Scholars who engage with texts that were written by George Herbert Mead (e.g., 1925e.g., 1926e.g., 1929e.g., 1932e.g., 1938) in the latter half of the 1920s are faced with the task of comprehending Mead’s interpretation of relativity theory and also understanding why relativity theory was considered by Mead to have such profound implications for his own philosophy. As several scholars of Mead’s work have explained (e.g., Joas 1997; Martin 2007; Rosenthal and Bourgeois 1991), Mead was a realist. Mead opposed psychophysical dualism (...) (Cook 1979) and both the behaviorist and the idealist implications that could follow from such a dualism. He wanted to explain human conduct in terms of the self-determination of human .. (shrink)

In this essay, I respond to the critical remarks of Louise Barrett, Amanda Corris and Anthony Chemero, and Daniel Hutto on my book Enactivist Interventions. In doing so, I consider whether behaviorism can make a contribution to enactivist theory, whether synergies are the same as dynamical gestalts, and whether the brain can add anything to mathematical reasoning.

Issues of communication and the possibilities for the transformation of perspectives through an experimental dialogue resulting in a mutual, open, receptive, and non-judgmental consideration of the other are addressed in this paper from transdisciplinary theoretical and conceptual standpoints. The warrant for cultivating this type of communicative ability is based on arguments resulting from the assumption of widespread confusion and conflict in intrapersonal, interpersonal, intergroup, and ecological relations across the globe. I argue that there are two distinct classes of “reasons” for (...) this proposed practice of dialogue. First is recognition of the need for human individuals to engage in a regular and systematic “social maintenance” of embodied consciousness to forestall the continuous colonization of the past/future on the living present that embodied consciousness entails. Second is the teaching of a skill to creatively and respectfully engage with others in a mutual transformation of perspectives. This paper addresses the general problem of perspectives and reflexivity at the root of the communication phenomenon and by extension – to its scale and to its pathologies in individuals and collectives. It is argued that suspension of judgment, assumption, and habit helps interlocutors to recognize the possibility of holding one's history in a tensional abeyance and to focus on the living present independent of habitualized and reified identities and the embodied manner in which we unconsciously carry ourselves as social or “universalized selves” in social situations. (shrink)

The aim of the article is to outline several valuable elements of Mead’s pragmatist theory of perception in action developed in his The Philosophy of the Act, in order to strengthen the pragmatist legacy of the enactivist approach. In particular, Mead’s theory of perception in action turns out to be a forerunner of sensorimotor enactivist theory. Unlike the latter, however, Mead explicitly refers to imagery as an essential capacity for agency. Nonetheless, the article argues that the ways in which Mead (...) refers to this capacity do not necessarily place it in opposition to enactivist non-representationalism. On the contrary, as a synthetic process of re-presenting of present and past sensorimotor elements, imagery can be seen as the hallmark of a pragmatically inspired sensorimotor enactivist approach that bypasses the opposition between representationalists and non-representationalists. (shrink)

Despite its short historical moment in the sun, behaviorism has become something akin to a theoria non grata, a position that dare not be explicitly endorsed. The reasons for this are complex, of course, and they include sociological factors which we cannot consider here, but to put it briefly: many have doubted the ambition to establish law-like relationships between mental states and behavior that dispense with any sort of mentalistic or intentional idiom, judging that explanations of intelligent behavior require reference (...) to qualia and/or mental events. Today, when behaviorism is discussed at all, it is usually in a negative manner, either as an attempt to discredit an opponent’s view via a reductio, or by enabling a position to distinguish its identity and positive claims by reference to what it is (allegedly) not. In this paper, however, we argue that the ghost of behaviorism is present in influential, contemporary work in the field of embodied and enactive cognition, and even in aspects of the phenomenological tradition that these theorists draw on. Rather than take this to be a problem for these views as some have, we argue that once the behaviorist dimensions are clarified and distinguished from the straw-man version of the view, it is in fact an asset, one which will help with task of setting forth a scientifically reputable version of enactivism and/or philosophical behaviorism that is nonetheless not brain-centric but behavior-centric. While this is a bit like “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” strategy, as Shaun Gallagher notes (2019), with the shared enemy of behaviorism and enactivism being classical Cartesian views and/or orthodox cognitivism in its various guises, the task of this paper is to render this alliance philosophically plausible. Doi: 10.1007/s11229-019-02432-1. (shrink)