In this article we analyze the methodological commitments of a radical embodied cognition (REC) approach to social interaction and social cognition, specifically with respect to the explanatory framework it adopts. According to many representatives of REC, such as enactivists and the proponents of dynamical and ecological psychology, sociality is to be explained by (1) focusing on the social unit rather than the individuals that comprise it and (2) establishing the regularities that hold on this level rather than modeling the sub-personal mechanisms that could be said to underlie social phenomena. We point out that, despite explicit commitment, such a view implies an implicit rejection of the mechanistic explanation framework widely adopted in traditional cognitive science (TCS), which, in our view, hinders comparability between REC and these approaches. We further argue that such a position is unnecessary and that enactive mechanistic explanation of sociality is both possible and desirable. We examine three distinct objections from REC against mechanistic explanation, which we dub the decomposability, causality and extended cognition worries. In each case we show that these complaints can be alleviated by either appreciation of the full scope of the mechanistic account or adjustments on both mechanistic and REC sides of the debate.

Key words: enactivism, mechanistic explanation, social cognition

In this paper we examine an enactive approach to social cog- nition, a species of radical embodied cognition typically pro- posed as an alternative to traditional cognitive science. Ac- cording to enactivists, social cognition is best explained by reference to the social unit rather than the individuals that par- ticipate in it. We identify a methodological problem in this approach, namely a lack of clarity with respect to the model of explanation it adopts. We review two complaints about a mechanistic explanatory framework, popular in traditional cognitive science, that prevent enactivists from embracing it. We argue that these complaints are unfounded and propose a conceptual model of enactive mechanistic explanation of so- cial cognition.

Key words: enactivism, social cognition, mechanistic expla- nation

Embodied cognition (EC) views propose that cognition is shaped by the kind of body that organisms possess. We give an overview of recent literature on EC, highlighting the differences between stronger and weaker versions of the theory. We also illustrate the debates on the notions of simulation, of representation, and on the role of the motor system for cognition, and we address some of the most important research topics. Future challenges concern the understanding of how abstract concepts and words are represented, and the relationship between EC and other promising approaches, the distributional views of meaning and the extended mind views.

Key words: affordances, cognitivism, distributional views, embodied cognition, emotion, enactivism, extended mind, grounded cognition, language comprehension, mental representation, mirror neurons, radical embodied cognition, representation, simulation, situated cog

For several decades, a diverse set of approaches to embedded, embodied, extended, enactive and affective cognition has been challenging the cognitivist orthodoxy. Recently, the prospect of a combination of ecological psychology and enactivism has emerged as a promising candidate for a single unified framework that could rival the established cognitivist paradigm as “a working metatheory for the study of minds” (Baggs and Chemero, 2018, p. 11). One obstacle to such an ecological-enactive approach is the conceptual tension between the firm commitment to realism of those following James Gibson’s ecological approach and the central tenet of enactivism that each living organism enacts its own world, interpreted as a constructivist or subjectivist position. Baggs and Chemero (2018) forward the concept of Umwelt, coined by the biologist Jakob von Uexküll, as a conceptual bridge between the two approaches. Inspired by Kant, Uexküll’s Umwelt describes how the physiology of an organism’s sensory apparatus shapes its active experience of the environment. Baggs and Chemero use this link between the subject and its objective surroundings to argue for a strong compatibility between ecological psychology and enactivism. Fultot and Turvey on the other hand view Umwelt as steeped in representationalism, the rejection of which is a fundamental commitment of radical embodied cognition (Fultot and Turvey, 2019). Instead, they advance Uexküll’s “compositional theory of nature” as a conceptual supplement for Gibson’s ecological approach (von Uexküll, 2010, p. 171; Fultot and Turvey, 2019). In this paper, I provide a brief overview of Uexküll’s thought and distinguish a crucial difference between two ways of using his term Umwelt. I argue that only one of these ways, the one which emphasizes the role of subjective experience, is adequate to Uexküll’s philosophical project. I demonstrate how the two ways of using Umwelt are employed in the philosophy of cognitive science, show how this distinction matters to recent debates about an ecological-enactive approach, and provide some critical background to Uexküll’s compositional theory of meaning.

Key words: enactivism, ecological psychology, umwelt, jakob von uexküll, embodied cognition, philosophy of nature

Tony Chemero advances the radical thesis that cognition and consciousness is actually the same thing. He draws this conclusion from his understanding of cognition as an extended process. I question this conclusion because this view expands cognition beyond being the sort of natural kind to which one can tie phenomenal experience. Moreover, because cognition has been radically inflated, despite Chemero’s claim to the contrary, embodied cognition does not solve any of the hard problems associated with consciousness.

Key words: radical embodied cognition, consciousness, perception-in-action, the hard problem.