After establishing its roots in basic forms of sensorimotor coupling between an organism and its environment, the new wave in cognitive science known as “enactivism” has turned to higher-level cognition, in an attempt to prove that even socioculturally mediated meaning-making processes can be accounted for in enactivist terms. My article tries to bolster this case by focusing on how the production and interpretation of stories can shape the value landscape of those who engage with them. First, it builds on the idea that narrative plays a key role in expressing the values held by a society, in order to argue that the interpretation of stories cannot be understood in abstraction from the background of storytelling in which we are always already involved. Second, it presents interpretation as an example of what Di Paolo et al. (2010) have called in their recent enactivist manifesto a “joint process of sensemaking”: just like in face-to-face interaction, the recipient of the story collaborates with the authorial point of view, generating meaning. Third, it traces the meaning brought into the world by interpretation to the activation and, potentially, the restructuring of the background of the recipients of the story.

This paper makes a comparison between enactivism and Levinas’ philosophy. Enactivism is a recent development in philosophy of mind and cognitive science that generally defines cognition in terms of a subject’s natural interactions with the physical environment. In recent years, enactivists have been focusing on social and ethical relations by introducing the concept of participatory sensemaking, according to which ethical know-how spontaneously emerges out of natural relations of participation and communication, that is, through the exchange of knowledge. This paper will argue first that, although participatory sensemaking is a valuable concept in that it offers a practical and realistic way of understanding ethics, it nevertheless downplays the significance of otherness for understanding ethics. I will argue that Levinas’ work demonstrates in turn that otherness is significant for ethics in that we cannot completely anticipate others through participation or know-how. We cannot live the other’s experiences or suffering, which makes ethical relation so difficult and serious (e.g. care for a terminally ill person always falls short to a certain extent). I will argue next that enactivism and Levinas’ philosophy nevertheless do not exclude each other insofar they share a similar concept of subjectivity as a quality of naturally interacting with the external world to gain knowledge (Levinas speaks of dwelling). Finally, I will argue that enactivism’s notion of participatory sensemaking also offers something which Levinas’ insufficiently defines, namely a concept of social justice, based on equality and participation, that emerges out of natural relations.

Key words: enactivism, levinas, otherness, social justice, naturalism

Although cognitive science has recently asked how human sociality is constituted, there is no clear and consistent account of the emergence of human style social agency. Previously, we have critiqued views based on '‘participatory sensemaking’’ by arguing that agency requires a distinctive kind of phenomenology that enables a diachronic social experience. In advancing the positive argument, we link developmental psychology to phenomenological insights by focusing on childcaregiver dynamics around the middle of the second year. Having developed very basic social skills, an infant comes to feel normative perturbances impinging on her in a way that leads to new modes of action. Accordingly, we trace agency and linguistic competencies to how these kinds of coordination intermesh. Nascent capabilities for predicating draw on the child’s history of coping with norms and rules that are imposed by caretakers. Developmental events thus transform the child’s experience and drive the emergence of social agency. Once the child has successfully dealt with the environment’s normative perturbations she is able to develop the skills of a fullyfledged human social agent.

We propose an experimental method to study the possible emergence of sensemaking in artificial agents. This method involves analyzing the agent’s behavior in a test bed environment that presents regularities in the possibilities of interaction afforded to the agent, while the agent has no presuppositions about the underlying functioning of the environment that explains such regularities. We propose a particular environment that permits such an experiment, called the Small Loop Problem. We argue that the agent’s behavior demonstrates sensemaking if the agent learns to exploit regularities of interaction to fulfill its self-motivation as if it understood (at least partially) the underlying functioning of the environment. As a corollary, we argue that sensemaking and self-motivation come together. We propose a new method to generate self-motivation in an artificial agent called interactional motivation. An interactionally motivated agent seeks to perform interactions with predefined positive values and avoid interactions with predefined negative values. We applied the proposed sensemaking emergence demonstration method to an agent implemented previously, and produced example reports that suggest that this agent is capable of a rudimentary form of sensemaking.

Key words: Sensemaking, self-motivation, emergence, behavioral analysis

This chapter endeavors to show that there are ancient and embodied practices in many traditional societies whose shamanic expertise includes taming and transforming non-sense into meaningful experience for the individual and collective welfare. First, the notions of embodiment, sensemaking, experience, and meaning are introduced and elaborated on in the context of philosophy and cognitive science. Then the concept of non-sense is analyzed by way of distinguishing four senses for it. Next is presented the case of traditional Huichol shamanism, which employs the consciousness-modifier peyote plant in its rituals, where non-sense is manifest sometimes. Last, it is argued that the shamanic expertise on sense and non-sense can be interpreted as a traditional wisdom and practice that fosters the mental health of the individual and his community.

