Synopses & Reviews
andlt;Pandgt;Most of what humans do and experience is best understood in terms of dynamically unfolding interactions with the environment. Many philosophers and cognitive scientists now acknowledge the critical importance of situated, environment-involving embodied engagements as a means of understanding basic minds -- including basic forms of human mentality. Yet many of these same theorists hold fast to the view that basic minds are necessarily or essentially contentful -- that they represent conditions the world might be in. In this book, Daniel Hutto and Erik Myin promote the cause of a radically enactive, embodied approach to cognition that holds that some kinds of minds -- basic minds -- are neither best explained by processes involving the manipulation of contents nor inherently contentful. Hutto and Myin oppose the widely endorsed thesis that cognition always and everywhere involves content. They defend the counter-thesis that there can be intentionality and phenomenal experience without content, and demonstrate the advantages of their approach for thinking about scaffolded minds and consciousnessandlt;/Pandgt;
Review
This important book testifies to the 'enactive' viewpoint in cognitive science having now come of age. In arguing that minds lack informational content, Hutto and Myin develop an original version of the enactive view that reshapes current philosophical thinking about embodied and extended cognition. Both proponents and critics of the enactive viewpoint will need to come to terms with this new enactive manifesto. The MIT Press
Review
Most books that try to push the conceptual envelope tend to sacrifice analytic rigor for clarity of vision. That is surely not the case in Radicalizing Enactivism. Hutto and Myin defend a position that pushes ideas that most people think are a few steps too far several steps farther. The fact that their genuinely radical conclusions are supported by dense analytical argumentation makes the book a serious challenge to the status quo in the philosophy of mind. Evan Thompson, Professor of Philosophy, University of Toronto
Review
andlt;Pandgt;andquot;This important book testifies to the 'enactive' viewpoint in cognitive science having now come of age. In arguing that minds lack informational content, Hutto and Myin develop an original version of the enactive view that reshapes current philosophical thinking about embodied and extended cognition. Both proponents and critics of the enactive viewpoint will need to come to terms with this new enactive manifesto.andquot;--andlt;Bandgt;Evan Thompsonandlt;/Bandgt;, Professor of Philosophy, University of Torontoandlt;/Pandgt; The MIT Press The MIT Press
Review
andlt;Pandgt;andquot;Most books that try to push the conceptual envelope tend to sacrifice analytic rigor for clarity of vision. That is surely not the case in andlt;Iandgt;Radicalizing Enactivismandlt;/Iandgt;. Hutto and Myin defend a position that pushes ideas that most people think are a few steps too far several steps farther. The fact that their genuinely radical conclusions are supported by dense analytical argumentation makes the book a serious challenge to the status quo in the philosophy of mind.andquot;--andlt;Bandgt;Anthony Chemeroandlt;/Bandgt;, Professor of Philosophy and Psychology, University of Cincinnati; author of andlt;Iandgt;Radical Embodied Cognitive Scienceandlt;/Iandgt;andlt;/Pandgt;
Review
Anyone who is familiar with the field will be rewarded by reading Radicalizing Enactivism. The book engages philosophers on both sides of the representationalist/anti-representationalist divide with well-structured, compelling argument; and the original style makes reading enjoyable. Anthony Chemero, Professor of Philosophy and Psychology, University of Cincinnati; author of < i=""> Radical Embodied Cognitive Science <>
Review
Based on a thorough and rigorous criticism of classical and contemporary analytical theories of content, including those which claim to be compatible with enactivism, the authors brilliantly point out endemic problems impeding the representationalist tradition. Their presentation of some domains of application of non-representationalism, and their development of the consequences of radical enactivism for debates about phenomenal consciousness and extended cognition, equally show, in my opinion in a remarkable way, the plausibility and relevance of their approach. For these contributions alone, the book is worth reading, both by supporters of the classical approach and by advocates of other forms enactivism. Philosophical Psychology
Review
"Provocative compelling their critical attack on traditional theories of content provides a justification for enactivist radicalism." -- Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews The MIT Press
Review
"One of the most original contributions to the already vast literature in recent philosophy of mind .No collection in modern philosophy of mind is complete without this ground breaking book." -- Choice The MIT Press
Review
"This book is a (witty and engagingly written) manifesto with a true revolutionary feel to it." -- Jakub Matyja, Constructivist Foundations The MIT Press
Synopsis
A book that promotes the thesis that basic forms of mentality -- intentionally directed cognition and perceptual experience -- are best understood as embodied yet contentless.
Most of what humans do and experience is best understood in terms of dynamically unfolding interactions with the environment. Many philosophers and cognitive scientists now acknowledge the critical importance of situated, environment-involving embodied engagements as a means of understanding basic minds -- including basic forms of human mentality. Yet many of these same theorists hold fast to the view that basic minds are necessarily or essentially contentful -- that they represent conditions the world might be in. In this book, Daniel Hutto and Erik Myin promote the cause of a radically enactive, embodied approach to cognition that holds that some kinds of minds -- basic minds -- are neither best explained by processes involving the manipulation of contents nor inherently contentful. Hutto and Myin oppose the widely endorsed thesis that cognition always and everywhere involves content. They defend the counter-thesis that there can be intentionality and phenomenal experience without content, and demonstrate the advantages of their approach for thinking about scaffolded minds and consciousness.
Synopsis
Most of what humans do and experience is best understood in terms of dynamically unfolding interactions with the environment. Many philosophers and cognitive scientists now acknowledge the critical importance of situated, environment-involving embodied engagements as a means of understanding basic minds -- including basic forms of human mentality. Yet many of these same theorists hold fast to the view that basic minds are necessarily or essentially contentful -- that they represent conditions the world might be in. In this book, Daniel Hutto and Erik Myin promote the cause of a radically enactive, embodied approach to cognition that holds that some kinds of minds -- basic minds -- are neither best explained by processes involving the manipulation of contents nor inherently contentful. Hutto and Myin oppose the widely endorsed thesis that cognition always and everywhere involves content. They defend the counter-thesis that there can be intentionality and phenomenal experience without content, and demonstrate the advantages of their approach for thinking about scaffolded minds and consciousness
About the Author
Daniel D. Hutto is Professor of Philosophical Psychology, holding this appointment jointly at both the Universities of Wollongong and Hertfordshire He is the author of Folk Psychological Narratives: The Sociocultural Basis of Understanding Reasons (MIT Press) and other books. Erik Myin is Professor of Philosophy and Head of the Centre for Philosophical Psychology at the University of Antwerp.