Editorial

Epistemological Odyssey
Introduction to Special Issue on the Diversity
of Enactivism and Neurophenomenology
Sebastjan Vörös • University of Ljubljana, Slovenia • sebastjan.voros/at/gmail.com
Tom Froese • National Autonomous University of Mexico, Mexico • t.froese/at/gmail.com
Alexander Riegler • Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium • ariegler/at/vub.ac.be

> Context • In the past two decades, the so-called 4E approaches to the mind and cognition have been rapidly gaining
in recognition and have become an integral part of various disciplines. > Problem • Recently, however, questions have
been raised as to whether, and to what degree, these diferent approaches actually cohere with one another. Specii-
cally, it seems that many of them endorse mutually incompatible, perhaps even contradictory, epistemological and
metaphysical presuppositions. > Method • By retracing the roots of an alternative conception of mind and cognition,
as propounded by Varela, Thompson & Rosch, we provide an outline of the original philosophical framework of enac-
tivism and neurophenomenology. We focus on its three central tenets – relexivity, subject-world co-determination,
and the construal of cognition as situated, skillful and embodied action – and show how they collectively add up to
a radical change in attitude towards the age-old philosophical dilemmas. > Results • We show how contemporary
enactivist and embodied approaches relate to the original Varelian conception, and argue that many of them, de-
spite frequent claims to the contrary, adopt signiicantly less radical philosophical positions. Further, we provide some
tentative suggestions as to why this dilution of the original impetus might have occurred, paying special attention
to the deep-rooted disparities that span the ield. > Implications • It is argued that more attention should be paid to
epistemological and metaphysical tenets of diferent proposals within the 4E movement in general and enactivism
in particular. Additionally, in emphasizing the inescapable multilayeredness and contextuality of scientiic knowledge,
enactivism and neurophenomenology accord with pluralist accounts of science and might provide important contri-
butions to contemporary debates in the ield. > Constructivist content • The epistemological odyssey, construed as a
journey to ind a middle way between realism and idealism, is a central tenet of anti-representationalist, non-dualist
constructivist approaches aimed at avoiding age-old philosophical traps. > Key words • Francisco Varela, anti-repre-
sentationalism, cognitive science, enaction, mind/body problem, plurality, reflexivity.

Introduction
« 1 » In the past two decades, the ield of
cognitive science has undergone tumultu-
ous changes. It is safe to say that the spec-
tre of enactivism and embodiment, whose
non-cognitivist theories started haunting
the halls of cognitive science in the early
1990s, has now established irm roots in the
community: “Far from being at the gates,
the barbarians are, it seems, now occupy-
ing cafés in the heart of the city” (Hutto &
Myin 2013: 3). Many have jumped on the
enactivist bandwagon (Froese 2014: 1), and
many more are joining their ranks. he ield
is abuzz with E-acronyms: under the banner
of the revolutionary avant-garde, research-
ers are competing to provide the most “radi-
cal” version of the mind extended, embed-
ded, embodied, and/or enacted.
« 2 » his so-called 4E approach1 to the
mind and cognition has iniltrated numer-
ous disciplines – from neuroscience (Kiver-
stein & Miller 2015) through robotics and AI
(Pfeifer & Bongard 2007; Froese & Ziemke
2009), archaeology (Malafouris 2013), psy-
1 | Sometimes also referred to as the 4EA ap-
proach, if “afective” is added to the list (Ward &
Stapleton 2012). In general, it would seem that the
acronym keeps growing: while Julian Kiverstein
and Andy Clark (2009) speak only of three Es (see
the quotation in §3), there have now been sugges-
tions that perhaps “ecological” and “experiential”
(i.e., “phenomenological”) should be included in
the list (thus leading to a “6E[A]” designation).
189
chology (Ratclife 2007), to philosophy of
mind and phenomenology (Clark 1997, 2001;
Gallagher 2005; hompson 2007; Wheeler
2005) – and represents a serious challenge to
received views on various subjects: emotion
(Colombetti & hompson 2008; Colombetti
2014; Krueger 2014, varieties of extended
emotions), empathy (hompson 2001), tech-
nology (Clark 2003; De Preester 2011), social
interaction and intersubjectivity (Fuchs &
De Jaegher 2009; Froese & Fuchs 2012), con-
sciousness (Varela 1996; Bitbol 2008), as well
as schizophrenia (de Haan & Fuchs 2010;
Fuchs & Schlimme 2009), autism (De Jaegher
2013; Gallagher 2004), and a variety of other
clinical conditions (Kyselo & Di Paolo 2015;
de Haan, Rietveld & Denys 2015; Krueger &
Henriksen 2016), among other topics.

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« 3 » But amidst this vigorous activ-
ity, questions have started to emerge as to
whether, and to what degree, these difer-
ent 4E proposals actually cohere with one
another (Kiverstein & Clark 2009; Menary
2010; Rowlands 2010; Shapiro 2011).
“bodied,
[t]o what extent [is] the study of mind ‘em-
embedded, and enacted’ […] already
a uniied church with agreed central tenets, or
remains more of a motley, with some serious
disagreements hidden beneath that colorful um-
brella with the three large E’s emblazoned on its
”
surface? (Kiverstein & Clark 2009: 6)
« 4 » he same question could be raised
about the relationship of these E approach-
es to other contemporary and more or less
complementary approaches, such as ecologi-
cal psychology, situated cognition, radical
constructivism, and interactionism, as well
as the dynamical approach to development
and cognition.
« 5 » Several points of conlict have been
identiied, points that threaten to undermine
the purported unity behind the “large and
sheltering [E-]slogan” (ibid: 2): the problem
of (anti)representationalism, i.e., whether
any (however minimal) representations
should be allowed into the model of mind
and cognition (Clark 1997, 2001; Chemero
2009; Hutto & Myin 2013; Peschl & Riegler
1999; Wheeler 2005, 2008, 2009); the role of
self-organization and self-maintenance (au-
tonomy) of life in the constitution of cogni-
tion (Di Paolo 2009; Froese & Ziemke 2009;
hompson 2007); the exact nature of embodi-
ment and its role in the brain-body-world
dynamics (Clark 2008a, 2008b; Riegler 2002;
hompson & Stapleton 2009), etc. here is
little doubt that all these questions are im-
portant, but we will not try to tackle them
in this paper. Instead, we will focus on what
seems to be a frequently neglected problem,
which threatens to have serious implications
speciically for the enactivist movement.
