Mechanistic explanation for enactive sociality

Abstract

In this article we analyze the methodological commitments of a radical embodied cognition (REC) approach to social interaction and social cognition, specifically with respect to the explanatory framework it adopts. According to many representatives of REC, such as enactivists and the proponents of dynamical and ecological psychology, sociality is to be explained by (1) focusing on the social unit rather than the individuals that comprise it and (2) establishing the regularities that hold on this level rather than modeling the sub-personal mechanisms that could be said to underlie social phenomena. We point out that, despite explicit commitment, such a view implies an implicit rejection of the mechanistic explanation framework widely adopted in traditional cognitive science (TCS), which, in our view, hinders comparability between REC and these approaches. We further argue that such a position is unnecessary and that enactive mechanistic explanation of sociality is both possible and desirable. We examine three distinct objections from REC against mechanistic explanation, which we dub the decomposability, causality and extended cognition worries. In each case we show that these complaints can be alleviated by either appreciation of the full scope of the mechanistic account or adjustments on both mechanistic and REC sides of the debate.

Extended cognition, the new mechanists' mutual manipulability criterion, and the challenge of trivial extendedness

“…In Krickel () and Krickel (), I argue that these problems can be avoided if one takes the temporal extendedness of the phenomenon seriously (for further applications of my account to EC see Gallagher () and Abramova and Slors ()). Mice navigating water mazes, beating hearts, or action potentials being transmitted are temporally extended processes.…”

“…To revive the debate, some authors (Abramova & Slors, ; Gallagher, ; Hewitson, Kaplan & Sutton, ; Kaplan, ; Kirchhoff, , ; Pöyhönen, ; Theiner, Allen & Goldstone, ; van Eck & Looren de Jong, ; Zednik, ) leave the search for the mark of cognition behind and instead focus on the “mark of constitution.” (Baumgartner & Wilutzky, , p. 1105). One popular strategy is to apply tools from the new mechanistic literature to make sense of constitution in the context of EC.…”

From Wide Cognition to Mechanisms: A Silent Revolution

“…The mechanistic approach is also natural in the study of relations between the physical body of an agent and its neural systems, which is the focus of embodied cognition. Although proponents of enactivism usually appeal to dynamical explanations (but see also Abramova and Slors, 2018), these explanations can be typically recast in mechanistic terms (Zednik, 2011). In addition, distributed cognition can be easily framed in terms of mechanistic explanations; the cognitive systems composed of cognitive agents and artifacts can be naturally understood as mechanisms comprising component parts and operations on external representations.…”

“…Instead, they can be further developed and integrated to form a larger mechanistic framework (cf. Abramova and Slors, 2018; Wachowski, 2018).…”

Impact of auditory sense on trust and brand affect through auditory social interaction and control

“… De Jaegher, Di Paolo and Gallagher (2010) Theory of enactive social cognition Social interaction drives social cognition. Gallagher and Alsin (2018) Theory of enactive social cognition Abramova and Slors (2019) Theory of enactive social cognition Di Paolo (2020) Enactive theory of social cognition Autonomous artificial bodies can participate in sense-making process and language. …”