4E’s Are Too Many Why Enactive World-Making Does Not Need The Extended Mind Thesis
JoLMA December 9, 2020 Peer reviewed DOI: 10.30687/jolma/2723-9640/2020/02/005
Summary
The 4E cognition framework—embodied, embedded, enacted, extended—rejects the idea that cognition mirrors the world, instead viewing it as an active process of world-making without mental representation, distributed across body, brain, and environment. Criticisms that extended cognition is not enactive and that embodied cognition lacks a definition of body raise doubts about whether a postcognitivist approach requires 4E's. This paper argues it does not, discussing the enactive body as a moving sense-making system informed by phenomenology and pragmatism, and its role in constituting the distinctive quality of experience.
Study at a glance
| Design | theoretical or philosophical paper |
|---|---|
| Key finding | A postcognitivist approach to experience does not need the 4E cognition framework; the enactive body as a moving sense-making system suffices. |
Abstract
4E’s cognition – embodied, embedded, enacted, extended – replaces the cognitivist notion of world-mirroring with an active process of world-making: cognition needs no mental representation and is distributed over body, brain and environment. In recent years, the remark that extended cognition is not enactive and that the embodied approach to cognition fails to provide a definition of body raise the question of whether a postcognitivist approach to experience needs 4E’s. This contribution suggests that it does not. The enactive body as a moving sense-making-system informed by phenomenology and pragmatism and its role in the constitution of the distinctive quality of an experience are discussed.