« 6 » to get a clearer picture of the is-
sue at hand, we need to go back to the now
classical account of enactivism2 – glorious to
2 | to the best of our knowledge, Varela
used only the term “enaction” and never spoke
of “enactivism,” which seems to be a later coin-
age. Although seemingly trivial, the point bears
emphasizing, as it leaves open the possibility
ConStRuCtIVISt FounDAtIons vol. 11, n°2
some, notorious to others – as propounded
by Francisco Varela, Evan hompson and
Eleanor Rosch in he Embodied Mind (1991;
referred to as “tEM” hereater). here, as
the familiar story goes, the foundations of
an alternative conception of the mind were
laid, one that called for a “radical break with
formalisms of information-processing and
symbolic representations prevalent in cogni-
tive science” (Stewart, Gapenne & Di Paolo
2010: vii). of course, the ield has seen sig-
niicant development since the appearance of
its urtext, and some of the original formula-
tions have been extended, revised, or even
discarded, but the main contours remain
more or less the same. hus, from the enac-
tivist perspective, cognition is not to be con-
strued as information-processing, i.e., the use
and manipulation of symbolic (brain-instan-
tiated) representations of the external world,
but rather as embodied action, i.e., dynamic
interplay between the sensorimotor capaci-
ties of the organism and its environment.
Similarly, as pointed out by Susan Hurley
(1998), the mind is no longer conceived as
the “classic sandwich,” consisting of
ƒ perception (input)
ƒ cognition (information processing)
ƒ agency (output)
but rather as something more akin to a
“Escher Spaghetti” (Clark 1999: 4, 8), en-
compassing complex circular interactions
between the brain, body, and environment.
In short, due to theoretical and practical in-
adequacies of the classical view, a novel con-
ception of mind and cognition has been put
forward, one that breaks downs the old con-
ceptual barriers and greatly modiies or even
completely reshapes the ediice of cognitive
science.
« 7 » In what follows, we will discuss the
metaphysical, epistemological, and practical
implications of tEM, and sketch the present
situation.
that Varela intentionally refrained from using yet
another “-ism” so as to avoid conceiving his pro-
posal as a doctrine within a well-deined ield of
inquiry, with a ixed repertoire of conceptual and
methodological tools, etc. (see also §14 below).
For practical reasons, we have decided to retain
the word “enactivism,” but will argue for an “open”
or “pluralist” reading of the term (see the last sec-
tion). We are grateful to John Stewart and Pierre
Steiner for bringing this point to our attention.
The razor’s edge: Between
realism and idealism
« 8 » his construal of what tEM was
trying to accomplish, in a (literally) ground-
breaking book (see §13 below), is gener-
ally correct, but ultimately incomplete. For
while their goal was to provide an alterna-
tive conception of mind and cognition,
their reasons for doing so – and this is the
point that is usually brushed over – had
profound philosophical motives. Speciically,
the main goal was to ind a way to crack the
old chestnut of realism and idealism, and
thereby appease the existential and epis-
temological pangs of so-called “Cartesian
anxiety” (tEM: ch. 7).
« 9 » he idea itself precedes the pub-
lication of tEM and can already be found
in he Tree of Knowledge (1987), where
Maturana and Varela argue that, in order to
avoid the pitfalls of classical epistemology
and metaphysics, one needs to undertake
an “epistemologic[al] odyssey” and learn to
“take the middle road, right on the razor’s
edge,” i.e., sail “between the Scylla monster
of representation[al]ism and the Charyb-
dis whirlpool of solipsism” (ibid: 133f). In
his “Aterword” to the 1992 edition, Varela
emphasizes a deep continuity between his
ideas from that period and his later work
conducted under the aegis of “enaction”
(ibid: 255).3 his is clearly borne out by a
similar, though somewhat more nuanced
formulation, put forward in tEM (pub-
lished one year earlier), where the authors
point out that it is their goal to try and ne-
gotiate “a middle path between the Scylla
of cognition as the recovery of a pregiven
outer world (realism) and the Charybdis of
cognition as the projection of a pregiven in-
ner world (idealism)” (tEM: 172).
« 10 » Moreover, it is suggested that,
despite their seeming diferences, the two
extremes stem from the same root, namely
representation: “[I]n the irst case represen-
tation is used to recover what is outer; in
the second case it is used to project what
is inner” (ibid.: 172). What in he Tree of
3 | note that “continuity” does not imply
“identity”: closer inspection reveals that there are
important diferences between Varela’s older work
on autopoiesis and his later work on enaction
(Froese & Stewart 2010; Froese 2011b).

Knowledge was but one of the two traps on
the “epistemological odyssey” (representa-
tionalism) has now become a subterranean
current that provides sustenance to both
alternatives. he authors compare the age-
old metaphysical dilemma to the proverbial
dispute about what came irst, the chicken
(“the world out there has pregiven prop-
erties”) or the egg (“the cognitive system
projects its own world”). In other words, if
one accepts the inner as an epistemologi-
cal starting point, then the mind’s relation-
ship to the outer can only be conceived in
terms of the former either representing or
constructing the latter. But both of these
options can be said to sufer from problems
related to their one-sidedness, so a fruit-
ful way to proceed in such cases could be
to break through the old patterns of think-
ing and perceiving, and to reformulate the
problem – or more precisely, recalibrate
one’s attitude towards it – in such a way that
the old impasse never arises.
« 11 » he alternative approach put for-
ward in tEM can be roughly sketched in
terms of three interrelated steps (see Fig-
ure 1 further below).
