Natural Agency: The Case of Bacterial Cognition

Abstract

ABSTRACT:I contrast an ecological account of natural agency with the traditional Cartesian conception using recent research in bacterial cognition and cellular decision making as a test case. I argue that the Cartesian conception—namely, the view that agency presupposes cognition—generates a dilemma between mechanism, the view that bacteria are mere automata, and intellectualism, the view that they exhibit full-blown cognition. Unicellular organisms, however, occupy a middle ground between these two extremes. On the one hand, their capacities and activities are too adaptive to count as mere machines. On the other hand, they lack the open-ended responsiveness of cognitive agents to rational norms. An ecological conception of agency as the gross behavioral capacity to respond to affordances, I argue, does not presuppose cognition and allows for degrees of agency along a continuum, from the simplest adaptive agents, such as unicellular organisms, to the most sophisticated cognitive agents. Bacteria, I conclude, are adaptive agents, hence not mere automata, but not cognitive agents.

Normativity, social change, and the epistemological framing of culture

“…Developmental niche construction can be cast as an interactional process between agents and a shared environment, producing affordances that support the reproduction of a normative life trajectory, through the norm-guided development of each new member of the community (cf. Constant et al 2018b;Fulda 2017). These norms are implicit in the structure of cultural affordances in the specific local niches occupied by individuals at a particular developmental age or stage.…”

Epistemic Tools and Epistemic Agents in Scientonomy

“…But while the two levels of organization resemble each other in that they are both composed systems, it is also important to take note of the ways in which they are profoundly different. First, it has been plausibly argued that the living cells that make up an individual epistemic agent possess a rudimentary form of both intentionality and agency, since they can rearrange their own structure in response to damage, nutrient distribution, or other environmental features (Fitch, 2008;Fulda, 2017). Nevertheless, unlike the constituent parts of a communal epistemic agent, they are clearly not themselves epistemic agents.…”

“…What this means is that, given the naturalistic concept of intentionality referenced above, an agent perceives their environment and acts within it with a motive or in pursuit of a goal, choosing among multiple courses of action so as to best fulfill their goal. Human beings, and many other living things, would clearly qualify as agents under such a definition of agency (Dennett, 1983;Fitch, 2008;Fulda, 2017;Walsh, 2018).…”

Free Energy and the Self: An Ecological–Enactive Interpretation

“…8 Exactly when in the history of life feeling first emerged needn't concern us further. Perhaps bacteria are capable of some minimal degree of feeling to the extent that they are capable of purposive agency (see Fulda 2017). Godfrey-Smith speculates simple experience may have begun in the Cambrian era that saw an explosion of lifeforms capable of "richer forms of engagement with the world".…”

“…Plants almost certainly don't. Bacteria are capable of a minimal form of purposive agency (Fulda 2017;Di Paolo et al 2017). Since they lack a brain for regulating the changing internal states of their bodies, they probably also lack feeling (Thompson 2015, pp.…”