Converging enactivisms: radical enactivism meets linguistic bodies

Abstract

We advance a critical examination of two recent branches of the enactivist research program, namely, Radically Enactive Cognition and Linguistic Bodies. We argue that, although these approaches may look like diverging views within the wider enactivist program, when appraised in a conciliatory spirit, they can be interpreted as developing converging ideas. We examine how the notion of know-how figures in them to show an important point of convergence, namely, that the normativity of human cognitive capacities rests on shared know-how. Radical enactivism emphasizes the diachronic dimension of shared know-how, and linguistic bodies emphasize the synchronic one. Given that know-how is a normative notion, it is subject to success conditions. We then argue it implies basic content, which is the content of the successful ongoing interactions between agent(s) and environment. Basic content does not imply accuracy conditions and representational content, so it evades Hutto and Myin’s Hard Problem of Content. Moreover, this account is amenable to the central claim by Di Paolo et al. that the participatory sense-making relations at play in linguistic exchanges are explained in continuity with explanations of biological organization and sensorimotor engagements.

Sense-Making in the Wild: The Historical and Ecological Depth of Enactive Processes of Life and Cognition

“…The ability of agents to modulate their interactions implies that they are also sensitive to conditions of correction . Agents know how to modulate their behaviour to fulfil the conditions of satisfaction (Rolla & Huffermann, 2021).…”

Faces and situational Agency

“…On this view, complicated computations are rendered without representations, as when a fish tail solves fluid dynamics problems, or mountains funnel insects to breeding destinations, or again when Roomba's round body calculates spatial problems. Social cognition is similarly scaffolded by bodies in environments, which introduce normative constraints that are refined by successful practices with others (see Di Paolo et al 2018;Myin and van den Herik 2020;Rolla and Huffermann 2021). Social cognition, therefore, depends on a practical grasp and hence ability to successfully respond to other people's solicitations and inhibitions, which are thereby made meaningful in enactive senses.…”

Do babies represent? On a failed argument for representationalism

“…It seems particularly contentious to say that babies (of only a couple of months of age) have propositional knowledge or understanding about a given matter, because both knowingthat and understanding-of require not only representational states, but also conceptual content, thereby demanding a more acute language mastery than what babies plausibly have. On the other hand, Dehaene talks about know-how, attunement, skills and abilities, which is a more sympathetic way of speaking considering the enactivist epistemology (Myin & van den Herik, 2020;Rolla & Huffermann, 2021). Between these two extremes, one also finds some expressions of representationalism that do not go as far as to imply propositional content.…”

“…The ontological reading present in some due to the influence of Jonasian phenomenology (see De Jesus, 2016, for a discussion). explaining higher cognition, but it should be noted that it can be approximated with other recent enactivist developments (see Rolla & Huffermann, 2021 for a discussion).…”