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'''Enaction''' is a theory that cognition depends on interaction between the cognitive agent and the environment.<ref name=Rowlands/> It has been defined as: "The study of the manner in which a subject of perception creatively matches its actions to the requirements of its situation",<ref name=Toscano> '''Enaction''' is a theory that cognition depends on interaction between the cognitive agent and the environment.<ref name=Rowlands/> It has been defined as: "The study of the manner in which a subject of perception creatively matches its actions to the requirements of its situation",<ref name=Toscano>
{{cite book |url=http://books.google.com/books?id=kRUZ61uISUMC&pg=PA169&dq=Enaction+philosophy&hl=en&sa=X&ei=vRhdU539AceGyATir4GQBA&ved=0CEgQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Enaction%20philosophy&f=false |author=A Toscano |chapter=Enaction |pages=169-170 |title=A Dictionary of Continental Philosophy |editor=John Protevi, ed |isbn=9780300116052 |year=2006 |publisher=Yale University Press}} {{cite book |url=http://books.google.com/books?id=kRUZ61uISUMC&pg=PA169&dq=Enaction+philosophy&hl=en&sa=X&ei=vRhdU539AceGyATir4GQBA&ved=0CEgQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Enaction%20philosophy&f=false |author=A Toscano |chapter=Enaction |pages=169-170 |title=A Dictionary of Continental Philosophy |editor=John Protevi, ed |isbn=9780300116052 |year=2006 |publisher=Yale University Press}}
</ref> but this definition ignores the cultural aspects. It claims is that our environment is one which we selectively create through our capacities to interact with the world.<ref name=Rowlands1/> It has been suggested that it forms a ] in our thinking about many areas of knowledge, including our mind and consciousness.<ref>Di Paolo, E. A., Rohde, M. and De Jaegher, H., (2010). ''Horizons for the Enactive Mind: Values, Social Interaction, and Play.'' In J. Stewart, O. Gapenne and E. A. Di Paolo (eds), Enaction: Towards a New Paradigm for Cognitive Science, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp.&nbsp;33 – 87. ISBN 9780262014601</ref> </ref> but this definition ignores the cultural aspects. 'Enaction' claims is that our environment is one which we selectively create through our capacities to interact with the world.<ref name=Rowlands1/> It has been suggested that it forms a ] in our thinking about many areas of knowledge, including our mind and consciousness.<ref>Di Paolo, E. A., Rohde, M. and De Jaegher, H., (2010). ''Horizons for the Enactive Mind: Values, Social Interaction, and Play.'' In J. Stewart, O. Gapenne and E. A. Di Paolo (eds), Enaction: Towards a New Paradigm for Cognitive Science, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp.&nbsp;33 – 87. ISBN 9780262014601</ref>


The term ''enaction'' came into widespread use<ref>Torrance, S (2005) In search of the enactive: Introduction to special issue on Enactive Experience Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 4(4) December 2005, pp. 357-368</ref> after the landmark publication in 1991 by Varela, Thompson, and Rosch.<ref name="Varela">Varela, F. J., Thompson, E., & Rosch, E. (1991). The embodied mind: Cognitive science and human experience. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.</ref> Enaction is used in an interdisciplinary sense, It puts emphasis upon the idea that our cognitive experience of the world is a product of mutual interaction between our sensorimotor capacities and the environment.<ref name=RWilson/> The term ''enaction'' came into widespread use<ref>Torrance, S (2005) In search of the enactive: Introduction to special issue on Enactive Experience Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 4(4) December 2005, pp. 357-368</ref> after the landmark publication in 1991 by Varela, Thompson, and Rosch.<ref name="Varela">Varela, F. J., Thompson, E., & Rosch, E. (1991). The embodied mind: Cognitive science and human experience. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.</ref> Enaction is used in an interdisciplinary sense, It puts emphasis upon the idea that our cognitive experience of the world is a product of mutual interaction between our sensorimotor capacities and the environment.<ref name=RWilson/>

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Enaction is a theory that cognition depends on interaction between the cognitive agent and the environment. It has been defined as: "The study of the manner in which a subject of perception creatively matches its actions to the requirements of its situation", but this definition ignores the cultural aspects. 'Enaction' claims is that our environment is one which we selectively create through our capacities to interact with the world. It has been suggested that it forms a paradigm shift in our thinking about many areas of knowledge, including our mind and consciousness.

The term enaction came into widespread use after the landmark publication in 1991 by Varela, Thompson, and Rosch. Enaction is used in an interdisciplinary sense, It puts emphasis upon the idea that our cognitive experience of the world is a product of mutual interaction between our sensorimotor capacities and the environment.

