Misplaced Pages

Enaction (philosophy): Difference between revisions

Article snapshot taken from[REDACTED] with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.
Browse history interactively← Previous editContent deleted Content addedVisualWikitext
Revision as of 18:41, 19 April 2014 editBrews ohare (talk | contribs)47,831 edits The ''E′s'' of enactive cognition← Previous edit Latest revision as of 11:03, 8 May 2014 edit undoSnowded (talk | contribs)Extended confirmed users, Pending changes reviewers, Rollbackers37,634 edits Per talk page - clearly what is needed 
(39 intermediate revisions by 7 users not shown)
Line 1: Line 1:
#REDIRECT ]
{{distinguish|Enaction|Enactivism}}
{{Orphan|date=April 2014}}

<!-- Please do not remove or change this AfD message until the issue is settled -->
{{Article for deletion/dated|page=Enaction (philosophy)|timestamp=20140410113655|year=2014|month=April|day=10|substed=yes|help=off}}
<!-- For administrator use only: {{Old AfD multi|page=Enaction (philosophy)|date=10 April 2014|result='''keep'''}} -->
<!-- End of AfD message, feel free to edit beyond this point -->
{{notable|date=April 2014}}
{{merge to|Enactivism|date=April 2014}}
'''Enaction''' as a theory argues that cognition depends on interaction between the cognitive agent and its environment;<ref name=Rowlands/> action and perception are directly connected, and "only a creature with certain features – for example, eyes, hands, legs, and skills – can possess certain kinds of cognitive capacities".<ref name=RWilson/> The claim is that we interact with an environment we selectively create through our capacities to enact with that world.<ref name=Rowlands1/>

The term ''enaction'' is attributed to Varela, Thompson, and Rosch to place emphasis upon the idea that experience of the world is a result of mutual interaction between the sensorimotor capacities of the organism and its environment.<ref name=RWilson/>

Enaction is seen as central to our cognition and perception. <ref name=Ward/> It is part of a wider set of post-cartesian theories of cognition which oppose the separation of the mind from the body arguing that consciousness is a distributed function of the brain, body, its artefacts, their environment, and their interactions. The theory sees an essential role for feelings, emotions and affect: "perceiving requires not only the ability to probe and explore the world...it also requires exercise of the ability" making motivation intrinsic to our cognitive processes.<ref name=Rowlands3/>

==The ''E′s'' of enactive cognition==

In a recent article Stapleton and Ward discuss enaction as central to our cognition and perception.<ref name=Ward/> They elaborate and partially defend the claims that cognition is <u>e</u>nactive, <u>e</u>mbodied, <u>e</u>mbedded, affective and (potentially) <u>e</u>xtended, named for convenience the ''E′s''.<ref name=Rowlands/> The term 'affective' refers to motivating factors encouraging engagement with the environment. The article intends partially to defend each of these ''E′s'' but also to point out the centrality of enactive cognition. By centrality is meant that if enaction is seen as a valid interpretation of our cognition, then the other aspects (the other ''E′s'', and affect) follow also.

====Enactive====
This aspect is the subject of this article. Broadly speaking 'enactive' means that cognition depends upon the activity of the cognitive agent, but beyond that, it opposes what is sometimes called a 'computationalist' or 'representationalist' picture of this interaction in which the agent receives information from the environment, represents it internally and processes it, and then arrives by 'computation' or 'deduction' at a course of action. Instead, the enactive view of the interaction is that the agent already is 'attuned' to its environment, which tuning filters both the input from the environment and the probing of the environment. One aspect of this interaction is the anticipation of the agent as to what might be the result of a particular probing action, and the design of that probing action to test that expectation. Rowlands cites MacKay and Husserl:<ref name=Rowlands1/> "there belongs to every external perception its reference from the 'genuinely perceived' sides of the object of perception to the sides 'also meant' – not yet perceived, but only anticipated."<ref name=Husserl/>

====Embedded====
The cognitive agent is not engaged in a simple information exchange with the environment, a sort of detached input-output between largely autonomous systems, but is to some degree inseparable from aspects of its environment to which it is closely coupled. This coupling may limit or channel or structure the interactions available within the agent-environment interaction.

====Embodied====
The cognitive agent interacts with the environment through 'apparatus' peculiar to the form of the agent, for example the senses. Various aspects of the agent's embodiment influence this interaction, for example, the eye processes visible light to present a modified signal to the brain, and the spinal cord encodes certain instructions that produce a muscular response to some forms of stimulation.

====Extended====
The cognitive agent is not limited in its interaction to its embodied capacities, but can invent and enlist the aid of external 'tools' that extend its presence into the environment.

====Affected====
Not a descriptor beginning with the letter 'E', but indicating that there are some motivating factors pushing the cognitive agent to engage in the cognitive process, to adopt an evaluative stance. Our 'affective state' decides what the agent actually will undertake.

The authors propose an 'ecumenical' enactivism combining affordances (]), sensorimotor expectations (]) and mutual enactive structuring (], ], and ]).<ref name=Varela/>. This enactivism avoids what Hurley calls the ''′Classical Sandwich′'',<ref name=Hurley/> whereby internal cognitive workings intervene between perceptual input and actions output. There is no separation between action and perception, since perception is a matter of being already attuned to the world and its features.

