Evolving Enactivism: Basic Minds Meet Content

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An extended argument that cognitive phenomena-perceiving, imagining, remembering-can be best explained in terms of an interface between contentless and content-involving forms of cognition.Evolving Enactivism argues that cognitive phenomena-perceiving, imagining, remembering-can be best explained in terms of an interface between contentless and content-involving forms of cognition. Building on their earlier book Radicalizing Enactivism, which proposes that there can be forms of cognition without content, Daniel Hutto and Erik Myin demonstrate the unique explanatory advantages of recognizing that only some forms of cognition have content while others-the most elementary ones-do not. They offer an account of the mind in duplex terms, proposing a complex vision of mentality in which these basic contentless forms of cognition interact with content-involving ones. Hutto and Myin argue that the most basic forms of cognition do not, contrary to a currently popular account of cognition, involve picking up and processing information that is then used, reused, stored, and represented in the brain. Rather, basic cognition is contentless-fundamentally interactive, dynamic, and relational. In advancing the case for a radically enactive account ofcognition, Hutto and Myin propose crucial adjustments to our concept of cognition and offer theoretical support for their revolutionary rethinking, emphasizing its capacity to explain basic minds in naturalistic terms. They demonstrate the explanatory power of the duplex vision of cognition, showing how it offers powerful means for understanding quintessential cognitive phenomena without introducing scientifically intractable mysteries into the mix.

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A crucial book that promises to leave a mark on future cognitive science a seminal work.

Importantfor all philosophers of cognitive sciencethought provoking, even for the non-radicals among us.

Raises important new (and unanswered) questions about the ontology of minds highly interesting, fruitful, and helpful.

Powerful answer to the sorts of explanatory stalemates and difficulties that cognitive science has struggled but so far failed to solve.

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A secure path for satisfactorily naturalizing every human cognitive capacity, leaving nothing to metaphysical mystery or scientific inscrutability.

One of the most important books in cognitive science an open-minded dialogue that cannot be ignored!

Author Bio

Daniel D. Hutto is Professor of Philosophical Psychology at the University of Wollongong and the author of Folk Psychological Narratives-The Sociocultural Basis for Understanding Reasons (MIT Press) and coauthor of Radicalizing Enactivism- Basic Minds without Content (MIT Press). Erik Myin is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Antwerp and coauthor of Radicalizing Enactivism- Basic Minds without Content (MIT Press).