Reasons to REConceive
Chapter 2 introduces REC’s Equal Partner Principle, according to which invoking neural, bodily, and environmental factors all make equally important contributions when it comes to explaining cognitive activity. In line with that principle, it is made clear how REC can accept that cognitive capacities depend on structural changes that occur inside organisms and their brains, without understanding such changes in information processing and representationalist terms. This chapter explicates the Hard Problem of Content, aka the HPC, as basis for a compelling argument for REC. The HPC is a seemingly intractable theoretical puzzle for defenders of unrestricted CIC. A straight solution to the HPC requires explaining how it is possible to get from informational foundations that are noncontentful to a theory of mental content using only the resources of a respectable explanatory naturalism that calls on the resources of the hard sciences. It is revealed how the need to deal with the HPC can be avoided by adopting REC’s revolutionary take on basic cognition, and why going this way has advantages over other possible ways of handling the HPC.