Arguing with Dan Hutto: Abstracts
Tuesday 16th of June, Room ID 0.06
16.15 – 16.30 Registration and Workshop Introduction
16.30 - 17.30 Dan Hutto The Natural Origins of Content
17.30 – 18.15. Robert. W Clowes. Really Doing Without Representation: The Trouble with Purging Philosophy of Science
Wednesday 17th of June, Room ID 0.06
9.30 – 10.15 Klaus Gaertner: Why NOT to Be a Radical
10.15 – 11.00. João Fonseca: Radical Enactivism and Paul Churchland’s Philosophy of Science.
11.00 – 11.15 Coffee
11.15 – 12.45 Dan Hutto An Overly Enactive Imagination?
12.45 – 14.00 Lunch.
14.00 – 14.45. Nuno Venturinha: Enactivism and Wittgenstein's Philosophy of Psychology
14:45 – 15.30. Davide Vecchi, Primitive enactivism and the evolutionary origin of sentience: searching for the evidence
15.30 – 15.45 Coffee
15.45 – 16.45 Dan Hutto: Looking Beyond the Brain: Social Neuroscience meets Narrative Practice
16:45 – 17.15. Jorge Gonçalves: Understanding Schizophrenia.
17.15 – 18.00 Dina Mendonça: Narrative Structure of Emotion
Further Workshop Information
16.15 – 16.30 Registration and Workshop Introduction
16.30 - 17.30 Dan Hutto The Natural Origins of Content
17.30 – 18.15. Robert. W Clowes. Really Doing Without Representation: The Trouble with Purging Philosophy of Science
Wednesday 17th of June, Room ID 0.06
9.30 – 10.15 Klaus Gaertner: Why NOT to Be a Radical
10.15 – 11.00. João Fonseca: Radical Enactivism and Paul Churchland’s Philosophy of Science.
11.00 – 11.15 Coffee
11.15 – 12.45 Dan Hutto An Overly Enactive Imagination?
12.45 – 14.00 Lunch.
14.00 – 14.45. Nuno Venturinha: Enactivism and Wittgenstein's Philosophy of Psychology
14:45 – 15.30. Davide Vecchi, Primitive enactivism and the evolutionary origin of sentience: searching for the evidence
15.30 – 15.45 Coffee
15.45 – 16.45 Dan Hutto: Looking Beyond the Brain: Social Neuroscience meets Narrative Practice
16:45 – 17.15. Jorge Gonçalves: Understanding Schizophrenia.
17.15 – 18.00 Dina Mendonça: Narrative Structure of Emotion
Further Workshop Information
The Natural Origins of Content, Daniel. D Hutto
We review the current state of play of in the game of naturalizing content and analyse reasons why each of the main proposals, when taken in isolation, is unsatisfactory. Our diagnosis is that if there is to be progress two fundamental changes are necessary. First, the point of the game needs to be reconceived in terms of explaining the natural origins of content. Second, the pivotal assumption that intentionality is always and everywhere contentful must be abandoned. Reviving and updating Haugeland’s baseball analogy in the light of these changes, we propose ways of redirecting the efforts of players on each base of his intentionality All-Star team, enabling them to start functioning effectively as a team. Only then is it likely that they will finally get their innings and maybe, just maybe, even win the game
See: https://www.academia.edu/4413850/The_Natural_Origins_of_Content
We review the current state of play of in the game of naturalizing content and analyse reasons why each of the main proposals, when taken in isolation, is unsatisfactory. Our diagnosis is that if there is to be progress two fundamental changes are necessary. First, the point of the game needs to be reconceived in terms of explaining the natural origins of content. Second, the pivotal assumption that intentionality is always and everywhere contentful must be abandoned. Reviving and updating Haugeland’s baseball analogy in the light of these changes, we propose ways of redirecting the efforts of players on each base of his intentionality All-Star team, enabling them to start functioning effectively as a team. Only then is it likely that they will finally get their innings and maybe, just maybe, even win the game
See: https://www.academia.edu/4413850/The_Natural_Origins_of_Content
Really Doing Without Representation: The Trouble with Purging in Philosophy of Science and Philosophy of Mind, Robert W. Clowes.
