Enacting Productive Dialogue: Addressing the Challenge that Non-Human Cognition Poses to Collaborations Between Enactivism and Heideggerian Phenomenology

Abstract

The discourse generated by interactions between phenomenological and scientific perspectives is characterised by a particularly rich exchange between the specific and the general, the foundational and the applicative. That is, discussions about the insights produced by particular collaborations often feed into and enrich (rather than only occurring in succession to) debates over fundamental questions about the very possibility of any genuine cooperation between these discourses. The dialogue between phenomenology and the sciences seems to recognise almost more than any other that the conditions of its existence in general can come into view much more clearly in light of the challenges and benefits that arise in the context of specific negotiations.The present chapter seeks to take advantage of this dynamic. It will examine how one particular proposal for interdisciplinary collaboration deals with conflict between the perspectives that it asks to cooperate, in the hope of shedding some light on the kinds of negotiations that make for fruitful dialogue between the phenomenological tradition and the natural sciences more generally. The proposal in question -a call for sustained cooperation between Heideggerian phenomenology and the enactivist approach to cognitive science -is one that I have set out and defended in detail elsewhere; hence, for the purposes of this chapter I shall proceed as if such a partnership is both desirable and possible (at least in principle). 1 While I will offer a very brief outline of the intersections between Heideggerian

Explanation, Enaction and Naturalised Phenomenology

“…Any system capable of autonomy and adaptivity counts as a cogniser, from humans and other primates down to bacteria and slime mould. This makes the aforementioned concern about phenomenology being restricted to human cognition a particularly urgent problem for what is otherwise a fruitful, longstanding relationship with enactivist approaches (Stendera, 2016). One answer to this concern, of course, would be to say that this only restricts phenomenology's scope, rather than its significance; providing insights into what occurs among human cognisers is still an important task.…”

“…That is, a system can only be classified as a living cogniser if the source of unity, actions and adaptive norms is intrinsic rather than extrinsic -if it maintains itself because of its own intrinsic resistance against annihilation, rather than merely following a set of instructions. Thus, it might be that we must be able to recognise a basic form of motivational causality -something arguably akin to what Heidegger might, at the human level, call "for-the-sake-of-which" (Heidegger, 1927(Heidegger, /2001Stendera 2016) -to even identify a cogniser, let alone to study the structures that shape and enable its behaviours.…”

“…Consider Heidegger's model of Being-in-theworld, which Crippen (2020, p. 6) highlights as relevant to his inquiry. The early Heidegger not only defines temporality and practice in terms of each other, but also links these to broader intersections between historical, communal and individual temporalities in ways that resonate deeply with the concerns of the enactive approach (Stendera, 2015(Stendera, , 2016.…”

“…As Zahavi (2019) and Sass (2010Sass ( , 2014 note, the tradition never conceptualised itself in such a limited way. In the case of arguing for the expansion of phenomenology beyond the domain of the human, the requisite support is more implicit, often coming from points that need to be read 'against the grain' (Stendera, 2016). Even these readings, however, are arguably 'destructive' in a way that resonates with phenomenology's characteristic approach to its own sources: they exhibit a fidelity in the lack of fidelity.…”

The clinical paradox: Acting in two worlds in parallel

“…In his view, a living being's Umwelt is imbued with the results of the living being's interpretative agency and hence to be understood not as objective but as perspectival, co‐determined and co‐produced. This approach is nowadays combined with the reasoning of Heidegger and subsequent phenomenologists to create an enactment theory of neuronal interaction 18,19 . The argument embedded in this approach refers to the topic of embedded, situationally coherent dynamics and a corresponding concept of primordially situated dynamic elements as the smallest units to be addressed.…”