The Material, Cultural, and Relational Environment in the New Cognitive Sciences
Laboratorio dell'ISPF February 13, 2026 Carmela Morabito, Surya Pacifici
The environment has been reconceptualized in cognitive science from a passive backdrop to an active, co-constitutive element of cognition. Drawing on 4E cognition (Embodied, Embedded, Enacted, Extended) and thinkers such as Bernard, von Uexküll, Gibson, Lewin, and enactivists Varela, Thompson, and Rosch, the paper reviews how traditional mind/body and subject/object dichotomies are dismantled. The environment is presented as a relational, open process shaped by sensorimotor activity and embodied action. Integrating Malafouris’ Material Engagement Theory with findings in epigenetics and neuroplasticity, the argument shows cognition as a relational process shaped across ontogenetic and developmental scales by material, affective, and cultural environments.