From function to freedom: enactivism between being and becoming
Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences January 24, 2026 DOI: 10.1007/s11097-025-10119-x (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Philosophical or theoretical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Philosophy of mind |
| Keywords | Enactivism Metaphysics Dialectic Reductionism Function biology Supervenience Ontology Autopoiesis Epistemology Phenomenology philosophy Internalism and externalism Constructivism international relations Neurophenomenology Organicism Objectivism Philosophy of science |
| Key points | Argues that the turn toward affirmationist ontologies is metaphysically incompatible with enactivism's foundational commitments, and proposes an alternative framework grounded in Hans Jonas's account of life. |
Abstract
Abstract Enactivism is undergoing a metaphysical shift. In pursuit of a more open-ended account of organismic becoming, several theorists have turned to the “affirmationist” ontologies of Gilbert Simondon and Gilles Deleuze. These frameworks conceive becoming as a non-teleological process in which identities emerge as contingent actualizations of pre-individual fields. In this paper, I argue that this turn is metaphysically incompatible with enactivism’s foundational commitments to self-organizing organismic totalities. As an alternative, I develop a metaphysical framework that preserves these commitments while dispensing with functionalist assumptions immenent to contemporary enactivism. I begin by establishing enactivism’s metaphysical alignment with Marxist dialectical materialism. This renders enactivism’s functionalist outlook more legible and clarifies its tensions with affirmationist metaphysics. From here, I turn to Hans Jonas’s account of life, which I reinterpret as resisting the reduction of purpose to organizational maintenance. For Jonas, life grounds meaning, affect, and activity in the dynamic structure of living form, rather than in its instrumental functions. This reorientation offers enactivism a renewed foundation for theorizing purposiveness, autonomy, and change.