This paper looks at Radical Enactive Cognitive Science as a framework and especially its defence in a recent paper. (Hutto & Myin, forthcoming). My presentatino pays special attention to the concept of a basic mind. It considers the space it is supposed to occupy in a naturalistic approach to mind and how it is supposed to play an explanatory role in non-representational cognitive science. I focus on interpreting this against a background of the different explanatory interests of philosophy of science and philosophy of mind. I then look at the problem of theoretical concepts in interdisciplinary science more generally, and look at some reasons it remains difficult to abandon representation even when addressing basic minds. The paper draws on arguments in Clowes & Mendonça (2015)
Eryk. Myin, Daniel, D. Hutto (forthcoming). REC: Just Radical Enough. https://www.academia.edu/12829953/REC_Just_Radical_Enough
Robert W. Clowes, Mendonça, D. M. (2015). Representation Redux: Is there still a useful role for representation to play in the context of embodied, dynamicist and situated theories of mind? New Ideas in Psychology. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.newideapsych.2015.03.002
This paper looks at Radical Enactive Cognitive Science as a framework and especially its defence in a recent paper. (Hutto & Myin, forthcoming). My presentatino pays special attention to the concept of a basic mind. It considers the space it is supposed to occupy in a naturalistic approach to mind and how it is supposed to play an explanatory role in non-representational cognitive science. I focus on interpreting this against a background of the different explanatory interests of philosophy of science and philosophy of mind. I then look at the problem of theoretical concepts in interdisciplinary science more generally, and look at some reasons it remains difficult to abandon representation even when addressing basic minds. The paper draws on arguments in Clowes & Mendonça (2015)
Eryk. Myin, Daniel, D. Hutto (forthcoming). REC: Just Radical Enough. https://www.academia.edu/12829953/REC_Just_Radical_Enough
Robert W. Clowes, Mendonça, D. M. (2015). Representation Redux: Is there still a useful role for representation to play in the context of embodied, dynamicist and situated theories of mind? New Ideas in Psychology. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.newideapsych.2015.03.002
Enactivism: Why NOT to be radical, Klaus Gaertner, IFLNOVA, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal
Enactivism is the view that cognition is generated by the interaction between an acting organism and its environment. This idea contrasts more traditional ideas in cognitive sciences where it is often held that organisms process or manipulate information provided by their surroundings. In this paper I want to examine the potential of enactivism by closely investigating the nature of conscious experience. I will conclude that this view enriches this kind of debate and provides helpful solutions for specific problems. However, I will also claim that it has its limits.
Enactivism is the view that cognition is generated by the interaction between an acting organism and its environment. This idea contrasts more traditional ideas in cognitive sciences where it is often held that organisms process or manipulate information provided by their surroundings. In this paper I want to examine the potential of enactivism by closely investigating the nature of conscious experience. I will conclude that this view enriches this kind of debate and provides helpful solutions for specific problems. However, I will also claim that it has its limits.
Radical Enactivism and Paul Churchland’s Philosophy of Science. João Fonseca, IFLNOVA, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal
In this talk my aim is to show how the embodied/enactive revolution in cognitive science can be defined in two main axis: the ‘content axis’ and the ‘scope axis’. Daniel Hutto pushes the ‘content axis’ forward by claiming that contentfull representations should not
play any role in cognitive science but restrains the scope axis to what he calls ‘basic minds’. On the other hand, Churchland puts the emphasis on the scope axis of the revolution by claiming that even science should be understood in embodied/enactive terms whereas, in what concerns representations, Churchland would be considered ‘conservative’ by Hutto. The question thus is: how far can we advance in claiming for one axis without compromising the other? How incompatible are these two axis?
