Abstract

The enactivist term mental institution was introduced to the situated cognition debate to conceptualize profound coherencies between cognitive processes and institutional settings. This article starts by criticizing the idea of mental institutions since it is frequently said that they are complex epistemic actions. By making explicit what “epistemic action” actually refers to, it becomes apparent that mental institutions cannot be seen as a complex form of such an action. In the second step, the mental institution idea is retained and supported by distinguishing two kinds of epistemic actions: short-term epistemic actions and long-term epistemic actions. Mental institutions cannot be treated as short-term epistemic actions as this kind of action requires computationalist commitments about which enactivists are explicitly critical. However, they can be considered as long-term epistemic actions—as settings which allow the planning and designing of short-term epistemic actions.