David Sanchez

Object perception is usually regarded in cognitive science as a matter of classification, in which we represent objects as belonging to a certain class that provides them with semantic content. The main goal of this paper is to offer an alternative, ecological approach to object classification that does not rely on the notion of representation. Thus, we aim to develop a first approximation to a theoretical background from which to understand past, present, and future empirical research on classification from an embodied non-representational perspective. To do so, we first critically examine the two basic assumptions of representational theories of classification. Then, drawing upon ecological psychology and pragmatist approaches to science, we propose an ecologically valid notion of object that redefines classification as an embodied social practice. As a result, we argue that empirical objects are sets of socially mediated affordances, and that classification is a matter of perceiving these objects as part of meaningful behavior settings.

Opposing the inherited mindreading view, Zawidzki has defended the thesis that mindshaping, as the practice through which we regulate both our behavior and that of our fellows, constitutes the linchpin of social cognition. Mindshaping is taken to be a further development of the neobehaviorist program of naturalizing intentionality in the wake of Dennett’s intentional stance, for which intentional states help track behavioral patterns instead of being neurally-implemented mental states, as in teleosemantics neocartesianism. However, Zawidzki’s use of teleosemantics to explain how those behavior regulation processes are possible commits him to a form of representationalism that undermines his neobehaviorist program of naturalizing intentionality, and threatens his mindshaping thesis, for neurally-implemented mental states would render some form of mindreading priority for social cognition. Our aim here is to propose an anti-representationalist reading of mindshaping through ecological psychology, showing how it is not only sympathetic to Zawidzki’s ideas, but also that it offers a simpler, yet fruitful theory of radical embodied social cognition.

Originally formulated as a theory of perception, ecological psychology has shown in recent decades an increasing interest in language. However, a comprehensive approach to language by ecological psychology has not yet been developed, as there is neither a naturalist philosophy of language nor one that takes ecological psychology as its scientific background. Our goal here is to argue that a subject naturalist and non-factualist framework can open the possibility of an expressivist analysis of perceptual judgments that is compatible with the ecological understanding of perception, showing that such utterances do not work as descriptions of facts or states-of-affairs, but rather say something about the practical requirements necessary to display a perceptual vocabulary. We will also argue that this approach allows an understanding of perceptual content as clusters of socially-mediated affordances. If our proposal is sound, it would constitute a first and fruitful approximation toward establishing a naturalist link between embodied cognitive science and philosophy of language.