« 12 » he irst step is to acknowledge
the ineradicable relexivity underlying all
our epistemic practices (Stewart, Gapenne
& Di Paolo 2010: xv), the impossibility of
“stepping behind one’s own back” and at-
taining the infamous “view from nowhere”
(nagel 1986). he cognitive scientist relect-
ing on human cognition is herself a human
cognizer engaged in cognizing.4 here is, in
the last analysis, no “Archimedean point”
that would enable us to take on a “neutral
perspective”: every viewpoint already pre-
supposes a certain standpoint (Vörös 2014).
According to Varela et al., the best way to
approach this inescapable “hermeneuti-
cal circle” is to posit the fundamental cir-
culation between “lived experience” and
4 | he similarities with Heinz von Foerster’s
second-order cybernetics cannot be overlooked.
As early as 1972, he emphasized the need for a
“theory of the observer” who is “a living being,
which means that in his theory he has not only to
account for himself, but also for his writing this
theory” (Foerster 1984: 258). Historically there
has been a vivid exchange between Varela and von
Foerster, see for example Varela’s (1984) introduc-
tion to the collection of von Foerster’s paper.
Editorial
Epistemological Odyssey Sebastjan Vörös et al.
“scientiic understanding” (tEM: 9–14),
i.e., to enable a continual back-and-forth
exchange between irst-person (phenom-
enological) and third-person (scientiic)
approaches to mind and consciousness. It
is only by taking this inescapable circularity
seriously that we may hope to arrive at an
“entre-deux” between a “disembodied eye
looking objectively at the play of phenom-
ena” and “subjectivism in which the mind
on its own ‘constructs’ the world” (ibid: 4),
between the realist attitude of disembodied
naturalism and the idealist attitude of “dis-
worlded” transcendentalism. his, as we
will see shortly, is also the main reason why
Varela proposed neurophenomenology to
be the lagship methodology of enactivism.
« 13 » In the second step, the authors
outline what they feel may be the closest
conceptual approximation of this inescap-
able circularity, namely the idea of co-de-
termination or mutual speciication of the
cognizing organism and its world (ibid: 150,
172, 202). In the words of the phenomenol-
ogist Maurice Merleau-Ponty:
“fromhea world is inseparable from the subject, but
subject which is nothing but a project of
the world, and the subject is inseparable from the
world, but from a world which the subject itself
”
projects. (Merleau-Ponty 1962: 430)
Put diferently, the cognizer does not de-
tect or recover information from a pregiv-
en world nor does it invent or construct a
world at whim; instead, the cognitive agent
and the world are “two sides of the same
coin, knower and known are mutually speci-
ied” (Varela in Maturana & Varela 1992:
253, emphasis added; see also tEM: 103).
« 14 » he third step follows directly
from the irst one and tries to lesh out this
skeletal notion of co-determination, which
it does by laying down the foundations for
a concrete anti-representationalist, “co-de-
terminist” model of cognition that would
avoid the old philosophical traps. he cen-
tral vehicle in this undertaking is the notion
of en-action construed as, to use homp-
son’s later formulation, “the exercise of skil-
ful know-how in situated and embodied
action” (hompson 2007: 11; see also tEM:
173). Instead of detection/creation or inter-
nalization/externalization of the features of
a discrete world by a discrete subject, the
subject and the world co-emerge from, and
are co-determined through, these recurrent
sensorimotor patterns.5 he embodied cog-
nizing agent can thus be said to both shape,
and at the same time be shaped by, the envi-
ronment (tEM: 174).
« 15 » note, however, that it would be
false to conceive of the enactive model as
a conceptual or theoretical solution to the
puzzle of relexivity. According to Varela
et al., concepts such as enaction, embodi-
ment, etc. are useful tools that help us think
the fundamental circularity between lived
experience and rational understanding,
but they are, in the last analysis, “concepts
and as such always historical” (ibid: 228).
he deep interconnection of the three steps
means that no conceptual framework can
ever hope to transcend it: there is no im-
mutable ground where one could rest one’s
epistemological feet. hus, instead of trying
to escape the relexivity, Varela et al. urge us
to embrace it by exposing and eliminating
the epistemological and existential roots
that urge us to transcend it. In other words,
one can only hope to solve the dilemma of
realism and idealism by dis-solving its con-
ditions of possibility (Bitbol 2012; Vörös
2014), which gave rise to it in the irst place.
And since “representationalism” in both its
realist and idealist guises stems from what
Varela et al. refer to as the “Cartesian anxi-
ety,” a relentless craving or grasping for an
(absolute) ground (ibid: 141), the antidote
consists in trying to ind a way to appease
this craving and embrace the fundamental
groundlessness (non-substantiality) of all 191
phenomena. However, since Cartesian angst
is not solely a rational but also (or even pri-
marily) an existential problem, the radical
5 | his original construal might have had a
negative impact on the development of the ield,
as it unwarrantedly reduces skillful knowhow
to sensorimotor skills, thereby ignoring a whole
spectrum of other skills, such as imagination,
relection, discovery/creativity, making explicit
judgments, etc. (see, e.g., Rietveld & Kiverstein
2014). But such an extension to higher-level cog-
nition is compatible with our view because we
conceive of “enaction” in a pragmatic/instrumen-
tal sense, i.e., as a provisional (working) concep-
tual tool that can be altered and/or expanded in
light of new empirical and theoretical develop-
ments (see also §13f).
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change must take place both on the level of
conceptuality as well as on the level of lived
experience. In other words, groundlessness
must not only be thought, but also, and even
more so, en-acted (en-lived), which brings
us full circle back to the beginning: the ines-
capabilty of relexivity (Froese 2011).
« 16 » Varela et al. are well aware that “[a]
ny conceptual position can become a ground
(a resting point, a nest)” and that this also ap-
plies to “the view of cognition as embodied
action (enaction),” for “although it stresses
the interdependence of mind and world,” it
“tends to treat the relationship between those
(the interaction, the action, the enaction) as
though it had some form of independent ac-
tual existence,” and as such, the concept of
“enaction” can become a new conceptual an-
chor, a new “real and solid” some-thing (ibid:
228). However, to take this route is to miss
the point completely: “enaction” should not
be taken as a description of what the mind is
like, but more like a useful heuristic:6 it en-
ables us to portray the inescapable relexivity
conceptually, yet at the same time “point[s]
beyond itself to a truer understanding of
groundlessness” (ibid; emphasis added). Its
instrumental and performative aspects are
much more important than its descriptive as-
pects, as they intend to “free” the mind from
its reifying (grasping) tendencies.
