Putting down the revolt: Enactivism as a philosophy of nature.
Front Psychol October 21, 2022 Russell Meyer, Nick Brancazio 25 citations
Enactivists claim their approach will replace cognitivism as the dominant paradigm in cognitive science. This paper examines their arguments and finds them unconvincing. The 'hard sell'—that enactivism reveals a critical explanatory gap in cognitivism—fails because cognitivism faces no internal crisis, and enactivism does not offer inherently better explanations. The 'soft sell'—that enactivism provides a more attractive or parsimonious lens—rests on a misunderstanding of how scientific theories are selected. Instead, the authors support viewing enactivism as a philosophy of nature, which integrates scientific questions into a cohesive picture rather than supporting a single research paradigm.