is biologically-inspired, we will maintain that lived first-person experience is still critical for a better understanding of brain function, based on our argument that the former and the latter share the same transcendental structure. Finally, the role that disciplined contemplative practices can play to this aim, and an interpretation of the cognitive processes taking place during meditation under this perspective, will be also discussed.

Key words: neurophenomenology, kant, a priori, prereflective awareness, default mode network, ongoing activity, free-energy, meditation.

Enactive approaches to cognitive science aim to explain human cognitive processes across the board without making any appeal to internal, content-carrying representational states. A challenge to such a research programme in cognitive science that immediately arises is how to explain cognition in so-called ‘representation-hungry’ domains. Examples of representation-hungry domains include imagination, memory, planning and language use in which the agent is engaged in thinking about something that may be absent, possible or abstract. The challenge is to explain how someone could think about things that are not concretely present in their environment other than by means of an internal mental representation. We call this the ‘Representation-Hungry Challenge’ (RHC). The challenge we take up in this article is to show how hunger for representations could possibly be satisfied by means other than the construction and manipulation of internal representational states. We meet this challenge by developing a theoretical framework that integrates key ideas drawn from enactive cognitive science and ecological psychology. One of our main aims is thus to show how ecological and enactive theories as non-representational and non-computational approaches to cognitive science might work together. From enactive cognitive science, we borrow the thesis of the strict continuity of lower and higher cognition. We develop this thesis to argue against any sharp conceptual distinction between higher and lower cognition based on representation-hunger. From ecological psychology, we draw upon our earlier work on the rich landscape of affordances. We propose thinking of so-called representation-hungry cognition in terms of temporally extended activities in which the agent skilfully coordinates to a richly structured landscape of affordances. In our framework, putative cases of representation-hungry cognition are explained by abilities to coordinate nested activities to an environment structured by interrelated socio-material practices. The RHC has often figured in arguments for the limitations of non-representational approaches to cognitive science. We showcase the theoretical resources available to an integrated ecological-enactive approach for addressing this type of sceptical challenge.

Key words: enaction, representation-hungry problems, affordances, biological autonomy, skilled intentionality, episodic memory imagining, micro-identities

“Phenomenology on (the) Rocks” shows how an interest in the natural realm can be congruent with globalization if we conceive this globality in a vernacular way. Husserl and Merleau-Ponty first developed a tentativ conceptual instrumentarium for this direction of thought. Through a broadening of traditional phenomenology as a philosophy of primordial constitution based upon intentionality of the subject, they began thinking in terms of co-constitution and operative intentionality. In the rest of the paper I mainly show how operant intentionality works in and through the way we take up – or are taken up by that which seems the most indifferent and impervious to us, namely the world of stones.

Despite a strong tradition of viewing coded equivalence as the underlying principle of linguistic semiotics, it lacks the power needed to understand and explain language as an empirical phenomenon characterized by complex dynamics. Applying the biology of cognition to the nature of the human cognitive/linguistic capacity as rooted in the dynamics of reciprocal causality between an organism and the world, we can show language to be connotational rather than denotational. This leaves no room for the various ‘code-models’ of language exploited in traditional linguistics. Bio-cognitive analysis leads to deeper insights into the essence of language as a biologically based, cognitively motivated, circularly organized semiotic activity in a consensual domain of interactions aimed at adapting to, and, ultimately, gaining control of the environment. The understanding that cognition is grounded in the dynamics of biological self-organization fits both the integrational model of communication and distributed cognition. A short discussion of the key notions of representation, sign and signification, interpretation, intentionality, communication, and reciprocal causality is offered, showing that the notion of ‘code’ is only misleadingly applied to natural language.

Key words: language, communication, sign, representation, intentionality, reciprocal causality.

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

Excerpt: Classical approaches in the philosophy of mind consider that the recognition of intentionality is the problem of the adoption of an intentional stance: identifying the behavioural criteria, which trigger the representation of the perceived object by an internal system of naive psychology (Premack, 1990; Cisbra et al., 1999; Meltzoff & Decety, 2004). This naive psychology poses many problems, in particular, how to account for the mutual recognition without falling into the aporias of the inclusion of representations: I have to have the representation of his representation of my representation of… his perception. Furthermore, in this approach, the recognition of another subject is only hypothetical, resulting from an inference based on well-defined perceptions. However, in our everyday experience as well as in many phenomenological descriptions (e.g., Merleau-Ponty, 1945; Sartre, 1943) the lived experience of the presence of others seems certain and directly perceptive. How in everyday life or through technical devices (such as Internet), can we have the impression of the presence of another subject, and under which conditions can we differenciate another person from an object or a program?