Enaction is seen as central to our cognition and perception It is one of a wider set of post-cartesian, anti-dualist theories of the mind. It opposes the separation of the mind from the body, holding that consciousness is a distributed function of the brain, body, its artefacts, their environment, and their interactions. The theory also 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.

Psychology

Main article: Enactivism (psychology)
Enaction states that we catch fast-moving things using sensory feedback, rather than internal computation.

As a subject in philosophy, enaction involves epistemology 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 motor learning, design of the human-machine interface, haptic perception, and psycholinguistics, but the developments of enaction in philosophy are finding wider application in psychology, extending to "high-level cognition" like reasoning, problem-solving, and planning.

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. The issue is not just that cognition involves structures outside the brain proper, but that cognition is a process of interaction, an activity.

An enactive view of perception

Alva Noë put forward an enactive view of perception. 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 Andy Clark. 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, the two-streams hypothesis. 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

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References

  1. ^ Mark Rowlands (2010). "Chapter 3: The mind embedded". The new science of the mind: From extended mind to embodied phenomenology. MIT Press. pp. 51 ff. ISBN 0262014556.
  2. A Toscano (2006). "Enaction". In John Protevi, ed (ed.). A Dictionary of Continental Philosophy. Yale University Press. pp. 169–170. ISBN 9780300116052. {{cite book}}: |editor= has generic name (help)
  3. Mark Rowlands (2010). "Chapter 3: The mind embedded §5 The mind enacted". The new science of the mind: From extended mind to embodied phenomenology. MIT Press. pp. 70 ff. ISBN 0262014556. Rowlands attributes this idea to D M MacKay (1967). "Ways of looking at perception". In W Watthen-Dunn (ed.). Models for the perception of speech and visual form (Proceedings of a symposium). MIT Press. pp. 25 ff.
  4. Di Paolo, E. A., Rohde, M. and De Jaegher, H., (2010). Horizons for the Enactive Mind: Values, Social Interaction, and Play. In J. Stewart, O. Gapenne and E. A. Di Paolo (eds), Enaction: Towards a New Paradigm for Cognitive Science, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 33 – 87. ISBN 9780262014601
  5. Torrance, S (2005) In search of the enactive: Introduction to special issue on Enactive Experience Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 4(4) December 2005, pp. 357-368
  6. Varela, F. J., Thompson, E., & Rosch, E. (1991). The embodied mind: Cognitive science and human experience. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
  7. Robert A Wilson, Lucia Foglia (July 25, 2011). Edward N. Zalta, ed (ed.). "Embodied Cognition: §2.2 Enactive cognition". The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2011 Edition). {{cite web}}: |editor= has generic name (help)
  8. Dave Ward, Mog Stapleton (2012). "Es are good. Cognition as enacted, embodied, embedded, affective and extended". In Fabio Paglieri, ed (ed.). Consciousness in Interaction: The role of the natural and social context in shaping consciousness. John Benjamins Publishing. pp. 89 ff. ISBN 978-9027213525. {{cite book}}: |editor= has generic name (help) On-line version here.
  9. Mark Rowlands (2010). "Chapter 3: The mind embedded §5 The mind enacted". The new science of the mind: From extended mind to embodied phenomenology. MIT Press. p. 79. ISBN 0262014556.
  10. John Stewart, Oliver Gapenne, Ezequiel A DiPaolo (2014). "Introduction". In John Stewart, Oliver Gapenne, Ezequiel A DiPaolo, eds (ed.). Enaction (Paperback ed.). MIT Press. ISBN 978-0-262-52601-2. {{cite book}}: |editor= has generic name (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  11. McGann, Marek; De Jaegher, Hanne; Di Paolo, Ezequiel (June 2013). "Enaction and psychology" (PDF). Review of General Psychology. 17 (2): 203–209. doi:10.1037/a0032935.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  12. Basil Smith. "Internalism and externalism in the philosophy of mind and language". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
  13. Joe Lau, Max Deutsch (Jan 22, 2014). Edward N. Zalta, ed (ed.). "Externalism About Mental Content". The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2014 Edition). {{cite web}}: |editor= has generic name (help)
  14. Alva Noë (2004). Action in perception. MIT Press. ISBN 978-0262140881.
  15. Andy Clark (March 2006). "Vision as Dance? Three Challenges for Sensorimotor Contingency Theory" (PDF). Psyche. 12 (1).

Further reading

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