The experiential basis of concepts: integrating embodied and enactive accounts.
Frontiers in Psychology 2025 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1710102 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Philosophy of mind |
| Keywords | Conceptual metaphors Cultural evolution Embodied concepts Enactivism Language acquisition Neurobiology Participatory sense-making |
| Citations | 2 |
| Key points | Argues that concepts remain anchored in corporeal and intersubjective experience, integrating embodiment, language, and culture, rather than being free-floating symbols. |
Abstract
The paper argues for an embodied and enactive view of linguistic concepts as a solution to the "scaling up" problem, namely the transition from embodied experience to symbolic and abstract thought. Drawing on phenomenology, neurobiology, conceptual metaphor theory and enactivism, it aims to demonstrate the constitutive role of the body and intersubjectivity in concept formation. Concrete concepts ("chair", "table", etc.) emerge from sensorimotor interactions with the environment which are transformed into simulated actions, while abstract concepts-such as "space", "time", "truth", and others-arise both through metaphorical extensions of bodily experience and participatory sense-making in social contexts. Neurobiological findings support this view, showing strong connections between language processing, sensorimotor and social brain systems, and tracing language evolution to exaptation or reuse of motor coordination areas. Phenomenological analysis then highlights how bodily or operative intentionality underlies grammatical structures, and how concepts retain their roots in action and interaction even when abstracted. As examples, the study explores container schemas as the embodied basis of categorization and analyzes the bodily origins of space, time, causality, and moral concepts. In sum, concepts are not free-floating symbols but remain anchored in corporeal and intersubjective experience, thus integrating embodiment, language, and culture. Human reason proves to be not disembodied, but fundamentally rooted in embodied interaction and intersubjective practice.
Comparable studies
Other theoretical and historical papers on philosophy of mind, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Psychosis as a state of aberrant salience: a framework linking biology, phenomenology, and pharmacology in schizophrenia. | 2003 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| From dopamine to salience to psychosis--linking biology, pharmacology and phenomenology of psychosis. | 2005 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| How do the brain's time and space mediate consciousness and its different dimensions? Temporo-spatial theory of consciousness (TTC). | 2017 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| The phenomenology of deep brain stimulation-induced changes in OCD: an enactive affordance-based model. | 2013 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Looking for the Self: Phenomenology, Neurophysiology and Philosophical Significance of Drug-induced Ego Dissolution | 2017 | Theoretical or philosophical paper |
Citations in the library
Cited by 2
- PHENOMENOLOGICAL EXPLICATION OF INTEROCEPTIVE EXPERIENCE IN TRAUMA-FOCUSED ACCEPTANCE AND COMMITMENT THERAPY: CONCEPTS, PRINCIPLES, AND RESEARCH METHODOLOGY Bulletin of Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv Philosophy May 29, 2026
- Rights Without Earth: Dynamics of the Nature/Law Chiasm in Outer Space International Journal for the Semiotics of Law - Revue internationale de Sémiotique juridique April 2, 2026