Thinking embodiment with genetics: epigenetics and postgenomic biology in embodied cognition and enactivism
Synthese June 18, 2020 Peer reviewed DOI: 10.1007/s11229-020-02748-3 via Semantic Scholar
Summary
Most philosophers of embodied cognition engage with the life sciences, but they have overlooked findings in epigenetics and post-genomic biology. This paper argues that current epigenetic research supports an enactivist approach to mind and life, which emphasizes the organism's active role in shaping its own development and cognition, over the extended functionalist view of embodied cognition. The extended functionalist view, associated with Andy Clark and Mike Wheeler, treats the substrate of cognition as less important than its functional organization.
Study at a glance
| Design | theoretical or philosophical paper |
|---|---|
| Key finding | Current epigenetic research favors an enactivist approach to mind and life over the extended functionalist view of embodied cognition. |
Abstract
The role of the body in cognition is acknowledged across a variety of disciplines, even if the precise nature and scope of that contribution remain contentious. As a result, most philosophers working on embodiment—e.g. those in embodied cognition, enactivism, and ‘4e’ cognition—interact with the life sciences as part of their interdisciplinary agenda. Despite this, a detailed engagement with emerging findings in epigenetics and post-genomic biology has been missing from proponents of this embodied turn. Surveying this research provides an opportunity to rethink the relationship between embodiment and genetics, and we argue that the balance of current epigenetic research favours the extension of an enactivist approach to mind and life, rather than the extended functionalist view of embodied cognition associated with Andy Clark and Mike Wheeler, which is more substrate neutral.