A twofold tale of one mind: revisiting REC’s multi-storey story

Abstract

The Radical Enactive/Embodied view of Cognition, or REC, claims that all cognition is a matter of skilled performance. Yet REC also makes a distinction between basic and content-involving cognition, arguing that the development of basic to content-involving cognition involves a kink. It might seem that this distinction leads to problematic gaps in REC’s story. We address two such alleged gaps in this paper. First, we identify and reply to the concern that REC leads to an “interface problem”, according to which REC has to account for the interaction of two minds co-present in the same cognitive activity. We emphasise how REC’s view of content-involving cognition in terms of activities that require particular sociocultural practices can resolve these interface concerns. The second potential problematic gap is that REC creates an unjustified difference in kind between animal and human cognition. In response, we clarify and further explicate REC’s notion of content, and argue that this notion allows REC to justifiably mark the distinction between basic and content-involving cognition as a difference in kind. We conclude by pointing out in what sense basic and content-involving cognitive activities are the same, yet different. They are the same because they are all forms of skilled performance, yet different as some forms of skilled performance are genuinely different from other forms.

Converging enactivisms: radical enactivism meets linguistic bodies

“…is added at each level. And it is exactly this kind of continuity that we may take Myin and van den Herik (2020) to be alluding to when they claim that know-how is pervasive of all cognition, from basic to higher level. For, as we have seen, know-how is a normative notion, it implies very general correctness conditions.…”

“…We call those more basic conditions success conditions . And if Myin and van den Herik (2020) are correct in writing that “[a]ll forms of cognition, irrespective of whether they are basic or content-involving, are a matter of the exercise of abilities, competence and know-how,” it follows that success conditions are pervasive to all kinds of cognitive performance. Assuming that some cognitive capacities involve representational content, and some involve fully articulate conceptual and propositional content, we can sketch the following scheme where know-how is present at all levels and where each level is specified by the addition of specific conditions (Figure 1).…”

“…Myin and van den Herik (2020) construe objection as pointing to an alleged gap between human and non-human animals, which stems from what seems to be an interface problem . Taking literally the idea that there are two minds , or two levels of mentality within a single subject, and that these two minds or levels are radically different from each other (as Hutto & Myin, 2017, may seem to suggest), it would indeed be a mystery to explain how they could come together.…”

“…Myin and van den Herik (2020) address those worries first by emphasizing that “content,” strictly understood, requires representation. More specifically, it requires narrative or truth-telling practices, that is, practices that involve the question of truth and falsity.…”

“…Accordingly, “All forms of cognition, irrespective of whether they are basic or content-involving, are a matter of the exercise of abilities, competence and know-how. At the same time, there are different kinds of abilities, competences and know-how” (Myin & van den Herik, 2020). So, what links together cognitive performances of different kinds is the presence of know-how , both in basic cognition and in content-involving cognition.…”