Converging enactivisms: radical enactivism meets linguistic bodies

2021 ◽  
pp. 105971232110207
Author(s):  
Giovanni Rolla ◽  
Jeferson Huffermann
Keyword(s):  
Representational Content ◽  
Critical Examination ◽  
Sense Making ◽  
Biological Organization ◽  
Enactive Cognition ◽  
Radical Enactivism ◽  
Know How ◽  
Basic Content ◽  
Hard Problem Of Content ◽  
Central Claim

We advance a critical examination of two recent branches of the enactivist research program, namely, Radically Enactive Cognition and Linguistic Bodies. We argue that, although these approaches may look like diverging views within the wider enactivist program, when appraised in a conciliatory spirit, they can be interpreted as developing converging ideas. We examine how the notion of know-how figures in them to show an important point of convergence, namely, that the normativity of human cognitive capacities rests on shared know-how. Radical enactivism emphasizes the diachronic dimension of shared know-how, and linguistic bodies emphasize the synchronic one. Given that know-how is a normative notion, it is subject to success conditions. We then argue it implies basic content, which is the content of the successful ongoing interactions between agent(s) and environment. Basic content does not imply accuracy conditions and representational content, so it evades Hutto and Myin’s Hard Problem of Content. Moreover, this account is amenable to the central claim by Di Paolo et al. that the participatory sense-making relations at play in linguistic exchanges are explained in continuity with explanations of biological organization and sensorimotor engagements.

scholarly journals Tecendo relações entre sentido e não-sentido na cognição enativa

2020 ◽  
Vol 53 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Renata Fischer da Silveira Kroeff ◽  
Póti Quartiero Gavillon ◽  
Cleci Maraschin
Keyword(s):  
Sense Making ◽  
Enactive Cognition ◽  
Making Sense

Neste artigo, discutimos a definição de não-sentido e sua relação com a produção de sentido na teoria enativa da cognição. Tomamos como ponto de partida a publicação “Enactive Cognition at the Edge of Sense-Making: Making Sense of Non-Sense”, organizada por Massimiliano Cappuccio e Tom Froese, por ser uma obra pioneira em relação ao tema. A importância da produção de sentido para a relação entre percepção e ação é abordada a partir de diferentes aspectos. Discutimos as proposições centrais das teorias da autopoiese e da enação, a partir das quais são produzidas três formas de compreender o não-sentido segundo uma perspectiva enativa. Nessas três abordagens, os autores contemporâneos sugerem que o não-sentido se constitui como elemento intermediário ou mediador em processos de produção de sentido. Por fim, discutimos a relação entre não-sentido e sentido, sugerindo uma articulação entre os domínios sensório-motor e linguístico a partir de uma definição não antagônica de saber-sobre e saber-fazer.

The Case Against Weapons Research

2014 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Forge
Keyword(s):  
Practical Knowledge ◽  
Know How ◽  
The Future ◽  
Weapons Acquisition ◽  
Central Claim ◽  
Lengthy Discussion

Weapons research seeks to design new or improved weapons and their ancillary structures. It is argued here that weapons research is both morally wrong and morally unjustified. This ‘case against weapons research' requires lengthy discussion and the argument given here is a summary of that discussion. The central claim is that the ‘standard justification; for all forms of weapons acquisition and deployment, which appeals to defense and deterrence, does not stand up for weapons research because the harms caused by the latter projects into the future in unknowable ways. Weapons research produces practical knowledge in the form of designs for the means to harm, and its practitioners cannot know how this knowledge will be used in the future.

scholarly journals How Analysts Think: Sense-making Strategies in the Analysis of Temporal Evolution and Criminal Network Structures and Activities

2017 ◽  
Vol 61 (1) ◽  
pp. 193-197 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johanna Doppler Haider ◽  
Patrick Seidler ◽  
Margit Pohl ◽  
Neesha Kodagoda ◽  
Rick Adderley ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Temporal Evolution ◽  
Cognitive Strategies ◽  
Criminal Activity ◽  
General Level ◽  
Sense Making ◽  
Intelligence Analysis ◽  
Criminal Network ◽  
Know How ◽  
Established Procedure

Analysis of criminal activity based on offenders’ social networks is an established procedure in intelligence analysis. The complexity of the data poses an obstacle for analysts to gauge network developments, e.g. detect emerging problems. Visualization is a powerful tool to achieve this, but it is essential to know how the analysts’ sense-making strategies can be supported most efficiently. Based on a think aloud study we identified ten cognitive strategies on a general level to be useful for designers. We also provide some examples how these strategies can be supported through appropriate visualizations.

scholarly journals LINGUAGEM E ENATIVISMO

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcos Silva ◽  
Iana Cavalcanti ◽  
Hugo Mota
Keyword(s):  
Representational Content ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Hard Problem ◽  
Linguistic Practices ◽  
The Hard Problem ◽  
Hard Problem Of Content ◽  
Internal Mental States

Language does not have to be held as a problem for radical enactivists. The scope objection usually presented to criticize enactivist explanations is a problem only if we have a referentialist and representationalist view of the nature of language. Here we present a normative hypothesis for the great question concerning the hard problem of content, namely, on how linguistic practices develop from minds without content. We carry representational content when we master inferential relations and we master inferential relations when we master normative relations, especially when we are introduced into frameworks of authorizations and prohibitions. Inspired by the anti-intellectualism of the later Wittgenstein and Brandom’s inferentialism, we present the hypothesis that language emerges from inferentially articulated action from normative elements and not from manipulation in internal mental states of contents fixed by reference to external things.

