Abstract
The paper reviews the current state of play around anti-representationalist attempts at countering Clark and Toribio’s (Synthese, 101, 401–431, 1994) representation-hunger thesis. It introduces a distinction between different approaches to Chemero’s (2009) Radical embodied cognition thesis (REC) in the form of, on the one hand, those pushing a hard line and, on the other, those who are more relaxed about their anti-representationalist commitments. In terms of overcoming Clark and Toribio’s thesis, hardliners seek to avoid any mentioning of mental content in the activity they purport to explain. Yet, the paper argues, adopting a hard line complicates this endeavor considerably and unnecessarily. Those promoting a relaxed REC, however, are better off in that they have no problem in recognizing that some types of cognition are hybrid. By turning to Hutto and Myin’s Radical Enactivism as a prime example of a relaxed approach to the REC thesis, the paper points towards the lack of continuity between covariant information and informational content as the gap that would necessarily have to be closed in order for RECers to, once and for all, be able to dismiss Clark and Toribio’s hypothesis that certain kinds of cognition are per definition off-limits to anti-representationalism.
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Notes
The terms explanans and explanandum were originally introduced by Hempel and Oppenheimer (1948).
Paraphrasing Dennett (1991), O’Regan provides examples of potentially perceivable objects that blend in with the background to the extent that the agent fails to notice them (cf. O’Regan 2011, p. 52). He shows that just because a thing is present in the environment and, thus, has the potential of being perceived, does not mean that it is perceived or, for that matter, plays any cognitive-functional role to a particular agent-environment system.
The notion of “affordance” is interpreted in different ways by different people. For instance, there are those who consider affordances as entities or properties (e.g., Heft, 2001; Reed, 1996; Turvey, 1992). On the other hand, pragmatist-inspired views take affordances to be emergent properties or relations in agent-environment systems (e.g., Chemero, 2003; Stoffregen, 2003). Regardless of the view one ascribes to, however, it is generally assumed that affordances tie with perceptual attitudes and, thus, connect the agent to present and localized states of affairs. Affordances are seen as “features” of an actual environment in the sense that they are “perfectly real” and observable (Chemero, 2003, p. 193).
It is important to note that both approaches acknowledge that they do not fully challenge representation-hunger and, moreover, that mental representations might exist. The decisive point, however, is that none of them attempts to reconcile with representationalism by allocating a space for mental content in the cognitive activity they purport to explain. See Zahnoun’s (2019) account concerning the fact that proponents of Radical Enactivism can acknowledge the explanandum to be representational without having to revert to representationalism.
Hutto and Myin remind us that information-as-covariance is fundamentally different from—and should therefore not be confused with—Dretske-style information-as-indication. The reason for this is that whereas covariance exists independently from a cognizer, indicative relations do not. For as they point out, “smoke means fire only if it indicates fire to someone. Here indication implies the presence of a user. Indication is, at least, a three-place relation unlike covariance. To think in terms of information-as-indication as just defined is, therefore, to go beyond the covariance notion of information” (Hutto & Myin, 2013, p. 70). The absence of a user underlines that covariant information is agent-independent and, in being so, objective and naturally occurring. It thus follows that covariance is simpler than indication in that it only implicates two natural states-of-affairs and not necessarily a user/basic mind (cf. Hutto & Myin, 2013, p. 67).
And even if one would be satisfied with a tautological appeal to co-evolution, it is important to keep Friedman’s (1997) point in mind that although scientific practices and knowledge exchange certainly form a vital part of naturalism (and, hence, science), there is more to naturalism than drawing on already-established scientific insights: the naturalist must also be able to validate such findings empirically (see also, Goldman, 1999). Following Quine, statements about states of affairs in the external world would necessarily have to face “the tribunal of sense experience” (Quine, 1976, p. 58). Otherwise, they cannot be deemed true. We find the same explicit commitment to empirical verification in Radical Enactivism (see, Hutto & Myin, 2017, p. 19). On a naturalist view, sense experience therefore belongs to the periphery of science—or, put in Quinean terms: it comprises its boundary conditions. Because of this, “a conflict with experience at the periphery occasions readjustments in the interior of the [scientific] field. Truth values have to be redistributed over some of our statements. Reevaluation of some statements entails reevaluation of others, because of their logical interconnections […] Having reevaluated one statement we must reevaluate some others, which may be statements logically connected with the first or may be the statements of logical connections themselves. But the total field is so underdetermined by its boundary conditions, experience, that there is much latitude of choice as to what statements to reevaluate in the light of any single contrary experience” (Quine, 1976, p. 59–60).
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Gahrn-Andersen, R. RECkoning with the Stakes in Overcoming Representation-Hungry Problem Domains. Acta Anal 36, 517–532 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12136-021-00468-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12136-021-00468-y