Ecological-Enactive Cognition as Engaging with a Field of Relevant Affordances: The Skilled Intentionality Framework (SIF) (original) (raw)
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Ecological-Enactive Cognition as engaging with a field of relevant affordances
The Oxford Handbook of 4E Cognition, 2018
The topic of this Oxford handbook is “4E cognition”: cognition as embodied, embedded, enactive, and extended. However, one important “E” is missing: an E for ecological. We sketch an ecological-enactive approach to cognition that presents a framework for bringing together the embodied/enactive program with the ecological program originally developed by James Gibson, in which affordances are central. We call this framework the skilled intentionality framework. The skilled intentionality framework is a philosophical approach to understanding the situated and affective embodied mind. It is a new conceptual framework for the field of 4E cognitive science that focuses on skilled action and builds upon an enriched notion of affordances. We define skilled intentionality as the selective engagement with multiple affordances simultaneously in a concrete situation. The skilled intentionality framework clarifies how complementary insights on affordance responsiveness from philosophy/phenomenol...
Affordances for Situating the Embodied Mind in Sociocultural Practice
Affordances in Everyday Life, 2022
Much of human daily life is taken up with performing skilled activities in which we engage with the affordances the social, cultural, material, and natural environment provides. Activities as varied as driving, eating, performing surgery, talking, and making works of art can be understood in terms of skilled engagement with affordances. Affordances are possibilities for action provided to us by the environmentby substances, surfaces, objects, and living creatures that surround us (Chemero, 2009; Gibson, 1979; Heft, 2001; Stoffregen, 2003). The concept of affordances applies not only to humans, but to all living organisms, as we all share the fate of being inescapably surrounded by our surroundings. This broad applicability of ecological psychology and its focus on action is shared by enactivism, an approach to cognition that focuses on the dynamic interactions between an acting organism and its environment. The Skilled Intentionality Framework (SIF) is a philosophical approach that combines insights from both
In this paper, we address the question of how an agent can guide its behavior with respect to aspects of the sociomaterial environment that are not sensorily present. A simple example is how an animal can relate to a food source while only sensing a pheromone, or how an agent can relate to beer, while only the refrigerator is directly sensorily present. Certain cases in which something is absent have been characterized by others as requiring 'higher' cognition. An example of this is how during the design process architects can let themselves be guided by the future behavior of visitors to an exhibit they are planning. The main question is what the sociomaterial environment and the skilled agent are like, such that they can relate to each other in these ways. We argue that this requires an account of the regularities in the environment. Introducing the notion of general ecological information, we will give an account of these regularities in terms of constraints, information, and the form of life or ecological niche. In the first part of the paper, we will introduce the Skilled Intentionality Framework (SIF) as conceptualizing an animal's informational coupling with the environment. We will show how skilled agents can pick up on the regularities in the environment and let their behavior be guided by the practices in the form of life. This conceptual framework is important for radical embodied and enactive cognitive science, because it allows these increasingly influential paradigms to extend their reach to forms of 'higher' cognition such as long-term planning and imagination.
General ecological information supports engagement with affordances for ‘higher’ cognition
Synthese, 2018
In this paper, we address the question of how an agent can guide its behavior with respect to aspects of the sociomaterial environment that are not sensorily present. A simple example is how an animal can relate to a food source while only sensing a pheromone, or how an agent can relate to beer, while only the refrigerator is directly sensorily present. Certain cases in which something is absent have been characterized by others as requiring 'higher' cognition. An example of this is how during the design process architects can let themselves be guided by the future behavior of visitors to an exhibit they are planning. The main question is what the sociomaterial environment and the skilled agent are like, such that they can relate to each other in these ways. We argue that this requires an account of the regularities in the environment. Introducing the notion of general ecological information, we will give an account of these regularities in terms of constraints, information and the form of life or ecological niche. In the first part of the paper, we will introduce the skilled intentionality framework as conceptualizing a special case of an animal's informational coupling with the environment namely skilled action. We will show how skilled agents can pick up on the regularities in the environment and let their behavior be guided by the practices in the form of life. This conceptual framework is important for radical embodied and enactive cognitive science, because it allows these increasingly influential paradigms
2023
This book (a Cambridge Element) discusses contemporary theories of embodied cognition, including what has been termed the “4Es” (embodied, embedded, extended, and enactive cognition). It examines diverse approaches to questions about the nature of the mind, the mind’s relation to the brain, perceptual experience, mental representation, sensemaking, the role of the environment, and social cognition, and it considers the strengths and weaknesses of the theories in question. It contrasts embodied and enactive views with classic cognitivism, and discusses major criticisms and their possible resolutions. The bok also provides a strong focus on enactive theory and the prospects for integrating enactive approaches with other embodied and extended theories, mediated through recent developments in predictive processing and the free-energy principle. It concludes with a brief discussion of the practical applications of embodied cognition.
In this paper, we address the question of how an agent can guide its behavior with respect to aspects of the sociomaterial environment that are not sensorily present. A simple example is how an animal can relate to a food source while only sensing a pheromone, or how an agent can relate to beer, while only the refrigerator is directly sensorily present. Certain cases in which something is absent have been characterized by others as requiring 'higher' cognition. An example of this is how during the design process architects can let themselves be guided by the future behavior of visitors to an exhibit they are planning. The main question is what the sociomaterial environment and the skilled agent are like, such that they can relate to each other in these ways. We argue that this requires an account of the regularities in the environment. Introducing the notion of general ecological information, we will give an account of these regularities in terms of constraints, information, and the form of life or ecological niche. In the first part of the paper, we will introduce the Skilled Intentionality Framework (SIF) as conceptualizing an animal's informational coupling with the environment. We will show how skilled agents can pick up on the regularities in the environment and let their behavior be guided by the practices in the form of life. This conceptual framework is important for radical embodied and enactive cognitive science, because it allows these increasingly influential paradigms to extend their reach to forms of 'higher' cognition such as long-term planning and imagination.
Es are Good: Cognition as Enacted, Embodied, Embedded, Affective and Extended
Consciousness in interaction, 2012
We present a specific elaboration and partial defense of the claims that cognition is enactive, embodied, embedded, affective and (potentially) extended. According to the view we will defend, the enactivist claim that perception and cognition essentially depend upon the cognizer’s interactions with their environment is fundamental. If a particular instance of this kind of dependence obtains, we will argue, then it follows that cognition is essentially embodied and embedded, that the underpinnings of cognition are inextricable from those of affect, that the phenomenon of cognition itself is essentially bound up with affect, and that the possibility of cognitive extension depends upon the instantiation of a specific mode of skillful interrelation between cognizer and environment. Thus, if cognition is enactive then it is also embodied, embedded, affective and potentially extended.
Affordances and Intentionality: Reply to Roberts
Journal of Mind and Behavior, 2009
In this essay we respond to some criticisms of the guidance theory of representation offered by Tom Roberts. We argue that although Roberts' criticisms miss their mark, he raises the important issue of the relationship between affordances and the action-oriented representations proposed by the guidance theory. Affordances play a prominent role in the anti-representationalist accounts offered by theorists of embodied cognition and ecological psychology, and the guidance theory is motivated in part by a desire to respond to the ...