Authors
Daniel D Hutto, Michael D Kirchhoff, Erik Myin
Publication date
2014/9/25
Journal
Frontiers in human neuroscience
Volume
8
Pages
706
Publisher
Frontiers Media SA
Description
Radical enactive and embodied approaches to cognitive science oppose the received view in the sciences of the mind in denying that cognition fundamentally involves contentful mental representation. This paper argues that the fate of representationalism in cognitive science matters significantly to how best to understand the extent of cognition. It seeks to establish that any move away from representationalism toward pure, empirical functionalism fails to provide a substantive “mark of the cognitive” and is bereft of other adequate means for individuating cognitive activity. It also argues that giving proper attention to the way the folk use their psychological concepts requires questioning the legitimacy of commonsense functionalism. In place of extended functionalism—empirical or commonsensical—we promote the fortunes of extensive enactivism, clarifying in which ways it is distinct from notions of extended mind and distributed cognition.
Scholar articles
DD Hutto, MD Kirchhoff, E Myin - Frontiers in human neuroscience, 2014