In this talk my aim is to show how the embodied/enactive revolution in cognitive science can be defined in two main axis: the ‘content axis’ and the ‘scope axis’. Daniel Hutto pushes the ‘content axis’ forward by claiming that contentfull representations should not
play any role in cognitive science but restrains the scope axis to what he calls ‘basic minds’. On the other hand, Churchland puts the emphasis on the scope axis of the revolution by claiming that even science should be understood in embodied/enactive terms whereas, in what concerns representations, Churchland would be considered ‘conservative’ by Hutto. The question thus is: how far can we advance in claiming for one axis without compromising the other? How incompatible are these two axis?
An Overly Enactive Imagination?, Daniel D. Hutto.
A certain philosophical frame of mind holds that contentless imaginings are unimaginable, “inconceivable” (Shapiro 2014a, p. 214) - that it is simply not possible to imagine acts of imagining in the absence of representational content. Against this, this paper argues that there is no naturalistically respectable way to rule out the possibility of contentless imaginings on purely analytic or conceptual grounds. Moreover, agreeing with Langland-Hassan (2015), it defends the view that the best way to understand the content and correctness conditions of non-basic, hybrid imaginative attitudes is to assume that basic sensory imaginings are enlisted to play many different kinds of cognitive roles depending on the surrounding contentful attitudes that imaginers adopt toward them. Finally, it agues that when it comes to understanding how pure, basic sensory imaginings do their explanatorily important work there is every reason to focus on the properties of such imaginings that enable appropriate interactions and exactly no reason for thinking that representational contents are amongst those properties.
https://www.academia.edu/12301085/Overly_Enactive_Imagination_Radically_Re-Imagining_Imagining
A certain philosophical frame of mind holds that contentless imaginings are unimaginable, “inconceivable” (Shapiro 2014a, p. 214) - that it is simply not possible to imagine acts of imagining in the absence of representational content. Against this, this paper argues that there is no naturalistically respectable way to rule out the possibility of contentless imaginings on purely analytic or conceptual grounds. Moreover, agreeing with Langland-Hassan (2015), it defends the view that the best way to understand the content and correctness conditions of non-basic, hybrid imaginative attitudes is to assume that basic sensory imaginings are enlisted to play many different kinds of cognitive roles depending on the surrounding contentful attitudes that imaginers adopt toward them. Finally, it agues that when it comes to understanding how pure, basic sensory imaginings do their explanatorily important work there is every reason to focus on the properties of such imaginings that enable appropriate interactions and exactly no reason for thinking that representational contents are amongst those properties.
https://www.academia.edu/12301085/Overly_Enactive_Imagination_Radically_Re-Imagining_Imagining
Enactivism and Wittgenstein's Philosophy of Psychology, Nuno Venturinha, IFLNOVA, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal
In this talk I comment on Dan Hutto’s paper “Enactivism, From a Wittgensteinian Point of View” (American Philosophical Quarterly 50:3, 2013), specifically how the anti-intellectualist perspective that characterizes “the embodied turn” represents a development of some revolutionary views we find in Wittgenstein’s philosophy of psychology.
https://www.academia.edu/2561146/Enactivism_From_A_Wittgensteinian_Point_of_View
In this talk I comment on Dan Hutto’s paper “Enactivism, From a Wittgensteinian Point of View” (American Philosophical Quarterly 50:3, 2013), specifically how the anti-intellectualist perspective that characterizes “the embodied turn” represents a development of some revolutionary views we find in Wittgenstein’s philosophy of psychology.
