The Embodied Mind PDF
by Adam Robbert
The book is still a classic in my opinion and it seems that someone has been kind enough to upload the full pdf of the text HERE (h/t Cliff Gerrish). I also highly recommend Evan Thompson’s more recent book Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind. Below I have included the description to the The Embodied Mind for those interested.
Although the scientific study of the mind has developed rapidly in recent years, it has devoted little attention to human cognition understood as everyday lived experience. The Embodied Mind corrects this imbalance within cognitive science by providing a deep and sophisticated treatment of the spontaneous and reflective dimensions of human experience. Varela, Thompson, and Rosch argue that it is only by having a sense of common ground, between mind in science and mind in experience that our understanding of cognition can be more complete. To create this common ground they develop a dialogue between cognitive science and Buddhist meditative psychology and situate this dialogue in relation to other traditions, such as phenomenology and psychoanalysis.
The dialogue proceeds in five parts. The first introduces the two partners and explains how the dialogue will develop. The second presents the computational model of mind that gave rise to cognitive science in its classical form. The authors show how this model implies that the self is fundamentally fragmented and introduce the complementary Buddhist concept of a nonunified, decentralized self. The third shows how cognitive science and Buddhist psychology provide the resources for understanding how the phenomena usually attributed to a self could arise without an actual self. The fourth presents the authors’ own view of cognition as embodied action and discusses the relevance of this view for cognitive science and evolutionary theory. The fifth considers the philosophical and experiential implications of the view that cognition has no foundation or ground beyond its history of embodiment and explores these implications in relation to contemporary Western critiques of objectivism and the nonfoundationalist tradition of Buddhist philosophy.
Publisher MIT Press, 1992
ISBN 0262720213, 9780262720212
328 pages
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/philosopherszone/pze-250312/3906140
As I’m listening to Robert Rupert I hear him saying that, as far as defining what counts as a cognitive process goes, we should limit ourselves to that which is central to all cognitive processes (i.e., the brain inside your skull) rather than include the multiplicity of objects that might become participant in some specific cognitive act (i.e., using a pen and paper to perform some mental operation).
But by suggesting that we limit cognition to only its core processes (in the brain) we seem to fail at understanding how that brain is already constituted by a variety of environmental factors. So, for example, Rupert discusses the interest extended mind theorists have had with the role literacy has played in the constitution of new forms of consciousness (citing the widely-held hypothesis that literate societies are in some substantial way different from pre-literate societies). If I’m hearing him right, Rupert suggests that this historical analysis is all well and good, but his interest is in how the brain is constituted internally here and now; and not as it changes as part of some historical trend.
If this is a correct reading of Rupert’s analysis, then I would say my difference with him is that I take the implication of environmental factors (say, the pen and paper again) in cognitive activity as not only influential at the moment of use, but has an enduring influence upon future cognitive activity and, moreover, because of the nature of media environments, will have an increasing impact on the minds of the people inhabiting those environments (which will tend towards repeat use). In this sense I don’t think we can study cognitive organization outside of the (media/knowledge) contexts in which it is being studied, even if there are certain physical parameters brains require to operate.
Where I fully agree with Rupert is on the issue of equivocating cognitive functions internal to the brain with the use of media such as pens and paper. Just because the latter is implicated into cognitive activity, doesn’t necessitate that it is on the same footing as the brain’s activity itself, just that both are necessary to understand the mind’s own enaction.
sounds good, I’m still amazed to find these kinds of discussions on the ‘radio’, this might be of interest:
http://herts.academia.edu/DanielDHutto/Papers/185143/Enactivism_Why_be_Radical
The account with the book has been suspended.
The book source site is suspended.
The book is no longer available for download