The Case Against Weapons Research

2018 ◽  
pp. 124-134
Author(s):  
John Forge
Keyword(s):  
Practical Knowledge ◽  
Know How ◽  
The Future ◽  
Weapons Acquisition ◽  
Central Claim ◽  
Lengthy Discussion

Weapons research seeks to design new or improved weapons and their ancillary structures. This chapter argues that weapons research is both morally wrong and morally unjustified. This “case against weapons research” requires lengthy discussion and the argument given here is a summary of that discussion. The central claim is that the “standard justification” for all forms of weapons acquisition and deployment, which appeals to defense and deterrence, does not stand up for weapons research because the harms caused by the latter projects into the future in unknowable ways. Weapons research produces practical knowledge in the form of designs for the means to harm, and its practitioners cannot know how this knowledge will be used in the future.

Continuity Skepticism in Doubt: A Radically Enactive Take

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel D. Hutto ◽  
Glenda Satne
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Practice ◽  
Hard Problem ◽  
Enactive Cognition ◽  
Evolutionary Continuity ◽  
Hard Problem Of Content

Radically Enactive Cognition, REC, holds that not all forms of cognition are content involving and, especially, not root forms. According to radical enactivists, only minds that have mastered special kinds of socio-cultural practice are capable of content involving forms of cognition. This paper addresses criticisms that have been leveled at REC’s vision of how content-involving cognition may have come on the scene. It responds, in the first section, to the charge that REC faces a fatal dilemma when it comes to accounting for the origins of content in naturalistic terms—a dilemma that arises from REC’s own acknowledgment of the existence of a Hard Problem of Content. In subsequent sections, the paper addresses the charge that REC entails continuity skepticism, reviewing this charge in its scientific and philosophical formulations. It is concluded that REC is not at odds with evolutionary continuity, when both REC and evolutionary continuity are properly understood. It is also concluded that although REC cannot completely close the imaginative gap that is required to answer the philosophical continuity skeptic it is, in this respect, in no worse a position than its representationalist rivals and their naturalistic proposals about the origins of content.

scholarly journals The olfactory experience: constants and cultural variables

2004 ◽  
Vol 49 (9) ◽  
pp. 11-17 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Candau
Keyword(s):  
Olfactory Perception ◽  
Biological Organization ◽  
Know How ◽  
The Third ◽  
Cultural Variables ◽  
Nature And Culture ◽  
Olfactory Experience ◽  
Treatment Characteristic ◽  
Cultural Types ◽  
Human Olfaction

Odor and olfaction anthropology explores four lines of research which, in many cases, may overlap: the variability of the olfactory perception, olfactory skills and know-how, odor use, and odor representations. My proposal here is to deal with the first one, trying to answer the following question: is olfactory perception a phenomenon resulting solely from the biological organization of the human being, in such a way that it does not know other variations than the ones due to nature? Or, on the contrary, can we show different kinds of olfaction culturally determined or, at least, environmental influences resulting in significant perceptual differences among groups, societies, cultures, etc.? In the first part of the text, I will deal with the invariants (or universals). In the second, I will insist on the cultural types of olfaction. In the third and last part, I will advance the following proposal: beyond the discussion on the roles that nature and culture play in human olfaction, we can sustain that naturally and culturally, there is a way of smelling characteristic of our species. Finally, I will conclude with two examples of the symbolic treatment characteristic of the olfactory human experience.

scholarly journals Bella Figura: Understanding Italian Communication in Local and Transatlantic Contexts

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Denise Scannell Guida
Keyword(s):  
Sense Making ◽  
Sociological Research ◽  
Know How ◽  
New Information ◽  
National Characteristics ◽  
Idiomatic Expression ◽  
Travel Books ◽  
Symbolic Interactions ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Dynamic Interplay

Bella figura—beautiful figure—is an idiomatic expression used to reflect every part of Italian life. The phrase appears in travel books and in transnational business guides to describe Italian customs, in sociological research to describe the national characteristics of Italians, and in popular culture to depict thematic constructs and stereotypes, such as the Mafia, romance, and la dolce vita. Scholarly research on bella figura indicates its significance in Italian civilization, yet it remains one of the most elusive concepts to translate. Among the various interpretations and references from foreigners and Italians there is not a single definition that captures the complexity of bella figura as a cultural phenomenon. There is also little explanation of the term, its usage, or its effects on Italians who have migrated to other countries. Gadamerian hermeneutics offers an explanation for how bella figura functions as a frame of reference for understanding Italian culture and identity, which does not disappear or fuse when Italians interact with people from different countries but instead takes on an interpretive dimension that is continually integrating new information into the subconscious structures of the mind. In sum, bella figura is a sense-making process, and requires a pragmatic know-how of Italian communication (verbal and nonverbal). From this perspective, bella figura is prestructure by which Italians and some Italian migrants understand and interpret their linguistically mediated and historical world. This distinction changes the concept bella figura from a simple facade to a dynamic interplay among ever-changing interpretations and symbolic interactions. The exploration of bella figura is relevant to understanding Italian communication on both local and transnational levels.

scholarly journals Enactivism and Normativity The Case of Aesthetic Gestures

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Boncompagni
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Psychology ◽  
Dynamic Interaction ◽  
Sense Making ◽  
Radical Enactivism ◽  
The Aesthetic

Enactivist approaches claim that cognition arises through a dynamic interaction between an acting organism and its environment. An ongoing challenge for these approaches is the problem of accounting for normativity while avoiding overly reductionist outcomes. This article examines a few proposed solutions, including agent-environment dynamics, participatory sense-making, radical enactivism, the skilful intentionality framework, and enactivist cultural psychology. It argues that good examples of enacted normativity are gestures of appreciation/disapproval performed in the aesthetic domain. Both Wittgenstein and Dewey explore this issue and their ideas could be productively worked upon in an enactive account.

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