Transformative embodied cognition

Summary

Accounts of embodied cognition often treat rational capacities as a separate layer added on top of sensorimotor skills, a view called 'additivism.' This paper argues instead for a 'transformative' conception of rationality, where acquiring the ability to give and ask for reasons fundamentally changes the normative structure of unreflective embodied engagements with the environment. Drawing on Matthew Boyle's contrast between additive and transformative views, the author contends that a transformative embodied cognitive science of human rationality is already emerging, integrating insights from embodied cognition with research on cultural and developmental contexts to show how immersion in culture makes the meanings we are attuned to communicable and negotiable.

Study at a glance

Abstract

How should accounts that stress the embodied, embedded and engaged character of human minds accommodate the role of rationality in human subjectivity? Drawing on Matthew Boyle’s contrast between ‘additive’ and ‘transformative’ conceptions of rationality, I argue that contemporary work on embodied cognition tends towards a problematic ‘additivism’ about the relationship between mature human capacities to think and act for reasons, and sensorimotor capacities to skillfully engage with salient features of the environment. Additivists view rational capacities to reason and reflect as a distinct ‘layer’ or ‘storey’ of human cognition, with a normative structure that differs from that of the sensorimotor coping skills which support it. I argue that emphasizing the embodied and engaged character of human minds is better combined with a ‘transformative’ conception of rationality – one which holds that acquiring abilities to give and ask for reasons transforms the normative structure of our unreflective embodied dealings with the environment. And I argue that a transformative embodied cognitive science of human rationality is not only possible, but underway. Integrating existing work on embodied cognition with work on the cultural and developmental contexts that shape human minds suggests how human immersion in culture transforms the structure of sensorimotor engagements by bringing about the communicability and negotiability of the meanings to which those engagements attune us