https://www.academia.edu/2561146/Enactivism_From_A_Wittgensteinian_Point_of_View
Primitive enactivism and the evolutionary origin of sentience: searching for the evidence, Davide Vecchi, FCT Research Fellow, Faculty of Sciences, University of Lisbon, Portugal/Adjunct, Lecturer, Department of Philosophy, Universidad de Santiago, Chile
Evolutionism implies phylogenetic continuity between all life forms. But, are phenotypes like sentience continuous or discontinuous? Are sentience and consciouness autapomorphies? Pondering this issue, Hans Jonas (1966, p. 58) suggested that inwardness and life might be coextensive: “Where else than at the beginning of life can the beginning of inwardness be placed?”. This philo,sophical stance - that cannot be equated with panpsychism (i.e., ascribing mind to matter) but with a more circumscribed biopsychism (i.e., ascribing mind to life) - has also a long history in biological thought. For instance, the paleontologist Teilhard de Chardin (1975, p. 55) surmised:
The apparent restriction of the phenomenon of consciousness to the higher forms of life has long served science as an excuse for eliminating it from its models of the universe. A queer exception, an aberrant function, an epiphenomenon - thought was classed under one or other of these heads in order to get rid of it.
More recently, the biologist Lynn Margulis (2001, p. 55) argued:The evolutionary antecedent of the nervous system is 'microbial consciousness.' In my description of the origin of the eukaryotic cell via bacterial cell merger, the components fused via symbiogenesis are already “conscious” entities.
The autopoietic tradition in philosophy of mind has frequently endorsed this biopsychist stance (Thompson 2007). Autopoietic enactivism was first proposed by Francisco Varela, who gave a coherent answer to Jonas' rhetorical question. The answer goes along the following lines: any biological system must define its own identity in order to respond to the fundamental need of controlling its body through the interactions with the environment, in particular in order to exploit the environmental resources necessary to continue the process of self-maintenance; this maintenance process amounts to a continuous redefinition of the identity of the biological system as a unity in contrast with the non-self, i.e., the environment; any autopoietic system thus distinguishes between world and environment: while the world defines the phenomenologically relevant aspect of the external physico-chemi-bio-social environment as experienced by the biosystem itself, the environment refers to the physico-chemi-bio-social environment as seen from the perspective of the external observer; in brief, any autopoietic system creates its own 'umwelt'.” This characterisation of enaction entails that:Whatever is encountered must be valued one way or another – like, dislike, ignore – and acted on some way or another – attraction, rejection, neutrality. (Varela, 1999, p. 97).
This is the fundamental insight: any autopoietic system must continuously “value” what comes about from the environment and “act” in order to deal with it. It “gives sense” to the aspects of the environment that are relevant in order to enact and bring about its existence, with the aims of addressing individual concerns and, ultimately, thrive. Any organism endorses a “perspective” from which to construct a “world of meaning”. From this standpoint sentience is a primitive property of all life. I suggest to call this form of enactivism, this fusion of biopsychism and autopoiesis, primitive enactivism. Pace Hutto and Myin (2013), according to primitive enactivism all life forms have a phenomenal life and there are no “basic minds” without phenomenality. In this talk I aim to assess whether there is any good reason to champion primitive enactivism. Varela's argument is philosophically coherent, but coherence is neither enough to support primitive enactivism nor the biopsychist position. The argument stems from the unproblematic endorsement of evolutionism and the suggestive autopoietic interpretation of the living process but also, significantly, from an interpretive gamble. This gamble is perceived by most critics, who object to primitive enactivism through conceptual arguments that often betray a lurking phylogenetic bias. It seems that primitive enactivism is destined to remain – if taken seriously at all – pure speculation. Ludicrous at it may seem, I suggest that the only way to move beyond biased arguments and speculation is the path not taken: engaging with the putative evidence emerging from microbiology.
Bibliography
de Chardin, T. 1975 The Phenomenon of Man. Harper
Hutto, D. & Myin, E. 2013. Radicalizing Enactivism: Basic Minds without Content. MIT Press
Jonas, H. 1996 [2001]. The phenomenon of life: Toward a Philosophical Biology. Northwestern University Press
Margulis, L. 2001. The conscious cell. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 929, pp.
Thompson, E. 2007. Mind in Life. Harvard University Press.
