With Gallagher’s Enactivist Interventions we have another book which is in a large part a collection of papers published previously in journals or as chapters of books. It is true that in this case they have been all significantly revised or expanded. Yet the volume has no book-conceived structure and bringing together several relatively independent items produces as a result occasional redundancies (although the chapters are as much reworked as to contain cross references). The upside is that the chapters may be read in any order and, given that some of them are easier than others, the book becomes more accessible also to readers unfamiliar with the topic. And the topic is to present and argue for an enactivist approach, which is a holistic way of understanding human cognition. The holism is needed because the brain, which is traditionally meant to be the subject of cognition, is embodied and the body cannot be analysed in isolation from the environment in which it lives. Hence a recurrent triad: brain-cum-body-cum-environment.

In Ch. 1 (Introduction) Gallagher presents and briefly discusses recent versions of the view that cognition is an in-the-head event and then contrasts them with enactivism, i.e. a view that cognition is an in-the-world event. The latter position was anticipated by phenomenologist (esp. Husserl’s concept of ‘I can’, Heidegger’s concept of ready-to-hand and Merleau-Ponty’s focus on embodied practice). As Gallagher says, the “[e]nactivist versions of E[mbodied]C[cognition] emphasize the idea that perception is for action, and that action-orientation shapes most cognitive processes” (5). Given an action is performed in the world and with the help of the body, the three elements (mind, body, environment) are crucial for action and for our understanding of how and why it is performed. On enactivist view an action is conceived as performed by a dynamical system which consists of the three parts. This may be illustrated by a player who tries to catch a ball. According to the enactivist view to account for what happens requires taking into consideration that “the ball […] is ‘out there’ in the world” (14) and the player acts in the world.

In Ch. 2 (Variations on Embodied Cognition) Gallagher overviews a number of approaches to embodied cognition in order to identify the enactivist position. The differences between approaches concern the role of the body in general and the relation between the body and the brain in particular. For instance, according to the ‘weak’ embodiment approach the brain is not included in the body. By contrast, the extended mind approach takes the body to be a part of the whole “cognitive system that starts with the brain and includes body and environment” (35). Finally, the radical version argues that “perception is for action, and that this action-orientation shapes most cognitive processes” (40); that there is no action undertaken without the body as well as the physical social and cultural contexts, which, often and largely, have influenced human brain’s evolution.

Ch. 3 (Pragmatic Resources for Enactive and Extended Minds) is about American pragmatism as a forerunner of enactivist approach. This is historically important insofar as several concepts now central in enactivism were discussed already by Peirce, Dewey, and Mead. These are, first of all, the view that “the cognitive agent is more than a brain in a vat; rather, the brain is one part of a body in which dynamical regulation goes both ways” (51), but also Dewey’s concept of situation, for instance.

Enactive intentionality is discussed in Ch. 4 (Enactive Intentionality). Gallagher starts by underlining that the concept of intentionality is not well grounded. It is disputed even among those who follow Brentano’s adage (intentionality as a distinguishing mark of the mental). It is, therefore, more accurate to consider as intentional also bodily actions (e.g. sexuality, gestures, head nods, following Merleau-Ponty). After discussing the Brentanian, the neo-Cartesian, the neo-behaviorist, and the neo-pragmatist views of intentionality – all problematic for Gallagher – he comes to enactive intentionality which is see to “emotional expressions and contextualized actions” of other persons as “meaningful in terms of how we might respond to or interact with them” (77-78). This is operative intentionality which functions in the realm of intersubjectivity and engagement with the environment.

