The Content-Binding Problem in Radical Enactivism: a case study of Korsakoff’s syndrome
Philosophical Explorations July 6, 2026 Krystyna Bielecka
Radical Enactivism (REC) faces a structural problem called the Content-Binding Problem: it sharply separates contentless basic cognition from content-involving sociolinguistic practices, making it hard to explain how these different cognitive formats integrate. This integration becomes visible during memory breakdown in Korsakoff's Syndrome. Patients do not merely react to environmental stimuli; they try to coordinate external artifacts with their linguistic narratives. Their failures and self-corrections imply sensitivity to satisfaction conditions beyond skilled interaction. REC lacks an explanation for how socio-normative narrative contents are constrained by the physical environment. Korsakoff's Syndrome shows that human cognition requires representational mechanisms to bind these formats, challenging REC's anti-representational core.