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Embodied cognition has attracted significant attention within cognitive science and related fields in recent years. It is most noteworthy for its emphasis on the inextricable connection between mental functioning and embodied activity and thus for its departure from standard cognitive science's implicit commitment to the unembodied mind. This article offers a review of embodied cognition's recent empirical and theoretical contributions and suggests how this movement has moved beyond standard cognitive science. The article then clarifies important respects in which embodied cognition has not departed fundamentally from the standard view. A shared commitment to representationalism, and ultimately, mechanism, suggest that the standard and embodied cognition movements are more closely related than is commonly acknowledged. Arguments against representationalism and mechanism are reviewed and an alternative position that does not entail these conceptual undergirdings is offered.

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Embodied familiarization is offered as an overarching conception of learning informed by work in the hermeneutic philosophical tradition, especially the writings of Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Taylor, and Dreyfus. From this perspective, learning is conceptualized as meaningful engagement that involves a shift in embodied familiarity—that is, a shift in one’s sense of “dwelling” and capability. This view of learning differs from others in that it is based on an agentic account of human practical involvement (viz., participational agency) and makes no effort to explain learning-related phenomena through mental representation or other reified constructs. As an alternative to traditional learning theories in psychology, embodied familiarization treats concernful, practical involvement as its primary ontological commitment. This conceptual alternative is described through a discussion of four lived phenomena (antecedent familiarity, encounters with unfamiliarity, exploration, and tacitization) and three modes of familiarity (basic, working, and skilled).

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