In Ch. 5 (Action without Representation) Gallagher attacks representationalism. The reason for this is that perception-action processes need not to be interpreted as representational. As in the previous chapter, Gallagher starts by pointing to disagreement among his opponents, here about what counts as a representation. But he offers also other arguments against representationalist approach to action. For instance, there are cases of action when there is strictly no time to represent it. In such cases action is cognitively situated rather than represented. If people – unlike robots who may be provided with representations – are cognitively situated, it is largely because of their evolution, culture as well as intuitive and emotionally informed responses. This is why whether an action is successful or not depends on how well a person is situated in relation to it. If she is not in the right distance and in the right kind of light to see the object, she modifies the components of her environment in order to be better situated to perform the action. As Gallagher concludes, “[a]ction involves temporal processes that can be better explained in terms of dynamical systems of self-organizing continuous reciprocal causation” (105).

In Ch. 6 (Perception without Inferences) Gallagher argues against an inference model of perception. To this end he suggests new vocabulary and different assumptions: the human brain is not only not isolated from the human body, “but rather is dynamically coupled to a body that is dynamically coupled to an environment”. In a word, “[c]o-variance is physical variance across all parameters – brain, body, environment” (115). People’s abilities are determined by not only their brains (which are determined by evolution which, in turn, is determined by environment) but also by their bodily parameters, e.g. their size, individual plasticity as well as the current circumstances in which they happen to be. We should suppose that the current circumstances in which they happen to be are seen not only with their eyes but also with their bodies. As one might expect, in the end the cognition in the enactivist picture is so complex that it is difficult to operationalize the model and put it under experimental tests[[1]].

It is reassuring that at this juncture Gallagher addresses the issue of free will (Ch. 7: Action and the Problem of Free Will), for I have started thinking about enactivism too much in determinist terms[[2]]. After reviewing the history of the debate and dismantling the conclusions of Libet’s experiments, he puts forward a distinction between motor control and free will, the former most often unconscious and automatic, the latter being a long-term phenomenon and applicable to intentional actions. Gallagher suggests “that the temporal framework for the exercise of free will is, at a minimum, the temporal framework that allows for the process to be informed by a specific type of consciousness” (145). A decision, if this be a free will based decision, is embedded or situated in a particular context of which one’s mind, one’s body and the current circumstances are important constituents. Were one’s engagement and history of personal experiences to be different, one’s decision would be different too. In a word, one’s free will is embodied and situated and, consequently, one’s decision results from reflective consciousness and engagement. Yet, even if “in situated reflective consciousness, certain things in the environment begin to matter to the agent” (146), I am not certain if the determinist chain, whether in the form of blind mechanism or intellectual behaviourism, is now broken or only redistributed to the three heterogeneous groups of factors such as my mind, my body and my environment. After all, a question still remains: what determines such-and-such decision is taken by such-and-such a mind coupled to such-and-such a body coupled to such-and-such environment in such-and-such a situation?

In Ch. 8 (Making Enactivism Even More Embodied) Gallagher expands the range of enactivism: it is not only about action. Embodied approach is helpful also in understanding important features of affectivity and intersubjectivity. Unfortunately, the section on affectivity is undeveloped since it offers trivial examples of how one is partial depending on being hungry or how one is concerned when motivated by affect. This is, I am afraid, strange insofar as being concerned or interested in what one is doing involves an affect as well. We face the Eutyphro dilemma: am I interested in accomplishing a task because I like it or I like it because I am interested in accomplishing it? To tell that “the particularities of affect will differ from one individual to another, or from one day to another, from morning to night” (154) is another platitude[[3]]. Gallagher offers more interesting thoughts on intersubjectivity although, I suppose, anyone familiar with psychotherapeutic technics will recognize the importance of body (gesture, touch, gait, facial expression, vocal intonation) for interpersonal relationships and interactions. A claim that “oftentimes objects that fall outside of such lines [of significance and value] don’t even register” (159) is to me a nice echo of the famous fragment of Protagoras.

