Converging enactivisms: radical enactivism meets linguistic bodies
Giovanni Rolla, Jeferson Diello Huffermann
Adaptive Behavior June 10, 2021 Peer reviewed DOI: 10.1177/10597123211020782 via Semantic Scholar
Summary
Two branches of the enactivist research program—Radically Enactive Cognition and Linguistic Bodies—can be interpreted as converging rather than diverging. Both hold that the normativity of human cognitive capacities rests on shared know-how, with radical enactivism emphasizing its diachronic dimension and linguistic bodies its synchronic one. Know-how is a normative notion subject to success conditions, which implies basic content—the content of successful ongoing interactions between agent(s) and environment. Basic content does not involve accuracy conditions or representational content, thus avoiding the Hard Problem of Content, and is consistent with explaining participatory sense-making in continuity with biological organization.
Study at a glance
| Design | theoretical or philosophical paper |
|---|---|
| Key finding | The normativity of human cognitive capacities rests on shared know-how, which implies basic content that does not involve accuracy conditions or representational content, thereby evading the Hard Problem of Content. |
Abstract
We advance a critical examination of two recent branches of the enactivist research program, namely, Radically Enactive Cognition and Linguistic Bodies. We argue that, although these approaches may look like diverging views within the wider enactivist program, when appraised in a conciliatory spirit, they can be interpreted as developing converging ideas. We examine how the notion of know-how figures in them to show an important point of convergence, namely, that the normativity of human cognitive capacities rests on shared know-how. Radical enactivism emphasizes the diachronic dimension of shared know-how, and linguistic bodies emphasize the synchronic one. Given that know-how is a normative notion, it is subject to success conditions. We then argue it implies basic content, which is the content of the successful ongoing interactions between agent(s) and environment. Basic content does not imply accuracy conditions and representational content, so it evades Hutto and Myin’s Hard Problem of Content. Moreover, this account is amenable to the central claim by Di Paolo et al. that the participatory sense-making relations at play in linguistic exchanges are explained in continuity with explanations of biological organization and sensorimotor engagements.