An enactive account of placebo effects.
Biology & philosophy January 1, 2017 Giulio Ongaro, Dave Ward 24 citations
Placebos are typically seen as ineffective treatments because they lack a known mechanism linking their properties to the condition being treated, yet they can produce substantial therapeutic effects. This puzzle arises from the relationship between culturally meaningful entities like treatments, our intentional attitudes such as beliefs about healing, and bodily placebo responses. An enactive conception of cognition, which views an organism's adaptive bodily processes, its intentional directedness, and meaningful environmental properties as co-emergent aspects of a single dynamic system, accommodates and demystifies placebo effects by explaining the interrelations between mind, body, and world.