Topoi
September 1, 2017
Xabier E. Barandiaran
126 citations
The concept of autonomy, central to the original enactivist proposal in "The Embodied Mind," is now neglected by many contemporary enactivists. Theories of autonomy fill a theoretical gap by providing a naturalized account of normativity and grounding a cognitive subject's identity in its organization. However, autonomy has often been assimilated into autopoiesis, and the foundational proposal shows a metaphysical tension between operational closure and sensorimotor dynamics, exemplified by the Bittorio model failing to satisfy conditions for sensorimotor constitution of experience. These problems can be solved by reconsidering autonomy at the sensorimotor neurodynamic level, using robotic simulations to illustrate strong sensorimotor dependency. The concept of habit is proposed as a building block, re-conceptualizing mental life as a habit ecology, with norms naturalized as dynamic, self-sustaining coherentism.
Topoi
May 31, 2021
K. Werner, Magdalena Kiełkowicz-werner
15 citations
Environmental ethics and enactivism, two philosophical movements that rethink human-environment relationships, rarely engage with each other. This analysis bridges them by using enactivist concepts to examine intrinsic value, a central idea in environmental ethics. The authors argue that intrinsic value exists but is not independent of human interests and needs. Instead, it emerges through a process they call shared enaction of an axiological domain, grounded in enactivist principles like autonomy, enaction, participatory sense-making, and loving as knowing. This reframes intrinsic value as relationally constituted rather than inherent.
Topoi
April 1, 2022
Janna Van Grunsven
13 citations
The paper identifies a phenomenon called the paradox of moral perception: perceiving others as moral subjects is both effortless and often successful, yet also difficult and frequently fails. Using enactivism—a framework emphasizing embodied and environmentally embedded cognition—the author explains this paradox. The analysis connects enactivism with David Hume's and Iris Murdoch's moral philosophy and insights from epistemic injustice. Two forms of moral misperception are introduced: particular moral misperception (misseeing a specific moral feature) and categorial moral misperception (misseeing someone as not a moral subject at all). The argument highlights overlooked embodied and socio-technical dimensions of ethical life.
Topoi
October 19, 2018
Philip Goff
9 citations
Revelation—the idea that introspection reveals the essential nature of conscious states—is often used to argue against physicalism. This paper highlights a neglected problem: introspection does not reveal conscious states as essentially causal, which pressures views toward epiphenomenalism. The author critiques Hedda Hassel Mørch’s 'phenomenal powers view' as an inadequate response and instead defends a version of the 'consciousness+' response, which accommodates the causal role of consciousness without requiring its essence to be revealed by introspection.
Topoi
June 25, 2026
Drew Chastain
In The Myth of Sisyphus, Albert Camus criticizes mysticism as a form of 'philosophical suicide' that escapes absurdity through faith. Brook Ziporyn's Experiments in Mystical Atheism proposes an 'Emulative Atheism' that embraces reality's purposelessness rather than compensating for it, as Camus and Sartre do. This essay argues that Emulative Atheism better supports meaning in life than Compensatory Atheism and is not philosophical suicide. However, a minor critique notes Ziporyn's abstract metaphysics conflicts with everyday lucidity. David Cooper's Daoist 'sense of mystery' within ordinary experience enhances the meaningfulness derived from Ziporyn's mystical atheism.
Topoi
March 18, 2026
Scott Ryan Maybell
This article argues that Mormonism can be understood as part of a mystical atheist tradition, as described in Brook Ziporyn's work. It contends that Latter-day Saint thought, which views divine persons as embodied, leads to a theology of time where God is not omniscient in the classical sense. Because divine persons exist within the same global incoherence as all persons, they are fallible and can change their minds. The author proposes that atheist philosophers should take on a Luciferian task: arguing directly with divine beings, whether or not they exist, to challenge their claims of absolute authority. Good argumentation, the article suggests, can and should alter divine perspectives.
Topoi
February 12, 2026
Christian U. Krägeloh, Kevin Berryman
AI systems can now engage with nondualist philosophical concepts and simulate Zen teaching methods with remarkable sophistication. However, this technological facility may produce only simulated understanding, where nondualist principles are applied without the dissolution of subject-object boundaries that contemplative traditions consider essential for genuine insight. Arguments for AI's utility highlight its potential as a philosophical partner that democratizes access to esoteric domains, while arguments against emphasize that easy access may undermine the existential friction and struggle contemplative traditions deem necessary for authentic realization. This tension between technological facilitation and contemplative transformation requires systematic empirical investigation to determine how AI might appropriately support nondualistic understanding without compromising its trans-discursive essence.
Topoi
November 12, 2025
M. Heras-Escribano
Neo-pragmatists hold that individual intelligence arises from social practices rather than the other way around, but this creates a problem: if intentionality depends entirely on social practices, how can the capacities needed to participate in those practices already exist? Radical enactivists distinguish two kinds of intentionality—directedness (ur-intentionality) and aboutness (content-involving intentionality)—and propose that biological functions enable social recognition and conformism, yet they do not explain how the transition from directedness to aboutness occurs. The author argues that combining ecological psychology with non-descriptive social normativity offers a non-representational account of the natural origins of content, solving the neo-pragmatist problem by showing continuity between the two kinds of intentionality.
Topoi
December 3, 2025
Gaia Mizzon, Jennifer Windt
The concept of narrative is widely used in philosophical discussions of dreams, but little attention has been paid to how assumptions about the resemblance between fictional narratives and retrospective dream reports have shaped the debate. The authors argue that there is a pervasive tendency to metonymically assimilate fictional narratives first with dream reports and then with dreams themselves, leading to the use of features of literary fiction as an explanatory framework for understanding dreams and their formation. Focusing on the categories of authorship and composition, they show that divergent philosophical accounts share the unacknowledged assumption that dreams have a narrative structure and that dreaming is a process of narrative construction. The paper lays groundwork for exploring narrative thinking in spontaneous thought during both wakefulness and sleep.