The mind-body problem
« 17 » A similar line of thought can be
found in the later methodological expan-
sion of the enactivist framework, namely
neurophenomenology (Varela 1996). Here,
too, philosophical motivations are at the
forefront: the goal is not only to lay down
the foundations for a novel approach to
studying experience but to tackle pragmati-
cally one of the most notorious philosophi-
6 | Presenting one’s theory as a heuristic
rather than the “true picture” is what Varela shares
with von Glasersfeld, who emphasized: “I would
be contradicting one of the basic principles of my
own theory if I were to claim that the constructiv-
ist approach proved a true description of an objec-
tive state of afairs. As I see it, Radical Construc-
tivism merely provides a diferent way of thinking
and its values will depend mainly on its usefulness
in our experiential world” (Glasersfeld 1991: 13).
ConStRuCtIVISt FounDAtIons vol. 11, n°2
cal puzzles: the so-called mind/body prob-
lem, or more speciically, the “hard problem
of consciousness” (Chalmers 1996; see also
nagel 1974; Jackson 2002), which is oten
claimed to lie at its very core (tye 2015).
he central issue was summarized provoca-
tively by David Chalmers as follows:
“a physical
It is widely agreed that experience arises from
basis, but we have no good explanation
of why and how it so arises. Why should physi-
cal processing give rise to a rich inner life at all?
It seems objectively unreasonable that it should,
”
and yet it does. (Chalmers 1996: 201)
« 18 » Varela accepts Chalmers’s expo-
sition of the problem within the prevailing
theoretical context, especially his conclu-
sion that “you cannot explain conscious
experience on the cheap” (Varela 1996:
208; italics in the original). However, he
disagrees with the proposed solution: the
problem cannot be solved by a “theoreti-
cal ix” or “extra ingredient,” but needs to
be addressed on a more fundamental level
by changing “the entire framework within
which the issue is discussed” (ibid: 330,
331). hus, instead of trying to ind a con-
ceptual solution to the problem, Varela sug-
gests that the problem requires “a rigorous
method and an explicit pragmatics for ex-
ploration and analysis” (ibid: 330; italics in
the original). Speciically, what is needed is
“a systematic exploration of the only link
between mind and consciousness […] the
structure of human experience itself” (ibid,
italics in the original).
« 19 » his can be achieved by combining
rigorous irst-person methodology as devel-
oped by phenomenology and contemplative
traditions with precise third-person tools of
contemporary neuroscience. he basic idea
is that if we omit the irst-person accounts
of experience, we are basically omitting one
of the central if not the central aspect of ex-
perience. However, these irst-person ac-
counts cannot be just a matter of naïve (i.e.,
unsystematic, unrelective) introspection;7
7 | or in the words of Varela & Shear: “[A]
simple introspective approach is not the solution;
the ‘just-take-a-look’ or ‘seeing inside’ attitude
must be overcome. neurophenomenology implies
[…] that researchers themselves, as they are spe-
cialists in neuroscience for instance, become spe-
instead, they require a rigorous and system-
atic methodology, which would enable us to
study the structure and dynamics of lived
experience in a disciplined fashion (Varela
1996: 346). However, note that, according to
Varela, irst-person accounts are not simply
“coincidental or heuristic information,” but
“an integral element of the validation of a
neurobiological proposal” (ibid: 344). In or-
der to avoid neurobiological reductionism
and obtain a comprehensive understand-
ing of conscious experience, the irst- and
third-person approaches are placed on the
same footing and are said to co-determine
each other: “Phenomenological accounts of
the structure of experience and their coun-
terparts in cognitive science relate to each
other through reciprocal constraints” (ibid:
343). In other words, the structural variances
captured by disciplined irst-person methods
may pose restraints on neurobiological dy-
namics captured by neuroscientiic methods
(and vice versa).
« 20 » oten, interpreters have been
baled as to how Varela’s proposal is sup-
posed actually to solve the mind-body
problem (see the next section). one of the
reasons for their puzzlement may stem
from the fact that although the philosophi-
cal motivations of neurophenomenology
have usually been acknowledged (unlike in
the case of the enactivist (re)construal of
the mind), there has been a widespread ten-
dency to study the programme in isolation,
i.e., without paying heed to the broader con-
text of enactivism and embodiment within
which it emerged (Bitbol 2012; Vörös 2014).
his, in itself, is cause for balement, as Va-
rela explicitly points out that there is a close
link between the two undertakings and
that neurophenomenology “takes what was
started in [he Embodied Mind] one step
further by concentrating on the key issue
of methodology” (ibid: 346). In light of the
analysis above, this would mean developing
a concrete research proposal that would al-
low us to incorporate the fundamental cir-
cularity into the laboratory setting.
« 21 » Very well, one might retort, but
this still does not explain how neurophe-
nomenology is supposed to solve the per-
nicious mind-body problem. By now, the
cialists in the phenomenology of conscious experi-
ence” (Varela & Shear 1999: 2; see also Vörös 2014).

answer should be fairly clear: its solution
entails dis-solving it in the disciplined
cultivation of lived experience. As already
mentioned, there is no need for an addi-
tional theoretical ix; quite the contrary,
what is called for is a rigorous irst-person
methodology, which will bring to a halt the
mind’s endless meanderings through meta-
physical nooks and crannies and help us
“live away” the mind/body problem (for a
more in-depth exposition see Bitbol 2012;
Froese 2011; Vörös 2014). he principle
of “mutual constraints” is not a solution
per se – it is merely a conceptual heuristic
that helps us get the “pragmatic ball roll-
ing,” so to speak – and therefore should not
be interpreted as such (just as “enaction”
should not be construed as “what cogni-
tion really is”). he proper (dis)solution
lies within the realm of praxis. More spe-
ciically, the proposed irst-person tech-
niques are not only means of investigation
(on par with, say, a microscope), but also
embodied ways of alleviating the roots of
the Cartesian angst. hrough phenomeno-
logical and contemplative practice, one’s
way of being and experiencing undergoes
profound changes in which “the basic sub-
ject-object duality” is eroded and the prac-
titioner opens up to “a ield of phenomena
where it becomes less and less obvious how
to distinguish between subject and object”
(Varela 1996: 339). Put diferently, the pro-
posed research program does not tackle
the conceptual puzzle head on (by, say, try-
ing to ind a solution to Chalmers’s ques-
tion), but pragmatically undermines it by
cutting out its existential and experiential
roots. his is not to say that it is intended
as a substitute for scientiic endeavour, but
rather as its complement, for it enables the
scientist to not only think, but to perceive
and experience the age-old dualities (real-
ism-idealism, mind-body, etc.) diferently.
