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Natural Agency: The Case of Bacterial Cognition

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2017

FERMÍN C. FULDA
FERMÍN C. FULDA*
Affiliation:
ROTMAN INSTITUTE OF PHILOSOPHY, WESTERN [email protected]
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Abstract:

I contrast an ecological account of natural agency with the traditional Cartesian conception using recent research in bacterial cognition and cellular decision making as a test case. I argue that the Cartesian conception—namely, the view that agency presupposes cognition—generates a dilemma between mechanism, the view that bacteria are mere automata, and intellectualism, the view that they exhibit full-blown cognition. Unicellular organisms, however, occupy a middle ground between these two extremes. On the one hand, their capacities and activities are too adaptive to count as mere machines. On the other hand, they lack the open-ended responsiveness of cognitive agents to rational norms. An ecological conception of agency as the gross behavioral capacity to respond to affordances, I argue, does not presuppose cognition and allows for degrees of agency along a continuum, from the simplest adaptive agents, such as unicellular organisms, to the most sophisticated cognitive agents. Bacteria, I conclude, are adaptive agents, hence not mere automata, but not cognitive agents.

Keywords

agencylifecognitionbacteriamechanismintellectualism
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of the American Philosophical Association , Volume 3 , Issue 1 , Spring 2017 , pp. 69 - 90
Copyright
Copyright © American Philosophical Association 2017 

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