Varela, F. 1999. Organism: a meshwork of selfless selves. In Tauber, A. Organisms and the origin of self. Kluwer. pp. 79-107
Evolutionism implies phylogenetic continuity between all life forms. But, are phenotypes like sentience continuous or discontinuous? Are sentience and consciouness autapomorphies? Pondering this issue, Hans Jonas (1966, p. 58) suggested that inwardness and life might be coextensive: “Where else than at the beginning of life can the beginning of inwardness be placed?”. This philo,sophical stance - that cannot be equated with panpsychism (i.e., ascribing mind to matter) but with a more circumscribed biopsychism (i.e., ascribing mind to life) - has also a long history in biological thought. For instance, the paleontologist Teilhard de Chardin (1975, p. 55) surmised:
The apparent restriction of the phenomenon of consciousness to the higher forms of life has long served science as an excuse for eliminating it from its models of the universe. A queer exception, an aberrant function, an epiphenomenon - thought was classed under one or other of these heads in order to get rid of it.
More recently, the biologist Lynn Margulis (2001, p. 55) argued:The evolutionary antecedent of the nervous system is 'microbial consciousness.' In my description of the origin of the eukaryotic cell via bacterial cell merger, the components fused via symbiogenesis are already “conscious” entities.
The autopoietic tradition in philosophy of mind has frequently endorsed this biopsychist stance (Thompson 2007). Autopoietic enactivism was first proposed by Francisco Varela, who gave a coherent answer to Jonas' rhetorical question. The answer goes along the following lines: any biological system must define its own identity in order to respond to the fundamental need of controlling its body through the interactions with the environment, in particular in order to exploit the environmental resources necessary to continue the process of self-maintenance; this maintenance process amounts to a continuous redefinition of the identity of the biological system as a unity in contrast with the non-self, i.e., the environment; any autopoietic system thus distinguishes between world and environment: while the world defines the phenomenologically relevant aspect of the external physico-chemi-bio-social environment as experienced by the biosystem itself, the environment refers to the physico-chemi-bio-social environment as seen from the perspective of the external observer; in brief, any autopoietic system creates its own 'umwelt'.” This characterisation of enaction entails that:Whatever is encountered must be valued one way or another – like, dislike, ignore – and acted on some way or another – attraction, rejection, neutrality. (Varela, 1999, p. 97).
This is the fundamental insight: any autopoietic system must continuously “value” what comes about from the environment and “act” in order to deal with it. It “gives sense” to the aspects of the environment that are relevant in order to enact and bring about its existence, with the aims of addressing individual concerns and, ultimately, thrive. Any organism endorses a “perspective” from which to construct a “world of meaning”. From this standpoint sentience is a primitive property of all life. I suggest to call this form of enactivism, this fusion of biopsychism and autopoiesis, primitive enactivism. Pace Hutto and Myin (2013), according to primitive enactivism all life forms have a phenomenal life and there are no “basic minds” without phenomenality. In this talk I aim to assess whether there is any good reason to champion primitive enactivism. Varela's argument is philosophically coherent, but coherence is neither enough to support primitive enactivism nor the biopsychist position. The argument stems from the unproblematic endorsement of evolutionism and the suggestive autopoietic interpretation of the living process but also, significantly, from an interpretive gamble. This gamble is perceived by most critics, who object to primitive enactivism through conceptual arguments that often betray a lurking phylogenetic bias. It seems that primitive enactivism is destined to remain – if taken seriously at all – pure speculation. Ludicrous at it may seem, I suggest that the only way to move beyond biased arguments and speculation is the path not taken: engaging with the putative evidence emerging from microbiology.
Bibliography
de Chardin, T. 1975 The Phenomenon of Man. Harper
Hutto, D. & Myin, E. 2013. Radicalizing Enactivism: Basic Minds without Content. MIT Press
Jonas, H. 1996 [2001]. The phenomenon of life: Toward a Philosophical Biology. Northwestern University Press
Margulis, L. 2001. The conscious cell. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 929, pp.