« 22 » Such, in a nutshell, is the multi-
layered framework of enactivism and neu-
rophenomenology as originally construed
by Varela and colleagues. Regardless of
what one may think of its validity, it can
hardly be denied that it is an extremely
radical proposal. For we have seen that it
not only demands that we treat “mind and
world as mutually overlapping” and master
“the skill of phenomenological description”
but also that we transform “the style and
Editorial
Epistemological Odyssey Sebastjan Vörös et al.
Step 1
Reflexivity
Circularity between lived experience
and scientific endeavour
Step 2
Conceptual approximation
Co-determination/
mutual specification
Step 3
Working hypothesis
Enaction as
embodied action
Figure 1 • The three interrelated steps put forward in TEM. The scientiic study of enaction in
terms of embodied action is a particular working hypothesis, proposed within the conceptual
framework of co-determination, which tries to approximate the relexivity inherent in the
study of lived experience.
values of the research community itself ” The present situation I:
(ibid: 346), i.e., that we actively engage with Enaction and
– by questioning, reassessing, and modify-
ing – the prevalent standards of what counts
co-determination
as scientiic reasoning and practice. note, « 24 » We have noted at the beginning
however, that Varela did not see his pro- of our paper that enactivism and related
posal as a “betrayal of science,” but rather as ideas have gained ground in (some parts
its “necessary extension and complement” of) the scientiic community, so let us now
(ibid: 347). With this in mind, he dedicated examine how later developments agree with
the rest of his life to developing a systematic these early proposals. our brief overview
framework that would enable him to put makes no pretence to being exhaustive, but 193
these daring ideas into practice (Varela & aims to shed light on the rich diversity with-
Shear 1999; Petitot et al. 1999; Depraz, Va- in the ield.
rela & Vermersch 2003), an endeavour that « 25 » Let us begin with the notion of
was preigured in Varela’s (1976) early work enaction. of the three interrelated steps
and that was cut short by his untimely death (§§10–12, Figure 1), it is the last one – cog-
in 2001. nition construed as enaction (embodied
« 23 » Having completed our exposi- action) – that has gained the most wide-
tion of enaction as Varela and his colleagues spread acceptance. his is not surprising
had originally envisioned it, we now turn given the fact that such (re)conceptualiza-
to an assessment of more recent trends that tions, although extensive, do not necessitate
culminate in the present situation. In par- substantial revisions in one’s philosophical
ticular, we focus on the current status of its commitments. Most of the debates currently
radical approach to relexivity, as expressed revolve around how to conceive of enac-
in the appeal to enaction, co-determina- tion and embodiment appropriately, what
tion, and (neuro)phenomenology. his they entail (e.g., is complete abandonment
analysis leads us to consider the diversity of of representationalism necessary), and how
embodied and enactive approaches that can they are related to similar concepts (e.g., em-
be found today. beddedness, extension, situatedness, afec-
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194
tivity). From the perspective of the original
Varelian approach, this would mean that, in
their quest to unearth the right model of the
embodied/enacted/etc. mind, such (re)con-
struals risk not only missing the forest for
the trees, but forget that what they are focus-
ing on may not necessarily be a tree at all.
hat is to say, they tend to ignore the quali-
ication about the provisional status of terms
such “enaction” and (more importantly)
about their operational/performative dimen-
sions, whose main goal is to call one’s atten-
tions to deeper philosophical concerns.8
« 26 » However, this does not mean that
such discussions are completely without
merit, but merely that they may, perhaps un-
wittingly, lose sight of some of the problems
that were the original wellspring of enactiv-
ism. here are, to be sure, some exceptions
to the rule: a small, but vocal group, centred
mostly around Varela’s former collaborators
and sympathizers (hompson, John Stewart,
Michel Bitbol, Ezequiel Di Paolo, to name
but very few) is critical of attempts that try to
reduce the “enactive turn” to catchy slogans
à la cognition is “embodied,” “embedded,”
“sensorimotor coupling,” etc., emphasizing
that, to paraphrase Chalmer’s (1995) phrase,
“one cannot have enaction on the cheap,” i.e.,
one cannot incorporate enactive views of the
mind into cognitive science without chang-
ing the epistemological and metaphysical
framework in which it is embedded.
« 27 » hese discrepancies become
more pronounced when we take into ac-
count the second step of the Varelian tri-
partite scheme – the question of how to
construe the fundamental subject-world re-
lation in light of enaction and embodiment.
he original proposal – co-determination or
mutual speciication – seems nowadays to
be accepted by only a few researchers. Donn
Welton was probably the most insistent in
giving the subject-world relationship an ex-
plicitly symmetrical reading, supplementing
8 | his, of course, is not to say that Varela’s
project was just philosophical. What made his
work especially valuable is that he was also en-
gaged in high-quality empirical work, and to this
end, it was actually important that his enactive ap-
proach could give guidance to various empirical
projects and to the researchers involved in them.
We would like to thank Erik Rietveld for making
this point.
