Neurath’s boat and the Sally-Anne test: Life, Cognition, Matter and Stuff

Abstract

Making sense of the world around us is likened to the task of staying afloat on a stormy sea while rebuilding our craft of ideas and concepts as we go. This metaphor is pursued through successive stages of cognitive development, and more sophisticated appreciation of multiple perspectives; from pre-theoretical to folk science to the theoretical, from individual to social to inter-subjective agreement. This inescapably generates reflections on the relationships between embodied and situated Life and Cognition.