They agree (p9) with Varela Rosch and Thompson, that rules and regularities come about through our interaction with perceptible environment. The world and our cognition are co-constituted, the world informs us what we can see and do, and our perception demarcates that which is in our world.

==Psychology==
{{main|Enactivism (psychology)}}

]
As a subject in philosophy, enaction involves ] insofar as it concerns how knowledge can be acquired. As a subject in psychology, enaction has been about what is sometimes called "low-level cognition", things like ], design of the ], ], and ], but the developments of enaction in philosophy are finding wider application in psychology, extending to "high-level cognition" like reasoning, problem-solving, and planning.<ref name=Stewart/><ref name=McGann/>

The theory emphasises interaction with the environment in contrast with a view of mental processes as simply the operation of the brain as a computer manipulating symbols encoding representations of the world.<ref name=Rowlands/> The issue is not just that cognition involves structures outside the brain proper, but that cognition is a ''process'' of interaction, an activity.<ref name=Smith/><ref name=Lau/>

==An enactive view of perception==

] put forward an enactive view of perception.<ref name=Noe/> He wished to address the following issue. We perceive three-dimensional objects, on the basis of two-dimensional input, in a visual image which is clearly not three dimensional. How are we able to directly perceive their solidity and volume, not just their two dimensional outline or image?

Noë explains how we perceive this solidity (or 'volumetricity') by appealing to patterns of sensorimotor expectations. These arise from our agent-active 'movements and interaction' with objects, or 'object-active' changes in the object itself. The solidity is perceived through our expectations and skills in knowing how the object's appearance would change with changes in how we relate to it. He saw all perception as an active exploration of the world, rather than being a passive process, something which happens to us.

His theory has been opposed by several philosophers, notably by ].<ref name=AClark1/> Clark points to difficulties of the enactive approach in saying that action constitutes perception, rather than causes it. He also points to internal processing of visual signals, e.g. in the ventral and dorsal pathways, ]. This results in an integrated perception of objects (their recognition and location, respectively) yet this processing cannot be described as an action or actions.

==See also==
{{multicol}}
*]
*]
*]
*]
*]
*]
{{multicol-break}}
*]
*]
*]
*]
{{multicol-end}}

==References==
{{reflist |refs=

<ref name=AClark1>
{{cite journal |author=Andy Clark |title=Vision as Dance? Three Challenges for Sensorimotor Contingency Theory |journal= Psyche |volume=12 |issue=1 |date=March 2006 |url= https://www.era.lib.ed.ac.uk/bitstream/1842/1444/1/Psyche%20Clark.pdf}}
</ref>

<ref name=Hurley>
{{cite journal |title=Perception and action: An alternative view |author=] |year=2001 |journal=Synthese |volume=129 |pages=3-40 |url=http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?rep=rep1&type=pdf&doi=10.1.1.211.8660 |quote=Perception and action are not just separate from one another, but also separate from the higher processes of cognition. The mind is a kind of sandwich, and cognition is the filling.}} Hurley does not support the 'sandwich' view of cognition.
</ref>

<ref name=Husserl>
{{cite book |author=Edmund Husserl |page=44 |chapter=§19 Actuality and potentiality of intentional life |isbn=978-9024700684 |year=1999 |publisher=Kluwer Academic |edition=Reprint of 1950 Martinus Nijhoff}} or see {{cite book |url=http://books.google.com/books?id=hC2Ac8VGLacC&pg=PA108 |title=The Essential Husserl: Basic Writings in Transcendental Phenomenology |author=Edmund Husserl |editor=Donn Welton |publisher=Indiana University Press |year=1999 |isbn=978-0253212733 |page=108}}
</ref>

<ref name=Lau>
{{cite web |author=Joe Lau, Max Deutsch |title=Externalism About Mental Content |work=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2014 Edition) |editor= Edward N. Zalta, ed |url=http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2014/entries/content-externalism/ |date=Jan 22, 2014}}
</ref>

<ref name=McGann>
{{cite journal |title=Enaction and psychology |author=McGann, Marek; De Jaegher, Hanne; Di Paolo, Ezequiel |journal=Review of General Psychology |volume= 17 |issue=2 |date=June 2013 |pages=203–209 |doi= 10.1037/a0032935 |url=http://ezequieldipaolo.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/mcgann-et-al_2013_enaction-and-psychology.pdf}}
</ref>

<ref name=Noe>
{{cite book |title=Action in perception |url=http://books.google.com/books?id=kFKvU2hPhxEC&printsec=frontcover |author=Alva Noë |isbn=978-0262140881 |publisher=MIT Press |year=2004}}
</ref>

<ref name=Rowlands>
{{cite book |author=Mark Rowlands |chapter=Chapter 3: The mind embedded |pages=51 ''ff'' |year=2010 |isbn=0262014556 |publisher=MIT Press |url=http://books.google.com/books?id=AiwjpL-0hDgC&pg=PA51 |title=The new science of the mind: From extended mind to embodied phenomenology}}
</ref>