ConStRuCtIVISt FounDAtIons vol. 11, n°2
the original Varelian terminology of “enac-
tion” (“bringing forth”) with a reciprocal
term “[afective] entrainment”: “he organ-
ism enacts an environment as the environ-
ment entrains the organism. Both are nec-
essary and neither, by itself, is suicient for
the process of sense-making” (Welton 2011:
110; emphasis added). hompson, a long-
term colleague of Varela and one of the co-
authors of tEM, has also defended the origi-
nal view of “co-determination” (hompson
2007: 79, 204), but with an important pro-
viso: he agrees that the relation between
subject and the world are reciprocal, yet goes
on to claim that they are also a-symmetrical:
“between
Although the physical and energetic coupling
a living being and the physicochemical
environment is symmetrical, with each partner
exerting more inluence on the other at diferent
times, the living being modulates the parameters
of this coupling in a way the environment typical-
ly does not. Living beings, precisely because they
are autopoietic and adaptive, can ‘surf ’ environ-
mental events and modulate them to their own
”
ends, like a bird gliding on the wind. (homp-
son 2011: 121)
« 28 » hompson refers to the organism’s
capability of regulating its interactions with
the environment as “interactional asymme-
try” (ibid),9 and believes it to be a neces-
sary consequence of the fundamental “bio-
logic” of the living. Similar views have been
endorsed by Di Paolo (2005, 2009), Stewart
(2010), Froese & Stewart (2010), and Froese
(2011). he emphasis on the relative priority
of the “interiority” of the organism seems to
push hompson and his colleagues towards
constructivism (Stewart 2010) or (as Welton
2011: 105f puts it) a kind of bio-idealism.
Relatedly, it might be perhaps claimed that
enactivism’s reliance on the concept of auto-
poiesis, understood as the self-production of
a bounded self-maintaining system, appears
to commit enactivism to an internalism that
is incompatible with the hypothesis of ex-
tended cognition (Wheeler 2010; but see Di
Paolo 2009 and Virgo, Egbert & Froese 2011
for contrasting views). Although the exact
epistemological and metaphysical commit-
9 | to our knowledge, the notion of “interac-
tional asymmetry” was irst introduced and dis-
cussed in Barandiaran, Di Paolo & Rohde (2009).
ments of such an “asymmetrical” account
have not been spelled out in suicient detail
yet, it would seem that they entail a (slight?)
shit from the “symmetricism” embraced by
tEM towards the more constructivist-in-
spired conceptions found in the earlier work
on autopoiesis (Maturana & Varela 1987; but
cf. Froese & Stewart 2010). But if this turns
out to be the case, it will be necessary to ex-
amine how it bears on Varela’s original goal
of uncovering the middle ground between
the extremes of realism and idealism (espe-
cially in relation to the puzzle of relexivity).
« 29 » Even more surprising, perhaps, is
the fact that the enactive community, except
for a few exceptions that try to “bracket”
such questions altogether (e.g., Hutto &
Myin 2013; but see Froese 2014 for a cri-
tique), seems to be undergoing a gradual
shit towards realism.
« 30 » to begin with, the last decade has
witnessed a resurgence of the ot derided
direct realism, which in the heyday of repre-
sentationalism was generally considered na-
ïve and obsolete (but see Gibson 1979). For
instance, Alva noë, one of the most promi-
nent advocates of so-called “sensorimotor
enactivism” (o’Regan & noë 2001; noë
2004, 2009, 2012; see also torrance 2005),
defends what in noë (2012: 65) he refers to
as the “actionist (or enactive) direct realism”:
“proach,
[P]erception, according to the enactive ap-
is direct and noninferential. […] In ac-
tively encountering the way in which how things
look varies with movement, we directly encounter
”
how things are. (noë 2004: 85)
« 31 » Similar ideas can also be found in
Michael Beaton (2013). hese approaches
would readily agree that the organism and
the world are involved in intricate interrela-
tions and that they therefore co-determine
each other, but would normally construe the
overall process in less radical terms: the sub-
ject and the world, although entangled in a
meshwork of intricate interactions, do not
co-constitute each other, but are pregiven
discrete entities.
« 32 » Even more astoundingly, repre-
sentational realism, that archenemy of the
Varelian enactivism, also has its vocal ad-
herents. his becomes increasingly obvious
if we extend our inquiry to approaches that
are sometimes terminologically conlated

with enactivism in the Varelian sense but
stem from diferent metaphysical and epis-
temological assumptions. Here, again, the
idea of enacted and/or embodied cognition
is usually simply projected onto a traditional
scafolding of subject-object dichotomy
and construed as (spatially) extended so as
to include the agent’s bodily processes and
actions. In other words, representational-
ist approaches (uncritically) accept realist
presuppositions and argue that we need to
broaden the “constitutional base” (however
broadly construed) of what we normally
conceive of as cognition. Functionalist ren-
derings of embodiment that are usually an
integral part of such approaches, and can be
found in, e.g., Clark (1997, 2001), Michael
Wheeler (2005, 2008, 2009), and Mark Row-
lands (2009, 2010), presuppose the existence
of pregiven information-bearing structures
that can be exploited, manipulated, and
transformed by the cognitive agent, and the
overall process is said to involve some type
of representations (e.g., Clark’s action-ori-
ented representations).
« 33 » Moreover, some realist accounts
do not it easily into either the direct or the
indirect category. Anthony Chemero (1998),
for instance, who once argued for an “anti-
realist” reading of enactivism, is now opting
for a modiied version of Hacking’s “entity re-
alism,” which cannot be rendered as either of
the two yet arguably has more ainities with
direct realism. on the one hand, it is indirect
in that the existence of theoretical entities
(in this case “afordances” that constitute the
“objective pole” in sensorimotor patterns) is
secured by our ability to manipulate them
experimentally (2009: 192f); but on the oth-
er hand, it is direct in that no representations
are involved in the process (see also Karim
Zahidi 2014 for a “pluralist realist” rendering
of Chemero’s proposal). While interesting, it
remains to be seen whether Chemero’s pro-
posal takes root in the enactivist community,
and what theoretical and/or empirical conse-
quences it might entail.
