PROPOSTAS ENATIVAS E A QUESTÃO DA CONTINUIDADE ENTRE FORMAS DE COGNIÇÃO

We examine two varieties of enactivism: Hutto and Myin’s (2013;2017) self-proclaimed radical enactivism (REC), and the one we encounter in Di Paolo, Cuffari and De Jeagher’s (2018). The former mainly focuses on takes the task of identifying difficulties internal to any theory that intends to deploy a naturalized notion of semantic content to account for living organisms’ perceptual and motor capacities. By tracing a division between lower and higher cognition, RECers distinguish intuitively complex cognitive faculties from mere perception and bodily movement. This brings forward to RECers the burden of reconciling basic and higher cognition under a continuous explanatory line. The second trend we will examine is one that ends up making the first one seem too conservative, insofar as its program consists in eliminating any borderly line between basic and higher cognition, thus establishing a naturalistic continuity between life and language. We will argue, thus, that Di Paolo, Cuffari and De Jeagher’s proposal at the same time both accomplishes Hutto and Myin’s goals and avoids its traps.