Evolving Enactivism argues that cognitive phenomena—perceiving, imagining, remembering—can be best explained in terms of an interface between contentless and content-involving forms of cognition. Building on their earlier book Radicalizing Enactivism, which proposes that there can be forms of cognition without content, Daniel Hutto and Erik Myin demonstrate the unique explanatory advantages of recognizing that only some forms of cognition have content while others—the most elementary ones—do not. They offer an account of the mind in duplex terms, proposing a complex vision of mentality in which these basic contentless forms of cognition interact with content-involving ones. Hutto and Myin argue that the most basic forms of cognition do not, contrary to a currently popular account of cognition, involve picking up and processing information that is then used, reused, stored, and represented in the brain. Rather, basic cognition is contentless—fundamentally interactive, dynamic, and relational. In advancing the case for a radically enactive account of cognition, Hutto and Myin propose crucial adjustments to our concept of cognition and offer theoretical support for their revolutionary rethinking, emphasizing its capacity to explain basic minds in naturalistic terms. They demonstrate the explanatory power of the duplex vision of cognition, showing how it offers powerful means for understanding quintessential cognitive phenomena without introducing scientifically intractable mysteries into the mix.
Author
Born and raised in New York, I finished my undergraduate degree as a study abroad student in St Andrews, Scotland where my maternal roots lie. I returned to New York to teach fourth grade in the Bronx for a year in order to fund my MPhil in Logic and Metaphysics. I then carried on my doctoral work in York, England. We, my wife and three boys, lived in England for over 20 years. Australia is our new home since I took up the position of Professor of Philosophical Psychology and Head of Philosophy at the University of Wollongong, Australia in 2013. Previously I worked at the University of Hertfordshire since 1993, where I served as Head of Philosophy from 1999 to 2005. My research is a sustained attempt to understand human nature in a way which respects natural science but which nevertheless rejects the impersonal metaphysics of contemporary naturalism. My recent research focuses primarily on issues in philosophy of mind, psychology and cognitive science. I am best known for promoting thoroughly non-representational accounts of enactive and embodied cognition, and for having developed a hypothesis which claims that engaging with narratives, understood as public artefacts, plays a critical role in underpinning distinctively human forms of cognition. Reaching beyond philosophy, I have often been invited to speak at conferences and expert meetings aimed at anthropologists, clinical psychiatrists/therapists, educationalists, narratologists, neuroscientists and psychologists. I am called upon regularly to serve major research bodies worldwide: including the European Research Council (ERC); Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), UK; and the National Science Foundation (NSF)/National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), USA. Since migrating to Australia I have joined the Australian Research Council (ARC) College of Experts, and served as Chair of its Humanities and Creative Arts Panel. The following assessment, provided in support of my Readership application, is indicative of my intended style of approach: "He writes with polish, sophistication, direction and insight. Hutto exhibits a marvelous sense of adventure: he tries to tackle difficult problems and enthusiastically defends positions because they strike him as deep and best, not because they are popular or will readily get him published. Yet he publishes with ease." George Graham, August 1999.