« 34 » overall, it would seem that, un-
like “enaction” and “embodiment,” the idea
of “co-determination” or “mutual speciica-
tion” promulgated in tEM as a useful guide
on the epistemological odyssey has not
caught on or has been extremely diicult to
defend. If we stick with the original meta-
phor, it might be said that, with few excep-
Editorial
Epistemological Odyssey Sebastjan Vörös et al.
tions (Welton), most authors seem to have
been enchanted by the songs of the Sirens
and have let their philosophical ships wan-
der of either towards the turbulent seas of
idealism near the island of Charybdis or
towards the seven-headed monster of real-
ism lurking at the island of Scylla. he main
issue, it would seem, revolves around how
much constitutive force we should ascribe
to the agent in her relation to the world or,
put diferently, how seriously we should take
Varela’s talk of the agent’s bringing forth her
world. on the one hand, for some (homp-
son, Di Paolo, etc.), the world-constituting
(“sense-making”) activity of a self-organiz-
ing agent is of central importance;10 on the
other hand, many have tried to downplay
its signiicance and opt for some type of re-
alism instead, be it of a direct (noë, Kevin
o’Regan, etc.), representationalist (Clark,
Wheeler, etc.), or other variety (Chemero,
Zahidi).
The present situation II:
Reflexivity and naturalizing
phenomenology
« 35 » Finally, it is time we hone in on
the initial and arguably the most important
step in the Varelian framework, namely re-
lexivity. It will be remembered that, in or-
der to avoid succumbing to old dualisms, a
constant back-and-forth exchange between
lived experience and scientiic endeavour
was put forward. now, we can put more
lesh on our initial exposition: irst-person
(phenomenological) investigations prevent
science from falling prey to the lures of the
(unrelected) naturalism, while third-per-
son (scientiic) investigations prevent phe-
nomenology from dissipating into the mists
of transcendental idealism. In this way, it
was believed, the posited circularity would
ensure equal (non-reductive) treatment of
the phenomenological and scientiic ap-
proaches to the study of mind, cognition,
and consciousness.
« 36 » What was needed, however, was
the development of a rigorous phenomeno-
logical methodology that could inform and
10 | See also von Glasersfeld’s emphasis on
“cognition serves the subject’s organization of the
experiential world” (Glasersfeld 1995: 18).
be informed by systematic scientiic explo-
rations. As already mentioned, Varela and
others (Varela & Shear 1999; Depraz, Va-
rela & Vermersch 2003) have contributed
signiicantly to this endeavour by helping
to reine, systematize, and standardize vari-
ous irst-person methodologies. But a ques-
tion soon presented itself, namely how, if
at all, phenomenology could be embedded
into the ediice of natural science (so-called
problem of naturalizing phenomenology; cf.
De Preester 2002; Gallagher 1997; Zahavi
2004, 2007, 2010). he greatest worry was
that, in the fervent attempts to “naturalize”
phenomenology, the transcendental dimen-
sion of phenomenological analysis would
be lost, which in turn would mean a signii-
cant breakaway from the motivations and
conceptions of the early phenomenological
movement (e.g., Edmund Husserl, Martin
Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty).
« 37 » he group inspired by Varela’s
early work on enaction typically embraces,
or is at least sympathetic to, the idea of this
fundamental circularity, and insists on the
need to develop phenomenological tools
and analyses, and integrate them into con-
temporary scientiic practices. It emphasizes
the inescapability of relexivity, which is why
phenomenology is used not only as a source
of inspiration whose insights need to be
translated into naturalistically viable terms,
but as actually constraining and reshaping
scientiic endeavour. In other words, since it
is paramount to preserve the back-and-forth
exchange between irst- and third-person
approaches, it is argued that the naturaliza- 195
tion of phenomenology must necessarily be
accompanied by a complementary process
of the phenomenologization of nature (Va-
rela 2001; Gallagher 2012; Petitot et al. 1999;
hompson 2004; Vörös 2014; Zahavi 2010).
« 38 » to this end, various methodolog-
ical (pragmatic) frameworks have been put
forward, of which probably the two most
prominent ones are the already mentioned
neurophenomenology (see §36f below) and
Gallagher’s front-loaded phenomenology
(Gallagher 2003). But it is dubious, at least
in light of current happenings in the ield,
whether it is possible to sustain this bi-di-
rectional attitude in practice. It will be re-
membered that, originally, relexivity served
as a wellspring for the idea of co-determi-
nation between the agent and the world, so
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196
it remains to be seen how the asymmetrical
rendering of the Varelian co-determination-
ist conceptions projects onto the idea of fun-
damental circularity. Does the asymmetry in
the subject-world relation (hompson’s view
as delineated in §24) also translate into a
similar asymmetry in the relation between
lived experience and scientiic endeavour?
If so, what exactly does this entail? Does it
perhaps necessitate a drit towards transcen-
dental idealism (in the vein of Husserl from
Ideas I)? We believe that these questions
merit further investigation.
« 39 » hings are diferent on the other
(realist) end of the spectrum. While some
advocates of representationalist realism
(e.g., Clark) remain steadfast to their func-
tionalist origins and thus show compara-
tively little interest in phenomenology, oth-
ers (e.g., Wheeler) are more welcoming of
its contributions. However, this positive dis-
position seems to be limited to inding ways
of incorporating certain phenomenological
concepts (say, Heidegger’s diference be-
tween present-at-hand and ready-at-hand)
into the naturalist framework, and normally
does not involve attempts to develop and use
irst-person methodologies or relect on the
potentially far-reaching implications of their
inclusion into the ediice of natural sciences.
« 40 » he situation is similar in the
direct realist camp, where references to
phenomenology are quite frequent and are
oten used as a supporting evidence for di-
rect realism. Such is the case, for example,
with Heidegger’s being-in-the-world, where
the human being’s fundamental relation
with, and access to, the world seems to be
portrayed as straightforward and unmedi-
ated. But note that, as with representational-
ist approaches, this route becomes a viable
option only if the fundamental circularity
is broken, i.e., if the transcendental aspect
of phenomenological research is discarded
and experientiality thereby naturalized. he
talk of “world” in the transcendental attitude
of phenomenology can only be conlated
with the talk of “world” in the natural(ist)
attitude if the former is reduced to the lat-
ter. However, from a phenomenological per-
spective, to equate the two uses of “world” is
to make a category mistake, where the same
term is used in two radically diferent con-
texts and therefore carries diferent mean-
ings. As Heidegger notes, a human being
ConStRuCtIVISt FounDAtIons vol. 11, n°2
is “in” its world in a wholly diferent sense
from that of water being in a glass, which is
how naturalism commonly construes their
relationship (in hompson & Stapleton: 26;
Rietveld & Kiverstein 2014; see also over-
gaard 2004: 119–121).
