Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T19:38:19.515Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Debunking enactivism: a critical notice of Hutto and Myin’s Radicalizing Enactivism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Mohan Matthen*
Affiliation:
University of Toronto

Abstract

In this review of Hutto and Myin’s Radicalizing Enactivism, I question the adequacy of a non-representational theory of mind. I argue first that such a theory cannot differentiate cognition from other bodily engagements such as wrestling with an opponent. Second, I question whether the simple robots constructed by Rodney Brooks are adequate as models of multimodal organisms. Last, I argue that Hutto and Myin pay very little attention to how semantically interacting representations are needed to give an account of choice and action.

Type
Critical Notice
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Journal of Philosophy 2014

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Beer, Robert. 1995. “A Dynamical Systems Perspective on Agent-Environment Interaction.” Artificial Intelligence 72: 173215.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brooks, Rodney. 1991. “Intelligence without Representation.” Artificial Intelligence 47: 139159.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chemero, Anthony. 2009. Radical Embodied Cognitive Science. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, Andy. 1997. Being There: Putting Brain, Body, and World Together Again. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Ernst, Marc O., and Banks, Martin S.. 2002. “Humans Integrate Visual and Haptic Information in a Statistically Optimal Fashion.” Nature 415: 429433.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gallistel, C. R., and King, A. P.. 2009. Memory and the Computational Brain: Why Cognitive Science Will Transform Neuroscience. New York: John Wiley & Sons.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haugeland, John. 1981. Mind Design. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Matthen, Mohan. 1988. “Biological Functions and Perceptual Content.” Journal of Philosophy 85: 527.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Matthen, Mohan, and Levy, Edwin. 1984. “Teleology, Error, and the Human Immune System.” Journal of Philosophy 81: 351372.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Varela, Francisco J., Thompson, Evan, and Rosch, Eleanor. 1991. The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Webb, Barbara. 1996. “A Cricket Robot.” Scientific American 275 (6): 9499.CrossRefGoogle Scholar