Radical Enactivism and the Neo-Pragmatist Problem of the Origins of Content: A Radical Embodied Intervention

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.

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Abstract

Neo-pragmatists claim that individual intelligence derives from socio-normative practices and not the other way round. However, this leads to the neo-pragmatist problem of the origins of content, which can be summarized as follows: if intentionality only derives from social practices, how is it possible that the capacities needed to explain participation in those social practices could be in place prior to acquiring them? It seems that we presume the kind of intentional content that we need to acquire. Radical enactivists (REC) proposed a solution based on differentiating two kinds of intentionality (intentionality as directedness or Ur-intentionality and intentionality as aboutness). In REC’s framework, biological functions provide for mechanisms of social recognition and allow for social conformism, hence facilitating participation in content-involving normative practices. However, these mechanisms are not explained in detail, nor are the transitions clearly depicted. In sum, it is simply assumed, not explained, that we can move from directedness or ur-intentionality to content-involving/representational or aboutness intentionality, but there is neither a scientifically supported nor a detailed conceptual explanation for supporting this. I propose that it is possible to escape this problem from the standpoint of radical embodiment thanks to ecological psychology and non-descriptive social normativity. This radical embodied move of combining non-descriptive normativity and ecological psychology could serve as a basis for two achievements: (1) redefining the strategy of the natural origins of content in non-representational terms to explain the continuity between these two kinds of intentionality, and (2) solving the neo-pragmatist problem associated with it at the same time.