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258Lived Experience and Cognitive Science Reappraising Enactivism’s Jonasian TurnConstructivist Foundations 11 (2): 204-212. 2016.Context: The majority of contemporary enactivist work is influenced by the philosophical biology of Hans Jonas. Jonas credits all living organisms with experience that involves particular “existential” structures: nascent forms of concern for self-preservation and desire for objects and outcomes that promote well-being. We argue that Jonas’s attitude towards living systems involves a problematic anthropomorphism that threatens to place enactivism at odds with cognitive science, and undermine its…Read more
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10The Concept of Mind and Cognition in the Autopoietic TheoryConstructivist Foundations 18 (1): 26-27. 2022.In contrast to Capra’s interpretation of Maturana’s work, I argue that the autopoietic theory does not establish an intrinsic, necessary link between life and cognitive/mental phenomena, and that given its functionalist approach, the theory helps very little to overcome the Cartesian division between mind and body.
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96Living Systems: Autonomy, Autopoiesis and EnactionPhilosophy and Technology 28 (2): 225-239. 2015.The autopoietic theory and the enactive approach are two theoretical streams that, in spite of their historical link and conceptual affinities, offer very different views on the nature of living beings. In this paper, we compare these views and evaluate, in an exploratory way, their respective degrees of internal coherence. Focusing the analyses on certain key notions such as autonomy and organizational closure, we argue that while the autopoietic theory manages to elaborate an internally consis…Read more
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31Levinas’ Otherness: An Ethical Dimension for Enactive SocialityTopoi 41 (2): 327-339. 2021.What is or should be the place of the ethical dimension in a general enactive theory of sociality? How should such a dimension be understood and articulated within the more general picture of the enactive approach to social life? In this paper, building on Emmanuel Levinas’ philosophy, we argue that ethics should be understood as a distinct dimension of the complex and multidimensional phenomenon of sociality; a dimension of radical otherness that intertwines with but does not reduce to the inte…Read more
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34Embodied ethics: Levinas’ gift for enactivismPhenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 20 (1): 169-190. 2020.This paper suggests that the enactive approach to ethics could benefit from engaging a dialogue with the phenomenology of Emmanuel Levinas, a philosopher who has given ethics a decisive role in the understanding of our social life. Taking the enactive approach of Colombetti and Torrance as a starting point, we show how Levinas’ philosophy, with the key notions of face, otherness, and responsibility among others can complement and enrich the enactive view of ethics. Specifically, we argue that Le…Read more
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30Correction to: Introduction: The Varieties of EnactivismTopoi 39 (2): 499-499. 2020.The original article was published with incomplete acknowledgement. The complete acknowledgement section is given in this correction.
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869Introduction: The Varieties of EnactivismTopoi 36 (3): 365-375. 2017.This introduction to a special issue of Topoi introduces and summarises the relationship between three main varieties of 'enactivist' theorising about the mind: 'autopoietic', 'sensorimotor', and 'radical' enactivism. It includes a brief discussion of the philosophical and cognitive scientific precursors to enactivist theories, and the relationship of enactivism to other trends in embodied cognitive science and philosophy of mind.
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62Autopoietic theory, enactivism, and their incommensurable marks of the cognitiveSynthese 198 (Suppl 1): 71-87. 2019.This paper examines a fundamental philosophical difference between two radical postcognitivist theories that are usually assumed to offer the same view of cognition; namely the autopoietic theory and the enactive approach. The ways these two theories understand cognition, it is argued, are not compatible nor incompatible but rather incommensurable. The reason, so it is argued, is that while enactivism, following the traditional stance held by most of the cognitive theories, understands cognitive…Read more
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22Are living beings extended autopoietic systems? An embodied replyAdaptive Behavior 1-11. 2019.Building on the original formulation of the autopoietic theory (AT), extended enactivism argues that living beings are autopoietic systems that extend beyond the spatial boundaries of the organism. In this article, we argue that extended enactivism, despite having some basis in AT’s original formulation, mistakes AT’s definition of living beings as autopoietic entities. We offer, as a reply to this interpretation, a more embodied reformulation of autopoiesis, which we think is necessary to count…Read more
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67Extended functionalism, radical enactivism, and the autopoietic theory of cognition: prospects for a full revolution in cognitive sciencePhenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 17 (4): 719-739. 2018.Recently, Michael Wheeler has argued that despite its sometimes revolutionary rhetoric, the so called 4E cognitive movement, even in the guise of ‘radical’ enactivism, cannot achieve a full revolution in cognitive science. A full revolution would require the rejection of two essential tenets of traditional cognitive science, namely internalism and representationalism. Whilst REC might secure antirepresentationalism, it cannot do the same, so Wheeler argues, with externalism. In this paper, expan…Read more
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32The Enactive Automaton as a Computing MechanismThought: A Journal of Philosophy 6 (3): 185-192. 2017.Varela, Thompson, and Rosch illustrated their original presentation of the enactive theory of cognition with the example of a simple cellular automaton. Their theory was paradigmatically anti-computational, and yet automata similar to the one that they describe have typically been used to illustrate theories of computation, and are usually treated as abstract computational systems. Their use of this example is therefore puzzling, especially as they do not seem to acknowledge the discrepancy. The…Read more
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478Cognition, Computing and Dynamic SystemsLímite. Revista Interdisciplinaria de Filosofía y Psicología 1. 2016.Traditionally, computational theory (CT) and dynamical systems theory (DST) have presented themselves as opposed and incompatible paradigms in cognitive science. There have been some efforts to reconcile these paradigms, mainly, by assimilating DST to CT at the expenses of its anti-representationalist commitments. In this paper, building on Piccinini’s mechanistic account of computation and the notion of functional closure, we explore an alternative conciliatory strategy. We try to assimilate CT…Read more
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456Enactive autonomy in computational systemsSynthese 195 (5): 1891-1908. 2018.In this paper we will demonstrate that a computational system can meet the criteria for autonomy laid down by classical enactivism. The two criteria that we will focus on are operational closure and structural determinism, and we will show that both can be applied to a basic example of a physically instantiated Turing machine. We will also address the question of precariousness, and briefly suggest that a precarious Turing machine could be designed. Our aim in this paper is to challenge the assu…Read more
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52The Apparent (Ur-)Intentionality of Living Beings and the Game of ContentPhilosophia 43 (3): 651-668. 2015.Hutto and Satne, Philosophia propose to redefine the problem of naturalizing semantic content as searching for the origin of content instead of attempting to reduce it to some natural phenomenon. The search is to proceed within the framework of Relaxed Naturalism and under the banner of teleosemiotics which places Ur-intentionality at the source of content. We support the proposed redefinition of the problem but object to the proposed solution. In particular, we call for adherence to Strict Natu…Read more
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100Autopoiesis, Life, Mind and Cognition: Bases for a Proper Naturalistic Continuity (review)Biosemiotics 6 (3): 379-391. 2013.The strong version of the life-mind continuity thesis claims that mind can be understood as an enriched version of the same functional and organizational properties of life. Contrary to this view, in this paper I argue that mental phenomena offer distinctive properties, such as intentionality or representational content, that have no counterpart in the phenomenon of life, and that must be explained by appealing to a different level of functional and organizational principles. As a strategy, and …Read more
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Mind |
Philosophy of Cognitive Science |