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Philosophy, Science, Cognition, Semiotics (PSCS) Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna DOTTORATO DI RICERCA IN Philosophy, Science, Cognition, Semiotics (PSCS) Ciclo XXX Settore Concorsuale di afferenza: 11/C4 Settore Scientifico disciplinare: M-Fil/05 THE PROBLEM OF REPRESENTATION BETWEEN EXTENDED AND ENACTIVE APPROACHES TO COGNITION Marta Caravà Presentata da: Coordinatore Dottorato Relatore Prof. Marco Beretta Prof. Claudio Paolucci Esame finale anno 2018 Table of Contents Abstract 1 Riassunto 2 List of Figures 3 List of Abbreviations 4 Introduction and plan of the work 5 I The Mind and its varieties. Alternative Minds in the Cognitive Sciences 9 I.1 Introduction. Approaching “4Es” 10 I.2 When we rise. From speculation to the “dirtiness” of 12 experience I.3 Moving the level of pertinence of semiotic systems. Towards an embodied account of meaning 23 I.4 Cognitive linguistics. Looking for an embodied matrix for meaning-acquisition 27 I.5 Grounded Cognition. Embodying modal representations 33 I.6 The body’s βίος. Towards the very materiality of the body 42 I.7 Making sense of inter-action. Enactivist Embodiment 47 I.8 Embedded Cognition. Discussing the project of locating cognition in externalities 62 I.9 The Extended Mind. A radical theory to extend the mind? 71 I.10 Concluding remarks. Convergences and tensions in the “4Es Cognition” debate 83 II Activating Representations. Looking for the whole story 88 II.1 Introduction. Approaching Action-Oriented Representations 89 II.2 Acting without representing? Practical knowledge and minimal representationalism 91 II.3 Cognitive experience is just being there…plus Action-Oriented Representations. Clark’s approach to AORs 109 II.4 Representational criteria. Peircean interventions 120 II.5 Objections against Clark’s AORs: Standing-for, Interpretability, Decouplability and the problem of activity in representation. Some Peircean suggestions 133 II.6 Enacting salience. Reassessing the enactivist proposal through Peirce’s indexicality 148 II.7 Concluding remarks 164 III Predictive Processing. The problem of representations 167 III.1 Introduction. Approaching Predictive Coding 168 III.2 Setting out the problem: the theoretical continuity between AORs and Predictive Processing 170 III.3 An internalistic version of Predictive Coding: Hohwy’s proposal 180 III.4 Clark’s approach to anticipatory mechanisms: extending Predictive Processing? 190 III.5 Clark’s Predictive Processing: representational flashbacks 201 III.6 The enactive approach to Predictive Processing: an alternative proposal 213 III.7 Concluding remarks 228 Conclusion and future work 230 Works cited 233 Web sources 255 Abstract Abstract Recent works in philosophy of mind and the cognitive sciences draw an “unconventional” picture of cognitive processes and of the mind. Instead of conceiving of cognition as a process that takes place within the boundaries of the skull and the skin, some contemporary theories claim that cognition is a situated process that encompasses the human agent’s boundaries. In particular, the Extended Mind Hypothesis (EMH) and the Enactive approach to cognition claim that embodied action is constitutive of cognitive processes, and thus of the mind. Although both theories give an “extended” or “extensive” picture of cognition and of the mind, they disagree on the epistemic value of internal representations. The EMH claims that we need to posit internal action- oriented representations (AORs). AORs would account for action-selection, action-control, and for the prediction of incoming perceptual information. The enactive approach to cognition argues against AORs. The concept of AOR does not fulfill the representational conditions necessary to talk about representations properly. Furthermore, AORs are expressive of an internalistic prejudice, which makes the EMH weak. Moreover, a semiotic analysis of AORs shows that these items called “representations” are not active at all. Therefore, the epistemic posit of AOR plays no interesting job in the project of extending the mind in virtue of a reassessment of the concept of representation aimed at making it embodied and active. Therefore I claim that the concept of AOR has to be rejected. Action- control, action-selection, and the anticipation of aspects of action-perception loops can be explained in a more enactive way. Embodied action in a field of affordances explains how agents respond selectively to environmental features and how action-perception loops are anticipated by the “affective agent”. Furthermore, the enactive approach to cognition - especially if coupled with a semiotic description of cognitive niches and with some insights from the affective sciences (e.g. appraisal of core relational themes) - gives an explanation of action that, in contrast to the EMH, is actually able to “extend the mind”. 