The sense of agency – a phenomenological consequence of enacting sensorimotor schemes

Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 16 (2):207-236 (2017)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

The sensorimotor approach to perception addresses various aspects of perceptual experience, but not the subjectivity of intentional action. Conversely, the problem that current accounts of the sense of agency deal with is primarily one of subjectivity. But the proposed models, based on internal signal comparisons, arguably fail to make the transition from subpersonal computations to personal experience. In this paper we suggest an alternative direction towards explaining the sense of agency by braiding three theoretical strands: a world-involving, dynamical interpretation of the sensorimotor approach, an enactive description of sensorimotor agency as contrasted with organic agency in general, and a dynamical theory of equilibration within and between sensorimotor schemes. On this new account, the sense of oneself as the author of one’s own actions corresponds to what we experience during the ongoing adventure of establishing, losing, and re-establishing meaningful interactions with the world. The meaningful relation between agent and world is given by the precarious constitution of sensorimotor agency as a self-asserting network of schemes and dispositions. Acts are owned as they adaptively assert the constitution of the agent. Thus, awareness for different aspects of agency experience, such as the initiation of action, the effort exerted in controlling it, or the achievement of the desired effect, can be accounted for by processes involved in maintaining the sensorimotor organization that enables these interactions with the world. We discuss these processes in detail from a non-representational, dynamical perspective and show how they cohere with the personal experience of agency.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,221

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

The Sense of Control and the Sense of Agency.Elisabeth Pacherie - 2007 - PSYCHE: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Research On Consciousness 13:1 - 30.
How does it feel to act together?Elisabeth Pacherie - 2014 - Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 13 (1):25-46.
Action and awareness of agency.José Luis Bermúdez - 2010 - Pragmatics and Cognition 18 (3):576-588.
Vision as dance? Three challenges for sensorimotor contingency theory.Andy Clark - 2006 - PSYCHE: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Research On Consciousness 12.
Understanding 'sensorimotor understanding'.Tom Roberts - 2010 - Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 9 (1):101-111.
The inner sense of action: Agency and motor representations.Vittorio Gallese - 2000 - Journal of Consciousness Studies 7 (10):23-40.
The natural philosophy of agency.Shaun Gallagher - 2007 - Philosophy Compass 2 (2):347–357.
Multiple aspects of agency.Shaun Gallagher - 2010 - New Ideas in Psychology.
A problem for Wegner and colleagues' model of the sense of agency.Glenn Carruthers - 2010 - Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 9 (3):341-357.
Phenomenology and Embodied Action.M. Beaton - 2013 - Constructivist Foundations 8 (3):298-313.
A New Imagery Debate: Enactive and Sensorimotor Accounts.Lucia Foglia & J. Kevin O’Regan - 2016 - Review of Philosophy and Psychology 7 (1):181-196.

Analytics

Added to PP
2015-11-13

Downloads
70 (#211,377)

6 months
5 (#244,107)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Ezequiel Di Paolo
University of the Basque Country

References found in this work

Phenomenology of perception.Maurice Merleau-Ponty - 1945 - Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey: The Humanities Press. Edited by Donald A. Landes.
Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind.Evan Thompson - 2007 - Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Phenomenology of Perception.Maurice Merleau-Ponty - 1945 - New York: Routledge. Edited by Donald A. Landes.
Intentionality: An Essay in the Philosophy of Mind.John R. Searle - 1983 - New York: Oxford University Press.

View all 85 references / Add more references