Thompson, E. 2007. Mind in Life. Harvard University Press.
Varela, F. 1999. Organism: a meshwork of selfless selves. In Tauber, A. Organisms and the origin of self. Kluwer. pp. 79-107
Looking Beyond the Brain: Social Neuroscience meets Narrative Practice, Daniel D. Hutto
Folk psychological practices are arguably the basis for our articulate ability to understand why people act as they do. This paper considers how social neuroscience could contribute to an explanation of the neural basis of folk psychology by understanding its relevant neural firing and wiring as a product of enculturation. Such a view is motivated by the hypothesis that folk psychological competence is established through engagement with narrative practices that form a familiar part of the human niche. Our major aim is to establish that conceiving of social neuroscience in this wider context is a tenable and promising alternative to characterizing its job as understanding mentalizing as a wholly brain-based form of ‘theory of mind’ activity. To promote this change of view, it is shown that understanding folk psychology as a narrative practice can accommodate the known evidence from social neuroscience, developmental and cross-cultural psychology, and cognitive archaeology at least as adequately, if not better than its main rivals, modularist accounts of theory of mind.
https://www.academia.edu/9445651/Looking_Beyond_the_Brain_Social_Neuroscience_meets_Narrative_Practice
Folk psychological practices are arguably the basis for our articulate ability to understand why people act as they do. This paper considers how social neuroscience could contribute to an explanation of the neural basis of folk psychology by understanding its relevant neural firing and wiring as a product of enculturation. Such a view is motivated by the hypothesis that folk psychological competence is established through engagement with narrative practices that form a familiar part of the human niche. Our major aim is to establish that conceiving of social neuroscience in this wider context is a tenable and promising alternative to characterizing its job as understanding mentalizing as a wholly brain-based form of ‘theory of mind’ activity. To promote this change of view, it is shown that understanding folk psychology as a narrative practice can accommodate the known evidence from social neuroscience, developmental and cross-cultural psychology, and cognitive archaeology at least as adequately, if not better than its main rivals, modularist accounts of theory of mind.
https://www.academia.edu/9445651/Looking_Beyond_the_Brain_Social_Neuroscience_meets_Narrative_Practice
On Understanding Schizophrenia, Jorge Gonçalves, IFLNOVA, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal
First I put the question: what is the meaning of “understanding”? In psychiatry this question dates back to Karl Jaspers who introduced into the field the distinction between “understanding” and “explanation”. He thought that schizophrenia could not be understood but only explained by mechanical causes. I hold that this continues to be the dominant position in current psychiatry. What I argue is that we can understand a person with schizophrenia, but we must take a new notion of understanding more based in theoretical imagination and not so intuitive and direct as in Jaspers. To understand intense alterated states of consciousness (such as in schizophrenia) folk psychology is not enough so one must create new concepts. I make connections with this perspective and the ideas of Daniel Hutto, namely in Daniel D. Hutto, Michael Kirchhoff (forthcoming) “Looking Beyond the Brain: Social Neuroscience meets
First I put the question: what is the meaning of “understanding”? In psychiatry this question dates back to Karl Jaspers who introduced into the field the distinction between “understanding” and “explanation”. He thought that schizophrenia could not be understood but only explained by mechanical causes. I hold that this continues to be the dominant position in current psychiatry. What I argue is that we can understand a person with schizophrenia, but we must take a new notion of understanding more based in theoretical imagination and not so intuitive and direct as in Jaspers. To understand intense alterated states of consciousness (such as in schizophrenia) folk psychology is not enough so one must create new concepts. I make connections with this perspective and the ideas of Daniel Hutto, namely in Daniel D. Hutto, Michael Kirchhoff (forthcoming) “Looking Beyond the Brain: Social Neuroscience meets
Narrative Structure of Emotion, Dina Mendonça, IFLNOVA, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal
TBC
TBC