On Feb 16th, 2023, at 16:00

To participate, please contact andrea.gambarotto@uclouvain.be

ABSTRACT:

Enactivism is an approach to cognition that centres embodiment and autonomy. In the philosophy of perception, there is a realism-idealism spectrum, with perception of the ‘objective world as it is’ on one end and perception of only internal constructs on the other end. Where enactivism lands on this spectrum continues to be contested. After all, an organism ‘bringing forth a world’ sounds constructivist. Yet this is in tension with enactivism’s anti-representationalist, anti-solipsistic ambitions which may suggest a realist commitment. Here I will argue that enactivism is not idealist, realist or even something in-between. In short, the ‘colouring’ of an organism’s perception through its own activity and interactional history is incompatible with objective realism; yet the sociomaterial understanding of perception as an organism-environment relation is incompatible with idealism. More fundamentally, I propose that the realism-idealism spectrum in perception itself is rooted in a categorical separation between a reified mind and the world. This separation is incompatible with enactivism altogether, thus also ruling out a potential in-between solution. Avoiding eliminativism, I submit that the notion of mind should be reconceived as relational between organism and environment, radically co-constitutive and co-constructivist.
I will proceed as follows. First, I shall provide a brief overview of enactivism, focusing on the notion of sensorimotor autonomy, which captures the self-enabling, self-individuating organisation of clusters of sensorimotor processes like habits. This allows me to say some general things about the notion of ‘mind’ in enactivism, which can be clarified by contrasting it with realism, idealism, and a potential in-between option. I can then contour a positive proposal. Given the autonomous nature of clusters of sensorimotor activities, the encounters of organism and environment — the relations themselves — can be taken to constitute the sensorimotor mind while avoiding the issues of reification. Simultaneously, it is through the plastic changes resulting from these encounters that the organism and environment are and continue to be constructed. Perceptual activity, encompassing organism-environment relations, then, is best understood as self-shaping. I will finish with some of the crucial questions that need more work, like a better understanding of sensorimotor individuation and the nature of the co-constructive processes.

Tuesday, Dec 14, 2021 at 13:00

To participate please contact alejandra.mtz.quintero@gmail.com

Resumen: La “Ciencia de la Ciencia” (SciSci en su acrónimo inglés) es
un campo en expansión que pretende entender de manera sistémica, y
apoyándose en analítica de datos, la compleja estructura de
interacciones y dinámicas de las comunidades científicas. Las
posibilidades que abre este campo nos ayuda a plantear cuestiones
novedosas en la gestión  de  la  investigación: ¿Qué  políticas
estimulan  la  ciencia  de  mayor impacto?, ¿cuál es el  tamaño
óptimo  de los equipos  que desarrollan  las ideas  más originales?,
¿Qué impacto real tienen los enfoques interdisciplinares? Estas
evidencias permiten explorar nuevas iniciativas de l+D -en materia de
financiación, evaluación o promoción- y reflexionar acerca de si los
indicadores con los que medimos el talento son los más adecuados o si
las formas de participación de los investigadores en el proceso
científico pueden ser diferentes a las actuales. En esta charla
mostraremos algunos de los resultados más relevantes en esta materia y
los conectaremos con nuevas perspectivas en la política científica.

To participate, please contact: alejandra.mtz.quintero@gmail.com

On June 15, 2021, at 11:30.

ABSTRACT
The most widespread attempt to explain cognitive norms in naturalistic terms is etiological teleosemantics (Millikan, 1989; Neander, 1991). However, the neo-Darwinian bases on which etiology is hosted have been severely challenged in the philosophy of biology,  confronting the teleological account that departs from orthodox natural selection adaptationism. Organismic Biology (Camazine, 2003; Etxeberria & Umerez, 2006; Gilbert & Sarkar, 2000; Goodwin, 2001; Kauffman, 1995, 1995; Müller & Newman, 2003; Walsh, 2015) is an increasingly widespread alternative to this evolutionary adaptationist framework. There is, however, still little development of how organicism can contribute to teleosemantics and to transit from biological to cognitive norms. A prominent area to approach natural normativity within organismal biology is Autonomous System Theory (Barandiaran, 2008; Bechtel, 2007; Bickhard, 2000; Moreno et al., 2008; Moreno & Mossio, 2015; Ruiz-Mirazo et al., 2004). Within this approach normative behaviour has been conceptualized as that which operates in accordance with the viability conditions of a recursively self-sustaining system (Barandiaran et al., 2009; Barandiaran & Egbert, 2013; W. D. Christensen & Bickhard, 2002). Departing from different works on sensorimotor theory and the autonomy of cognition (Barandiaran, 2008; Barandiaran & Di Paolo, 2014; Barandiaran & Egbert, 2013; W. Christensen, 2012; W. D. Christensen & Bickhard, 2002; Di Paolo et al., 2017; Egbert & Barandiaran, 2014) we extend and discuss the notion of cognitive normativity from an organismic perspective that understands cognitive norms as emerging from interdependencies between sensorimotor habits. We attempt to refine the different sensorimotor layers that build cognitive norms, from the intrinsic normativity of a single habit to that of networks of habits up to the emergence of social habits. We identify minimal requirements for a system to be teleosemantic: 1. That its behaviour is goal directed (minimally pre-intentional), 2.  That its behaviour must potentially be judged (naturalistically) as erroneous, and 3. That its behaviour be (at least potentially) corrected by the organism as a result of it being detected as erroneous. Next we apply the organismic approach to cognitive normativity to a simple example of sensorimotor behavior that satisfies the minimal teleosemantic requirements. Finally, we discuss the advantages of an organismic path to teleosemantics by addressing core challenges in the literature: a) the Swampman scenario (and the Swampfrog variant we will suggest); b) the relation between normal and natural normativity c) the plasticity of cognitive norms.

Bio: Tiago Rama (Autonomous University of Barcelona, UAB) trama.folco@gmail.com and Xabier E. Barandiaran (University of Basque Country, UPV/EHU)