1 Riassunto Riassunto Alcune ricerche contemporanee in filosofia della mente e scienze cognitive dipingono un’immagine della mente non convenzionale. Invece di concepire i processi cognitivi come qualcosa che accade nella testa, esse sostengono che la cognizione è un processo situato, che oltrepassa i confini dell’agente cognitivo umano. In particolare, l’Ipotesi della “Mente Estesa” e l’approccio enattivo alla cognizione sostengono che le azioni dei soggetti incarnati costituiscono i processi cognitivi, quindi anche la mente. Nonostante entrambe le teorie descrivano la mente e la cognizione come “estese”, c’è disaccordo circa il valore epistemico della nozione di rappresentazione interna. L’Ipotesi della “Mente Estesa” sostiene che la nostra teoria debba postulare rappresentazioni interne orientate all’azione. Queste spiegherebbero come il sistema cognitivo seleziona l’azione da performare e la controlla, e come esso anticipa l’informazione fornita dalla percezione. L’approccio enattivo alla cognizione argomenta contro le rappresentazioni interne orientate all’azione. Il concetto di rappresentazione orientata all’azione non rispetta i criteri secondo i quali si può parlare appropriatamente di rappresentazione. Inoltre, il concetto di rappresentazione orientata all’azione nasconde un pregiudizio internalista, che fa dell’Ipotesi della “Mente Estesa” una proposta debole. In aggiunta, considerazioni di natura semiotica sul concetto di rappresentazione orientata all’azione dimostrano che queste rappresentazioni non sono davvero concepite come processi attivi. Quindi il concetto di rappresentazione interna orientata all’azione non sembra essere utile nel progetto filosofico di una “Mente Estesa”, basato su una rielaborazione della nozione di rappresentazione in termini incarnati e attivi. Sostengo allora che il concetto di rappresentazione orientata all’azione debba essere abbandonato. Il controllo e la selezione dell’azione, così come gli aspetti anticipatori di processi cognitivi basati sulla circolarità di azione e percezione, possono essere spiegati facendo riferimento alla letteratura sull’approccio enattivo alla cognizione. L’azione del soggetto incarnato, performata in un ambiente fatto di affordance, spiega sia come il soggetto risponde agli stimoli ambientali in maniera selettiva, sia come i processi cognitivi basati sulla circolarità di azione e percezione sono anticipati da un soggetto emotivamente tonalizzato. Inoltre, l’approccio enattivo alla cognizione -specialmente se integrato con una descrizione semiotica delle nicchie cognitive e con alcuni concetti delle scienze dell’affettività, come quello di valutazione delle emozioni di base- fornisce una spiegazione dell’azione che, contrariamente all’Ipotesi della “Mente Estesa”, è davvero in grado di “estendere la mente”. 2 List of figures List of Figures Figure 1 A-modal Symbol Systems 36 Figure 2 Perceptual Symbol Systems 38 Figure 3 Body, Action, Context, and Representation in second-wave 87 Cognitive Sciences Figure 4 Chains of Triads 142 Figure 5 Micro-level semiosis 145 Figure 6 Markov Blanket 182 3 List of abbreviations List of Abbreviations CP: Peirce, C. S. (1931-58), Collected Papers of Charles S. Peirce, Cambridge (MA), Harvard University Press. EP: Peirce, C.S. (1992-98), The Essential Peirce. Selected philosophical writings, Bloomington, Indiana University Press. MS: C.S. Peirce’s Manuscripts, according to the classification given in R. S. Robin (1967) Annotated Catalogue of the Papers of Charles S. Peirce, Cambridge, Cambridge (MA), The University of Massachussets Press. SS: Hardwick, C., S. (1977) [Ed.], Semiotics and Significs: The correspondace between Charles S. Peirce and Victoria Lady Welby, Bloomington, Indiana University Press. W: Peirce, C. S. (1982-2009), Writings of Charles S. Peirce. A Chronological Edition, Bloomington, Indiana University Press. 4 Introduction and plan of the work Introduction and plan of the work For the past twenty-five years, research in cognitive sciences have promoted a paradigm shift. First-wave cognitive science, sometimes called “Cartesian Cognitive Science” (Anderson 2003; Rowlands 2010; Wheeler 2005), identified cognition -and then the mind- with sub-personal computations on internal representations. The mind was said to stop at the boundaries of our skull. More recent approaches to cognitive sciences and philosophy of mind known as 4Es (Embedded, Embodied, Extended, Enactive Cognition) question this claim. On the one hand, those theories claim that this classical paradigm for the study of the mind is not explanatory enough. The identification of the mind’s boundaries with an internal representational software does not explain what agents do in everyday cognitive practices. Usually we
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