The chapter explores the topic of experiential sharing by drawing on the early contributions of the phenomenologists Alfred Schutz and Gerda Walther. It is argued that both Schutz and Walther support, from complementary perspectives, an approach to experiential sharing that has tended to be overlooked in current debates. This approach highlights specific experiential interrelations taking place among individuals who are jointly engaged and located in a common environment, and situates this type of sharing within a broader and richer spectrum of sharing phenomena. Whereas Schutz’ route to the sharing of experiences describes the latter as a pre-reflective interlocking of individual streams of experiences, arising from a reciprocal Thou-orientation, Walther provides a textured account of different types of sharing and correlated forms of communities.

Key words: collective intentionality, shared experiences, alfred schut, gerda walther

Context: Using radical constructivism, society can be considered from the perspective of asking the question, “Who conceives of society?” In Luhmann’s social systems theory, this question itself is considered as a construct of the communication among reflexive agents. Problem: Structuration of expectations by codes operating in interhuman communications positions both communicators and communications in a multi-dimensional space in which their relations can be provided with meaning at the supra-individual level. The codes can be functionally different and symbolically generalized. Method: More than Luhmann, I focus on the hypothetical status of the communication of meaning and the uncertainty involved. Meaning can be communicated because of reflexivity in interhuman communications; meaning cannot be observed. Results: The communication (and reflexive translation) of denotations between semantic domains can generate “horizons of meaning” as reflexive orders that remain structurally coupled to individual minds. This elusive order contains a trade-off between “organization” at interfaces integrating (differently coded) expectations at each moment of time, and the potential of further differentiation among symbolically generalized codes of communication in a “self-organization” over time. Implications: One can model the coding in the communication of meaning as latent variables (eigenvectors) that evolve as an implication of the interacting intentions and expectations. The structure of expectations can be visualized (at each moment) and animated (over time) using semantic maps. The self-organizing horizons of meaning operate in a multidimensional space different from the network topology, and at another pace, since meaning is provided to events from the perspective of hindsight. Constructivist content: This perspective of the radical constructedness of social reality transforms the status of agency and organization in sociological theorizing from a source of change to a resource of communicative competencies and reflexive performativity.

Key words: Constructivism, sociology, Luhmann, supra-individual, self-organization, intentionality.

Psychologism is defined as “the doctrine that the laws of mathematics and logic can be reduced to or depend on the laws governing thinking” (Moran & Cohen, 2012 266). And for Husserl, the laws of logic include the laws of meaning: “logic evidently is the science of meanings as such [Wissenschaft von Bedeutungen als solchen]” (Husserl (1975) 98/2001 225). I argue that, since it is sufficient for a theory to be psychologistic if the empiricistic theory of abstraction is employed, it follows that neural networks are psychologistic insofar as they use this theory of abstraction, which I demonstrate is the case (Husserl (1975) 191/2001 120). It’s sufficient for psychologism because, according to Husserl, the theory in question reduces one’s phenomenological ability to intend types (or universals) to one’s past history of intending tokens (or particulars), usually amalgamated in some fashion (classically via associations; recently via autoencoders) (ibid; Kelleher, 2019). Similarly dynamical systems theory entails psychologism. For dynamical systems theory ties content to the temporal evolution of a system, which, according to Husserl, violates the fact that intentionality toward validities and objectivities does not pertain to “particular temporal experience[s]” (Husserl (1975) 194/2001 121). It follows that neither the species (neural networks), nor the genus (dynamical systems), can avoid psychologism and intend objects “in specie” (ibid). After critiquing these two approaches, I proceed to give an account based on the essentialist school of cognitive psychology of how we may intend objects “in specie” while avoiding the empiricistic theory of abstraction (Keil, 1989, Carey, 2009, Marcus & Davis, 2019). Such an account preserves the type-token distinction without psychologistic reduction to the temporal evolution of a dynamical system (Hinzen, 2006). This opens the way toward a truly unifying account of Husserlian phenomenology in league with cognitive science that avoids Yoshimi’s (2016) and neurophenomenology’s psychologistic foundation (herein demonstrated) and builds upon Sokolowski’s (2003) syntactic account of Husserlian phenomenology.

Key words: abstraction, neural networks, dynamical systems theory, husserl, psychologism, phenomenal features, empiricism

Because embodied cognition is a new approach in cognitive science and artificial intelligence, it is in need of a well-formulated theoretical foundation. We believe that Merleau-Ponty’s work will prove useful in this endeavor because of the similarities between his work and embodied cognition. We will briefly sketch out some of these similarities and will show how Merleau-Ponty’ s work can be couple d with e mbodie d cognition in orde r solve the problem of intentionality.