Dances with dogs: interspecies play and a case for sympoietic enactivism.

Summary

An enactivist framework, which views cognition as emerging from interaction rather than from internal mental processes, offers a better explanation of human-animal relationships than traditional theories. Focusing on play between humans and domestic dogs, the author argues that these interactions create novel, shared cognitive processes that cannot be reduced to either individual's mind. This is best understood as "sympoietic enactivism," meaning cognition is collectively produced during the interaction, rather than being self-organized (autopoietic). Drawing on multiple disciplines, the article contends that human-dog play exemplifies how thinking can be an intersubjective, playful process that generates wholly shared modes of thought.

Study at a glance

Abstract

I argue that an enactivist framework has more explanatory power than traditional philosophical theories of cognition when it comes to understanding the mechanisms underlying human-animal relationships. In both intraspecies and interspecies exchanges, what we often find are novel forms of cognition emerging from such transactions, but these "co-cognitive" processes cannot be understood apart from the interaction itself. I focus on a specific form of human-animal interaction-play, as it occurs between humans and domestic dogs-and argue that the best theory suited to the task of explaining how these two species create unique thought processes is a "sympoietic enactivism." Rather than the more common "autopoietic" arguments defended by many enactivists, I argue that what is more accurately occurring during bouts of human-dog play is sympoietic, or "collectively producing." Drawing on several different disciplines that converge on similar conclusions about creativity and collaboration, I show that human-dog play is a quintessential case of cognition that cannot be readily understood by appealing to the inner workings of either individual among the dyad. Thinking, on this view, is a form of play, and in playful interaction what gets created are wholly intersubjective modes of thought.