scholarly journals Embodiment and Emergence: Navigating an Epistemic and Metaphysical Dilemma

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 135-159
Author(s):  
Jack Reynolds
Keyword(s):  
Embodied Cognition ◽  
The Body ◽  
Know How ◽  
Phenomenology Of The Body ◽  
Motor Intentionality

AbstractIn this paper, I consider a challenge that naturalism poses for embodied cognition and enactivism, as well as for work on phenomenology of the body that has an argumentative or explanatory dimension. It concerns the connection between embodiment and emergence. In the commitment to explanatory holism, and the irreducibility of embodiment to any mechanistic and/or neurocentric construal of the interactions of the component parts, I argue there is (often, if not always) an unavowed dependence on an epistemic and metaphysical role for emergence, especially concerning certain embodied capacities (motor-intentionality, know-how, skilful habits, affordances, etc.). While the problem of emergence is standardly dismissed as a problem for phenomenology, which brackets away the kind of materialist (and scientific) picture from which reflection on emergence derives, I argue that once a phenomenologist takes a fully-fledged embodied turn, they also have a genuine dilemma of emergence to confront, and I evaluate the relevant options.

The primacy of liturgy in Christianity

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
BRUCE ELLIS BENSON
Keyword(s):  
Embodied Cognition ◽  
The Body ◽  
Christian Faith ◽  
Body Of Christ ◽  
Human Knowledge ◽  
Sunday Morning ◽  
Sharp Line ◽  
Know How ◽  
Impossible Task ◽  
Nicene Creed

Abstract I argue that liturgy is primary to the Christian faith. By ‘liturgy’, however, I do not mean merely what happens on Sunday morning. Instead, I distinguish between ‘intensive’ and ‘extensive’ liturgies, those that occur when the body of Christ meets together and when that body disperses. All of this together constitutes Christian liturgy. My thesis is not that practice is more primary than theory, for that presupposes the possibility of drawing a sharp line between them – an impossible task. Rather, liturgy is a variety of embodied cognition through which we know God and our neighbours. Theology is something that arises from our liturgies and is itself liturgical in nature. We may believe the Nicene Creed, but saying it aloud is performative in nature. I end by examining the relation of phronēsis and theōria in Aristotle and then consider the way Heidegger uses this distinction to argue that ‘know-how’ (Verstehen) is the most basic kind of human knowledge.

scholarly journals La parole operante comme specification de l’intentionnalite motrice chez Merleau-Ponty

2021 ◽  
Vol 66 (2 supplement) ◽  
pp. 107-119
Author(s):  
Jan Halák
Keyword(s):  
Embodied Cognition ◽  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Mathematical Reasoning ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approach ◽  
Higher Order ◽  
The Body ◽  
Gestalt Psychology ◽  
Cultural Environment ◽  
Motor Intentionality

"Operative Speech as a Specification of Motor Intentionality in Merleau-Ponty. This paper outlines Merleau-Ponty’s interpretation of higher-order cognition as a fundamentally embodied process that is enacted by motor subject situated in natural and cultural environment. More specifically, I exemplify Merleau-Ponty’s interdisciplinary approach to cognition on his interpretations of motor intentionality, operative speech, and mathematical reasoning, which are based on neuropathology, linguistics, and gestalt psychology, respectively. In this analysis, I aim to show that the body is involved in cognition as an operator of the phenomenal structuration of the environment even at the level of linguistic, rational, and abstract experience. Keywords: Merleau-Ponty; phenomenology; embodied cognition; higher-order cognition; motor intentionality; philosophy of language; mathematical reasoning. "

scholarly journals Scalable co-optimization of morphology and control in embodied machines

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (143) ◽  
pp. 20170937 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nick Cheney ◽  
Josh Bongard ◽  
Vytas SunSpiral ◽  
Hod Lipson
Keyword(s):  
Embodied Cognition ◽  
Initial Conditions ◽  
Control Policy ◽  
Sensorimotor Control ◽  
Body Plan ◽  
The Body ◽  
Test Bed ◽  
Local Optima ◽  
Close Coupling ◽  
And Control

Evolution sculpts both the body plans and nervous systems of agents together over time. By contrast, in artificial intelligence and robotics, a robot's body plan is usually designed by hand, and control policies are then optimized for that fixed design. The task of simultaneously co-optimizing the morphology and controller of an embodied robot has remained a challenge. In psychology, the theory of embodied cognition posits that behaviour arises from a close coupling between body plan and sensorimotor control, which suggests why co-optimizing these two subsystems is so difficult: most evolutionary changes to morphology tend to adversely impact sensorimotor control, leading to an overall decrease in behavioural performance. Here, we further examine this hypothesis and demonstrate a technique for ‘morphological innovation protection’, which temporarily reduces selection pressure on recently morphologically changed individuals, thus enabling evolution some time to ‘readapt’ to the new morphology with subsequent control policy mutations. We show the potential for this method to avoid local optima and converge to similar highly fit morphologies across widely varying initial conditions, while sustaining fitness improvements further into optimization. While this technique is admittedly only the first of many steps that must be taken to achieve scalable optimization of embodied machines, we hope that theoretical insight into the cause of evolutionary stagnation in current methods will help to enable the automation of robot design and behavioural training—while simultaneously providing a test bed to investigate the theory of embodied cognition.

The Transculturalized Diversity and Inclusion Model

2019 ◽  
pp. 349-368
Author(s):  
Charlotte L. V. Thoms ◽  
Sharon L. Burton
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
Conceptual Frameworks ◽  
Know How ◽  
Diversity And Inclusion ◽  
Body Of Knowledge ◽  
Inclusion Model ◽  
Survey Results

While the transculturalized diversity and inclusion (TD&I) model is a contemporaneous strategy for leadership and learning, it is the latest of the existing disability study models. This chapter reviews the development of the TD&I model from the leadership perspective to study arguments, experiences, and to investigate how this information apprises the construction and exercise of transcultural consciousness, expertise, know-how, traditions, determinations, happenstances, objectives, agreement, and learning. This exploration focuses on the implementation of the model and survey results as this transculturalized model is reasoned the appropriate tool to expose how different backgrounds can be utilized in achievement to blend variability, variation, and diversity into unity. Beginning with the initial conceptual frameworks, and the results of the data, this research details the TD&I model and how to implement it in today's environment of activating change and transformation. This information adds to the body of knowledge regarding disability, strategy, diversity, and inclusion for academics, practitioners, and learners.

scholarly journals Design- and Craft thinking analysed as Embodied Cognition

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Camilla Groth
Keyword(s):  
Embodied Cognition ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Design Thinking ◽  
The Body ◽  
Sense Making ◽  
Tactile Sense ◽  
Intellectual Activity ◽  
Study Report ◽  
Self Study ◽  
Design Students

Through the concept of design thinking the act of designing is presented as an intellectual activity, and the act of planning the design is elevated over the making process. However, the importance of materiality and the embodied sense-making that occurs in this context should not be forgotten. In this study, embodied cognition in design and craft practices was investigated through three case studies. The study takes on an enhanced tactile perspective as a methodological platform; thus, the cases involve 1) deafblind makers in ceramics, 2) a practice-led self-study report on tactile experiences while working with clay and 3) a study on design students’ use of their tactile sense during material exploration. The results show that the act of thinking design involves the body as a knowledge provider.

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