Abstract
In recent years, a growing number of thinkers have begun to challenge the long-held view that the mind is neurally realized. One strand of critique comes from work on extended cognition, a second comes from research on embodied cognition, and a third comes from enactivism. I argue that theorists who embrace the claim that the mind is fully embodied and enactive cannot consistently also embrace the extended mind thesis. This is because once one takes seriously the central tenets of enactivism, it becomes implausible to suppose that life, affectivity, and sense-making can extend. According to enactivism, the entities that enact a world of meaning are autonomous, embodied agents with a concerned point of view. Such agents are spatially situated, differentiated from the environment, and intentionally directed towards things that lie at a distance. While the extended mind thesis blurs the distinction between organism and environment, the central tenets of enactivism emphasize differentiations between the two. In addition, enactivism emphasizes that minded organisms are enduring subjects of action and experience, and thus it is implausible to suppose that they transform into a new form of life whenever they become intimately coupled to some new element in their environment. The proponent of enactivism and embodied cognition should acknowledge that life and affectivity are relational and environmentally embedded, but resist the further claim that these phenomena are extended.
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Notes
Theorists such as O’Regan and Noë (2001) have articulated an alternative theory of enactivism that centers on the way in which perception rests on knowledge of sensorimotor contingencies. However, my paper focuses primarily on what some theorists have called “autopoietic” or “autonomic” enactivism.
For a discussion of some of the key objections that have been raised against this account, see Thompson (2011).
Some authors (e.g. Stephan et al. 2014 and Colombetti and Roberts 2015) have appealed to the parity principle to argue that affectivity can extend. In their view, some of the internal components of emotions have extrabodily functional equivalents. Although these arguments merit further consideration, here I set them aside. Because functionalism is in tension with EE, the enactivist needs to appeal to something other than the parity principle to show that affectivity extends.
More might be said about the how Barbaras’ comments about distance relate to recent debates concerning the sense of agency and the sense of ownership. However, there is not sufficient space to explore this here.
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Thanks to Julian Kiverstein and two anonymous referees for their very helpful feedback.
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Maiese, M. Can the mind be embodied, enactive, affective, and extended?. Phenom Cogn Sci 17, 343–361 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-017-9510-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-017-9510-6