I consider the relation between shared musical experience and basic forms of empathy. I draw upon studies from developmental psychology to show that music motivates early infant-caregiver interactions and supports rudimentary forms of interpersonal understanding. I stress the enactive character of this process and argue that shared musical experiences depend crucially on sensorimotor features of the animate body. To highlight their enactive character, I characterize such experiences as dynamic processes of (1) joint sensemaking, enacted via temporally-extended patterns of (2) skillful engagement with music that are (3) synchronically and diachronically scaffolded by the surrounding environment. I treat these three aspects in turn, arguing that they collectively afford the unique sort of intimacy – empathy – possible even within early shared listening experiences.

Key words: empathy, intersubjectivity, phenomenology, emotions, enaction, developmental psychology, entrainment, music therapy

This paper utilizes the enactivist notion of ‘sense-making’ to discuss the nature of depression and examine some implications for treatment. As I understand it, sensemaking is fully embodied, fundamentally affective, and thoroughly embedded in a social environment. I begin by presenting an enactivist conceptualization of affective intentionality and describing how this general mode of intentional directedness to the world is disrupted in cases of major depressive disorder. Next, I utilize this enactivist framework to unpack the notion of ‘temporal desituatedness,’ and maintain that the characteristic symptoms of depression result from a disruption to the futuredirected structure of affective intentionality. This can be conceptualized as a loss of Bonline intelligence^ and a shrinking of the field of affordances. Then, I argue that two of the standard modes of treatments for depression, medication and cognitive behavioral therapy, are not fully sufficient means of restoring online intelligence, and that these limitations stem partly from the approaches’ implicit commitment to a brainbound, overly cognitivist view of the mind. I recommend expressive arts interventions such as dance-movement therapy and music therapy as important supplementary treatment methods that deserve further consideration. Insofar as they revitalize subjects’ bodies and emotions, cultivate an openness to the future, and promote self-insight and social synchrony, these treatment modes not only reflect key insights of enactivism, but also offer great potential for lasting healing.

Key words: enactivism, depression, dance-movement therapy, music therapy, expressive arts therapy.

This chapter examines the phenomenon of “nonsensical gender” – that is, cases of breakdown within the domain of gender identity. First, it is argued that gender is a multifaceted system that shapes and subtends cognitive processing. Next, the chapter examines cases of gender breakdown and compares those phenomena with other forms of cognitive breakdown. It is then contended that, while there are some striking similarities among all these failures to “make sense,” a crucial distinction needs to be made: gender interactions, unlike human-tool interactions, are marked by complex intersubjective modes of meaning-making. Thus, in order to “make sense” of gender misidentification, the chapter argues for a more nuanced account of breakdown, one that pays more heed to the interpersonal and intrapersonal dimensions of social sensemaking.

Nonaka and Takeuchi’s highly influential account of tacit–explicit knowledge‐conversion in Japan’s knowledge‐creating companies has been instrumental in Knowledge Management’s institutionalisation of Michael Polanyi’s distinction between ‘tacit knowledge’ and ‘explicit knowledge’. But tacit knowledge has been misunderstood and what Nonaka and Takeuchi claim in the name of explicit knowledge does not make sense. Whereas Polanyi was concerned with the discovery of absolute truth about ontological reality, Nonaka and his colleagues insist that truth is ‘in the eye of the beholder’. Yet, Nonaka et al.’s implicit nihilism seems to have gone unnoticed. Many people talk about explicit knowledge as if it existed on a par with scientific knowledge: a tangible commodity that is ‘as real as rocks’. Arguably, Nonaka and Takeuchi have offered a ‘lesson from Japan’ that has distorted Polanyi’s concept of tacit knowing, inspired unwarranted faith in the viability of ‘explicit knowledge’, and ignored the significance of power mediated by ‘high‐context’ communication. This paper uses Ernst von Glasersfeld’s work on radical constructivism to make sense of Polanyi’s insights into tacit knowing without invoking notions of metaphysical truth. With reference to knowing, learning and communicating in Japanese organisations, we suggest that a radical constructivist approach offers a viable alternative to Nonaka and Takeuchi’s knowledge‐conversion model.

Key words: tacit knowledge, explicit knowledge, radical constructivism, communication, sensemaking, power

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.