Enactivism, Radical Enactivism and Predictive Processing: What is Radical in Cognitive Science?
Klaus Gärtner, Robert W. Clowes
Kairos. Journal of Philosophy & Science April 1, 2017 Peer reviewed DOI: 10.1515/kjps-2017-0003
Summary
Radical Enactivism claims that cognition does not require mental representations, positioning itself as a revolutionary alternative to standard cognitive science. Some argue this radical view should also apply to predictive processing, another novel approach. This paper argues that applying radical enactivism to predictive processing adds no value and that radical enactivism itself does not constitute a revolution in cognitive science. The authors conclude that cognitive science benefits more from embracing diverse, heterogeneous approaches rather than pursuing a single revolutionary framework.
Study at a glance
| Design | theoretical or philosophical paper |
|---|---|
| Key finding | Radical Enactivism does not add value to predictive processing and does not constitute a revolution in cognitive science. |
Abstract
Abstract According to Enactivism, cognition should be understood in terms of a dynamic interaction between an acting organism and its environment. Further, this view holds that organisms do not passively receive information from this environment, they rather selectively create this environment by engaging in interaction with the world. Radical Enactivism adds that basic cognition does so without entertaining representations and hence that representations are not an essential constituent of cognition. Some proponents think that getting rid of representations amounts to a revolutionary alternative to standard views about cognition. To emphasize the impact, they claim that this ‘radicalization’ should be applied to all enactivist friendly views, including, another current and potentially revolutionary approach to cognition: predictive processing. In this paper, we will show that this is not the case. After introducing the problem (section 2), we will argue (section 3) that ‘radicalizing’ predictive processing does not add any value to this approach. After this (section 4), we will analyze whether or not radical Enactivism can count as a revolution within cognitive science at all and conclude that it cannot. Finally, in section 5 we will claim that cognitive science is better off when embracing heterogeneity.