The Pragmatics, Embodiment, and Efficacy of Lived Experience Assessing the Core Tenets of Varela's Neurophenomenology
Journal of Consciousness Studies December 1, 2023 Tom Froese, John J Sykes 10 citations
The enactive approach to cognitive science, originally expressed through neurophenomenology, rests on three tenets: phenomenological pragmatics, embodied cognition, and conscious efficacy. Most empirical work has focused only on the first tenet, using improved subjective reports to correlate with brain data, while the second tenet has received less attention and the third has been actively avoided. A critical review of four case studies shows that neurophenomenology falls short of its potential by not demonstrating that lived experience itself makes a difference to the living body's dynamics. The authors propose integrating all three tenets, using conscious efficacy as a pivot, to develop genuinely experience-involving accounts of neurophysiological activity during embodied action.