TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine the role of reflection in the analysis of experience, experimentation and experiential analysis, and define the enactive approach, enactive cognitive science.
Abstract: Part 1 The departing ground: a fundamental circularity - in the mind of the reflective scientist - an already-given condition, what is cognitive science?, cognitive science within the circle, the theme of this book what do we mean "Human Experience"? - science and the phenomenological tradition, the breakdown of phenomenology, a non-western philosophical tradition, examining experience with a method - mindfulness/awareness, the role of reflection in the analysis of experience, experimentation and experiential analysis. Part 2 Varieties of cognitivism: symbols - the cognitivist hypothesis - the foundational cloud, defining the cognitivist hypothesis, manifestations of cognitivism, cognitivism and human experience, experience and the computational mind the I of the storm - what do we mean by "Self"?, looking for a self in the aggregates, momentariness and the brain, the aggregates without a self. Part 3 Varieties of emergence: emergent properties and connectionism - self-organization - the roots of an alternative, the connectionist strategy, emergence and self-organization, connectionism today, neuronal emergences, exeunt the symbols, linking symbols and emergence selfless minds - societies of mind, the society of object relations, co-dependent arising, basic element analysis, mindfulness and freedom, selfless minds, divided agents, minding the world. Part 4 Steps to a middle way: the Cartesian anxiety - a sense of dissatisfaction, representation revisited, the Cartesian anxiety, steps to a middle way, enaction - embodied cognition - recovering common sense, self-organization revisited, colour as a study case, cognition as embodied action, the retreat into natural selection evolutionary path making and natural drift - adaptationism - an idea in transition, a horizon of multiple mechanisms, beyond the best in evolution and cognition, evolution - ecology and development in congruence, lessons from evolution as natural drift, defining the enactive approach, enactive cognitive science. Part 5 Worlds without ground: the middle way - evocations of groundlessness, Nagarjuna and the Madhyamika tradition, the two truths, groundlessness in contemporary thought laying down a path in walking - science and experience in circulation, nihilism and the need for planetary thinking, Nishitani Keiji, ethics and human transformation. Appendices: meditation terminology categories of experiential events used in mindfulness/awareness works on Buddhism and mindfulness/awareness.
TL;DR: The Enactive Approach to Cognitive Science and Human Experience is indebted to Husserl and Cognitive Science, as well as to others who have contributed to this work.
Abstract: Preface Acknowledgements Part I: The Enactive Approach 1. Cognitive Science and Human Experience 2. The Phenomenological Connection 3. Autonomy and Emergence 4. The Structure of Behavior Part II: Life in Mind 5. Autopoiesis: The Organization of the Living 6. Life and Mind: The Philosophy of the Organism 7. Laying Down a Path in Walking: Development and Evolution Part III: Consciousness in Life 8. Life Beyond the Gap 9. Sensorimotor Subjectivity 10. Look Again: Consciousness and Mental Imagery 11. Temporality and the Living Present 12. Primordial Dynamism: Emotion and Valence 13. Empathy and Enculturation Appendix 1: Husserl and Cognitive Science Appendix 2: Emergence and the Problem of Downward Causation References
TL;DR: Chemero as mentioned in this paper argues that cognition should be described in terms of agent-environment dynamics rather than in computational and representation, and proposes a methodology: dynamical systems theory, which would explain things dynamically and without reference to representation.
Abstract: While philosophers of mind have been arguing over the status of mental representations in cognitive science, cognitive scientists have been quietly engaged in studying perception, action, and cognition without explaining them in terms of mental representation. In this book, Anthony Chemero describes this nonrepresentational approach (which he terms radical embodied cognitive science), puts it in historical and conceptual context, and applies it to traditional problems in the philosophy of mind. Radical embodied cognitive science is a direct descendant of the American naturalist psychology of William James and John Dewey, and follows them in viewing perception and cognition to be understandable only in terms of action in the environment. Chemero argues that cognition should be described in terms of agent-environment dynamics rather than in terms of computation and representation. After outlining this orientation to cognition, Chemero proposes a methodology: dynamical systems theory, which would explain things dynamically and without reference to representation. He also advances a background theory: Gibsonian ecological psychology, "shored up" and clarified. Chemero then looks at some traditional philosophical problems (reductionism, epistemological skepticism, metaphysical realism, consciousness) through the lens of radical embodied cognitive science and concludes that the comparative ease with which it resolves these problems, combined with its empirical promise, makes this approach to cognitive science a rewarding one. "Jerry Fodor is my favorite philosopher," Chemero writes in his preface, adding, "I think that Jerry Fodor is wrong about nearly everything." With this book, Chemero explains nonrepresentational, dynamical, ecological cognitive science as clearly and as rigorously as Jerry Fodor explained computational cognitive science in his classic work The Language of Thought.
TL;DR: The notion of sense-making in this realm becomes participatory sensemaking as discussed by the authors, which reframes the problem of social cognition as that of how meaning is generated and transformed in the interplay between the unfolding interaction process and the individuals engaged in it.
Abstract: As yet, there is no enactive account of social cognition. This paper extends the enactive concept of sense-making into the social domain. It takes as its departure point the process of interaction between individuals in a social encounter. It is a well-established finding that individuals can and generally do coordinate their movements and utterances in such situations. We argue that the interaction process can take on a form of autonomy. This allows us to reframe the problem of social cognition as that of how meaning is generated and transformed in the interplay between the unfolding interaction process and the individuals engaged in it. The notion of sense-making in this realm becomes participatory sense-making. The onus of social understanding thus moves away from strictly the individual only.
TL;DR: Hutto and Myin this article defend the counter-thesis that there can be intentionality and phenomenal experience without content, and demonstrate the advantages of their approach for thinking about scaffolded minds and consciousness.
Abstract: Most of what humans do and experience is best understood in terms of dynamically unfolding interactions with the environment. Many philosophers and cognitive scientists now acknowledge the critical importance of situated, environment-involving embodied engagements as a means of understanding basic minds -- including basic forms of human mentality. Yet many of these same theorists hold fast to the view that basic minds are necessarily or essentially contentful -- that they represent conditions the world might be in. In this book, Daniel Hutto and Erik Myin promote the cause of a radically enactive, embodied approach to cognition that holds that some kinds of minds -- basic minds -- are neither best explained by processes involving the manipulation of contents nor inherently contentful. Hutto and Myin oppose the widely endorsed thesis that cognition always and everywhere involves content. They defend the counter-thesis that there can be intentionality and phenomenal experience without content, and demonstrate the advantages of their approach for thinking about scaffolded minds and consciousness