Abstract
AbstractRadical embodied cognitive science is split into two camps: the ecological approach and the enactive approach. We propose that these two approaches can be brought together into a productive synthesis. The key is to recognize that the two approaches are pursuing different but complementary types of explanation. Both approaches seek to explain behavior in terms of the animal–environment relation, but they start at opposite ends. Ecological psychologists pursue an ontological strategy. They begin by describing the habitat of the species, and use this to explain how action possibilities are constrained for individual actors. Enactivists, meanwhile, pursue an epistemic strategy: start by characterizing the exploratory, self-regulating behavior of the individual organism, and use this to understand how that organism brings forth its animal-specific umwelt. Both types of explanation are necessary: the ontological strategy explains how structure in the environment constrains how the world can appear to an individual, while the epistemic strategy explains how the world can appear differently to different members of the same species, relative to their skills, abilities, and histories. Making the distinction between species habitat and animal-specific umwelt allows us to understand the environment in realist terms while acknowledging that individual living organisms are phenomenal beings.
Funder
Horizon 2020
Charles Phelps Taft Research Center
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Subject
General Social Sciences,Philosophy
Reference48 articles.
1. Baggs, E. (2018). A psychology of the in between? Review of “Sensorimotor life: An enactive proposal” by Ezequiel Di Paolo, Thomas Buhrmann, and Xabier Barandiaran. Constructivist Foundations, 13(3), 395–397.
2. Baggs, E. & Chemero, A. (to appear). The third sense of environment. In J. B. Wagman & J. J. C. Blau (Eds.), Perception as information detection: Reflections on Gibson’s ecological approach to visual perception. New York, NY: Taylor & Francis [Preprint available at https://dx.doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/SXMRZ].
3. Balasubramaniam, R., Riley, M. A., & Turvey, M. (2000). Specificity of postural sway to the demands of a precision task. Gait and Posture, 11(1), 12–24.
4. Chemero, A. (2003). An outline of a theory of affordances. Ecological Psychology, 15(2), 181–195.
5. Chemero, A. (2009). Radical embodied cognitive science. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Cited by
74 articles.
订阅此论文施引文献
订阅此论文施引文献,注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献,订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献