<ref name=Rowlands1>
{{cite book |author=Mark Rowlands |chapter=Chapter 3: The mind embedded §5 The mind enacted |pages=70 ''ff'' |year=2010 |isbn=0262014556 |publisher=MIT Press |url=http://books.google.com/books?id=AiwjpL-0hDgC&pg=PA70 |title=The new science of the mind: From extended mind to embodied phenomenology}} Rowlands attributes this idea to {{cite book |author=D M MacKay |year=1967 |chapter=Ways of looking at perception |title=Models for the perception of speech and visual form (Proceedings of a symposium) |editor=W Watthen-Dunn |publisher=MIT Press |pages=25 ''ff'' |url=http://books.google.com/books?id=Ts9JAAAAMAAJ&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=MacKay+Ways+of+looking+at+perception}}
</ref>

<ref name=Rowlands3>
{{cite book |author=Mark Rowlands |chapter=Chapter 3: The mind embedded §5 The mind enacted |page=79 |year=2010 |isbn=0262014556 |publisher=MIT Press |url=http://books.google.com/books?id=AiwjpL-0hDgC&pg=PA79 |title=The new science of the mind: From extended mind to embodied phenomenology}}
</ref>

<ref name=RWilson>
{{cite web |author=Robert A Wilson, Lucia Foglia |title=Embodied Cognition: §2.2 Enactive cognition |work=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2011 Edition) |editor=Edward N. Zalta, ed |url = http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2011/entries/embodied-cognition/#EnaCog |date=July 25, 2011}}
</ref>

<ref name=Smith>
{{cite web |author=Basil Smith |title=Internalism and externalism in the philosophy of mind and language |url=http://www.iep.utm.edu/int-ex-ml/#H4 |work=Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy}}
</ref>

<ref name=Stewart>
{{cite book |title=Enaction |author=John Stewart, Oliver Gapenne, Ezequiel A DiPaolo |chapter=Introduction |editor=John Stewart, Oliver Gapenne, Ezequiel A DiPaolo, eds |publisher=MIT Press |year=2014 |isbn=978-0-262-52601-2 |edition=Paperback |url=http://books.google.com/books?id=UtFDJx-gysQC&pg=PR7}}
</ref>

<ref name=Varela>
{{cite book |title=The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience |author=Francisco J. Varela, Eleanor Rosch, Evan Thompson |publisher= MIT Press |year=1992 |isbn=0262261235 |url=http://books.google.com/books?id=QY4RoH2z5DoC&pg=PR17}}
</ref>

<ref name=Ward>
{{cite book |author= Dave Ward, Mog Stapleton |year=2012 |url=http://books.google.com/books?id=Y1E7FogqvJ0C&pg=PA89 |chapter=Es are good. Cognition as enacted, embodied, embedded, affective and extended |editor= Fabio Paglieri, ed |title=Consciousness in Interaction: The role of the natural and social context in shaping consciousness |publisher=John Benjamins Publishing |pages=89 ''ff'' |isbn=978-9027213525}} .
</ref>
}}

==Further reading==
*{{cite web |title=Embodied cognition |date=July 2011 |author=Robert A. Wilson, and Lucia Foglia |work=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2011 Edition) |editor=Edward N. Zalta, ed |url=http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2011/entries/embodied-cognition/}}
*{{cite web |title=Embodied cognition |date= |author=Monica Cowart |work=Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy |url=http://www.iep.utm.edu/embodcog/ }}
*{{cite web |author=Joe Lau, Max Deutsch |title=Externalism About Mental Content |work=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2014 Edition) |editor=Edward N. Zalta, ed |url=http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2014/entries/content-externalism/ |date= Jan 22, 2014}}
*{{cite web |title=Internalism and Externalism in the Philosophy of Mind and Language |date= |author=Basil Smith |work=Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy |url=http://www.iep.utm.edu/int-ex-ml/ }}
*{{cite book |author=Mark Rowlands |chapter=Chapter 3: The mind embodied, enacted and extended |pages=51 ''ff'' |year=2010 |isbn=0262014556 |publisher=MIT Press |url=http://books.google.com/books?id=AiwjpL-0hDgC&pg=PA51 |title=The new science of the mind: From extended mind to embodied phenomenology}}

==External links==
*{{cite web |title=Consciousness as the emergent property of the interaction between brain, body, & environment: the crucial role of haptic perception |author=Pietro Morasso |url=http://www.consciousness.it/iwac2005/Material/Morasso.pdf |year=2005 }} Slides related to a chapter on ] (recognition through touch): {{cite book |editor=Antonio Chella & Riccardo Manzotti, eds |author=Pietro Morasso |chapter=Chapter 14: The crucial role of haptic perception |pages=234 ''ff'' |title= Artificial Consciousness |publisher= Academic |pages=234-255 |year=2007 |isbn=978-1845400705 |url=https://www.google.com/search?tbo=p&tbm=bks&q=isbn:1845400704&num=10}}

]
]
]
]
]
]
]
]
]
]

Latest revision as of 11:03, 8 May 2014

Redirect to:

Enaction (philosophy): Difference between revisions Add topic