The Body Surpassed Towards the World and Perception Surpassed Towards Action: A Comparison between Enactivism and Sartre’s Phenomenology
Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy June 15, 2020 DOI: 10.5195/jffp.2020.927 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Philosophy of mind |
| Key points | Argues that although enactivism and Sartre's phenomenology share key commitments such as perception-action unity, anti-representationalism, anti-internalism, organism-environment interaction, and sense-making cognition, they develop these in different directions; proposes that Sartre's existentialist phenomenology can broaden enactivist accounts of consciousness and cognition through a pluralist account of corporeality and a non-detached conception of subjectivity. |
Abstract
Enactivism maintains that the mind is not produced and localized inside the head but is distributed along and through brain-body-environment interactions. This idea of an intrinsic relationship between the agent and the world derives from the classical phenomenological investigations of the body (Merleau-Ponty in particular). This paper discusses similarities and differences between enactivism and Jean-Paul Sartre’s phenomenology, which is not usually considered as a paradigmatic example of the relationship between phenomenological investigations and enactivism (or 4E theories in general). After a preliminary analysis of the three principal varieties of enactivism (sensorimotor, autopoietic and radical), I will present Sartre’s account of the body, addressing some key points that can be related to the current enactivist positions: perception-action unity, anti-representationalism, anti-internalism, organism-environment interaction, and sense-making cognition. Despite some basic similarities, enactivism and Sartre’s phenomenology move in different directions as to how these concepts are developed. Nevertheless, I will suggest that Sartre’s phenomenology is useful to the enactivist approaches to provide a broader and more complete analysis of consciousness and cognition, by developing a pluralist account of corporeality, enriching the investigation of the organism-environment coupling through an existentialist perspective, and reincluding the concept of subjectivity without the hypostatisation of an I-subject detached from body and world.
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
Cites 5
- Autonomy and Enactivism: Towards a Theory of Sensorimotor Autonomous Agency Topoi September 1, 2017
- The Enactive Conception of Life The Oxford Handbook of 4E Cognition October 9, 2018
- Sensorimotor and Enactive Approaches to Consciousness March 15, 2018
- Expanding the Extended Mind: Merleau-Ponty’s Late Ontology as Radical Enactive Cognition July 8, 2016
- The body social: an enactive approach to the self. Frontiers in Psychology September 12, 2014