The next chapter (Ch. 9: The Upright Posture) discusses the disadvantages and advantages of the upright posture. If humans adopted it, advantages must have prevailed. Gallagher treats it in view of human cognition. Several aspects such as free hands, enhancement of vision, decline of olfaction, development of language contributed to human cognition which, again, is better understood as embodied cognition. This is because upright posture provides humans with a broader range of possibilities than in the case of quadrupedal animals. Gallagher’s line of reasoning is cleverly illustrated by his siding with Anaxagoras (“we humans are the wisest of all beings because we have hands”) against Aristotle (“[m]an has hands because he is the wisest of all beings”) (174-175). This is true, Gallagher argues, insofar as brain is restructured when the hands play the piano or other musical instruments and not the other way round.

In the last chapter (Ch. 10: The Practice of Thinking) Gallagher deals with the so-called “scaling-up” problem. This is a reply to the claim that the enactivist approach is unable to explain higher-order cognitive capabilities (memory, imagination, reflective judgment). Gallagher appeals to complex tasks which presuppose seeing, remembering and imagining such as hominin tool-making (after Hutto) or building (when it consists in precisely placing irregularly shaped stones, as in Ireland) – to this I would add musical or poetical improvisation. If seeing, remembering and imagining are themselves conceived as actions, it is clear that they too are better accounted for from the enactivist point of view. The reason to do so is that they are linked together and, again, operate in continuity, not in isolation. As such they are functions of the brain which is embodied and cognitively situated. The example which is puzzling is doing the math. Gallagher claims that mathematics are the most abstract of cognitive accomplishments only seemingly. I am not sure if his treatment is fair enough, for his examples are using fingers to count, hand-held calculator etc. I don’t know how much mathematicians rely on their bodies and environment but to give another example: there are composers and music lovers who don’t need music performance, a script is sufficient for them[[4]]. Encouragingly, Gallagher repeats that “action-orientation shapes most cognitive processes” (5, 40, my underlining). If this proviso is to be taken literally, I would like to know what lies outside the majority.

With this we arrive, however, at a more general problem. If mathematics are, as Gallagher suggests, practice based or depending on the triad brain-cum-body-cum-environment, what about philosophy then? If Gallagher answers that doing philosophy is much the same, we should – if we agree with him – bid farewell to contemplative philosophy, eternal values, platonic ideas and, what is worse, we should conclude that enactivism is but a result of embodied minds situated so-and-so. On the other hand I am very sympathetic to Gallagher’s scepticism regarding the thought experiments, especially those involving the brain in the vat. Since humans cannot be reduced to it, what such experiment could prove, one may ask.

In this context I must add that Gallagher’s book abounds in examples from experiments, e.g. the one conducted by Milner and Goodale with visual agnosia patients (see 177-178). On the whole this is nicely produced book, useful and pleasing to read[[5]]. I recommend it strongly.

In the end, I would like to ask a question: are the three elements forming the whole system and the roles they play distinguishable? I would like to learn about it because if they are coupled to each other in a seamless way, how can they be still analyzable. But if they are discrete, to a minimal degree at least, we may hope that there is room for what organizes the three element system. But what it is, we are still looking for.

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[[1]] Another obstacle to do this is that laboratory’s condition and environment don’t replicate humans’ everyday situation. This gap is, on enactivist approach, crucial.

[[2]] Despite this I have an impression that autonomy is poorly treated by Gallagher or/and by enactivism, be it explicitly or even in the background. What he says is that “the intentionality of action involves some [sic] form of autonomy” (132). In the index there is no such entry either.

[[3]] Note that at the end of the chapter Gallagher acknowledges this: “Very few people deny that the body and environment are playing some role in cognitive processes” (163).

[[4]] I asked a colleague, a mathematician (analytical number theorist), who confirmed what seemed to me to be the case: humans’ having ten fingers, of course, determined our decimal system. With, say, seven fingers we would have had a septenary system of counting. Yet the values, operations and the very essence of the mathematics would have been the same.

[[5]] I noticed very few misprints. One may smile at an often misspelling: Pierce (52, n. 4).

 

© 2018 Robert Zaborowski

 

Robert Zaborowski, thymos2001@yahoo.fr, University of Warmia and Mazury