« 41 » Similar developments to those oc-
curring in enactivism can also be traced in
the domain of neurophenomenology. It will
be remembered that the latter was originally
put forward by Varela as a methodologi-
cal remedy for Chalmers’s hard problem of
consciousness, yet curiously enough, despite
Varela’s continual admonitions that his pro-
posal is pragmatic and not theoretical, inter-
preters have constantly tried to entangle it
in Procrustean theorizing. he background
idea seems to be that either it does, in the last
analysis, provide some theoretical solution
to the hard problem or it is simply dodging
the bullet: tertium non datur. We have seen,
however, that it was precisely this type of
either-or thinking that Varela was trying to
supersede: although one may show (in the
Wittgensteinian sense) a way out of meta-
physical and epistemological predicaments
by employing terms such as “enaction” and
“co-determination,” these predicaments
can be dispelled only at the level of practice
and lived experience. In this sense, dual-
ist (Bayne 2004; see also the contribution
by Michael Kirchhoff & Daniel Hutto) and bio-
physical (Rudrauf et al. 2003) renditions of
neurophenomenology simply miss the mark
(Bitbol 2012). Similarly, when Beaton notes
that there is residual internalism (bio-ideal-
ism?) in Varela’s approach (Beaton 2013), he
is conlating methodology with metaphysics:
his criticism may be sound from a method-
ological perspective (in the sense that we
should extend the scope of the third-person
research beyond the conines of neural pro-
cesses), but it is wrong in ascribing to the
neurophenomenological programme a ixed
metaphysical position (see also Pascal &
o’Regan 2008). Instead, as correctly pointed
out by Bitbol, the main goal of neurophe-
nomenology is precisely to sidestep all foun-
dationalist extremes, wherefore it assumes…
“thea other
permanent circulation from one side to
side, a feedback loop uniting the irst-
person and the third person approaches within
a human, embodied, situated, social form of life
”
shared by researchers. (Bitbol 2012: 167)
Mind embodied, mind
bodified: Reasons for
diversity
« 42 » Clearly, enactivism, and to a
smaller degree neurophenomenology, have
seen considerable diversiication in the last
two decades. As already noted above, de-
spite all talk of “radicalizing enactivism,” the
original impetus seems to have been signii-
cantly diluted. he term “enactive” is oten…
“bodied
taken simply as synonymous of active, em-
as synonymous of physical, dynamical as
synonymous of changing, and situated as synony-
mous of exchanging information with the envi-
ronment, all properties that could be claimed by
practically every robot, cognitive model or theory
proposed [since the beginnings] of symbolic arti-
”
icial intelligence. (Di Paolo, Rohde & De Jae-
gher 2010: 33)
« 43 » Similarly, in a recent article, Gal-
lagher lashes out against “the invasion of the
body snatchers” – approaches to embodied
cognition that leave the body out of the pic-
ture (Gallagher 2015; but see Riegler 2002).
« 44 » Although none of the approaches
we have covered in the previous section fall
squarely into the latter category, many of
them have contributed to the blunting of the
Varelian razor. If a brief historical analogy be
permitted, it might be claimed that the ma-
jority of contemporary “radical” approaches
to enactivism are “radical” in the same sense
that this applied to the liberal parties of the
18th and 19th century.11 hat is to say, just as
the latter were willing to ight for the more
equal redistribution of political power, but
not for the modiication of the background
(social, economic, etc.) conditions that gave
rise to inequalities in the irst place, so the
former are willing to experiment with novel
conceptual approaches to the mind and
cognition, but do not genuinely seem inter-
ested in relecting upon, and possibly alter-
ing, their metaphysical and epistemological
11 | note that the analogy is not completely
misplaced, as there seems to be a tendency among
contemporary advocates of enactivism to present
their views in a “progressivist”/“revolutionary”
vocabulary, denouncing the views of their op-
ponents as “reactionary” or “conservative” (Gal-
lagher 2015; Hutto & Myin 2013; Zahidi 2014).

presuppositions. However, taking this route
means to forgo the very wellspring of origi-
nal enactivism, for – to reiterate – enaction
and embodiment were originally intended
not as mere reconceptualizations but as
potent tools that would bring us closer to
deeper questions of relexivity and ground-
lessness.
« 45 » Are there other reasons respon-
sible for this diversiication and dilution
coming into being, and for the gradual shit
from “embodiment” to “bodiication”? Let
us irst look at two reasons pointed out by
Di Paolo, Rohde & De Jaegher (2010). to
begin with, although the situation has im-
proved signiicantly in the past couple of
years, there still seem to be few genuinely
enactive proposals aimed at addressing
open questions in cognitive science. he
reasoning goes that, no matter how intrigu-
ing the philosophizing, if it is not coupled
with equally intriguing empirical work it
simply will not do as a scientiic enterprise
(see, however, the contribution by Elizaveta
Solomonova & Sha Xin Wei).
« 46 » he second reason is much more
interesting for our purposes, as it suggests
that, soon ater its appearance, enactivism
was associated with, and sometimes even
sublimated into, other frameworks, two of
which bear special mentioning: ecological
approaches (Gibson 1979; turvey & Carello
1981) and extended mind theories (Clark &
Chalmers 1998; Clark 1997, 2008b; Wheeler
2005). In their opposition to cerebrocentrist
currents in cognitive science, enactivist,
ecological, and extended mind theories were
oten depicted as a uniied, if heterogeneous,
front. However, although the ecological and
extended mind approaches can be said to
bear some resemblance to enactivism, they
are oten epistemologically and metaphysi-
cally at odds with the latter (see, e.g., the
contribution of Martin Fultot, Lin Nie & Claudia
Carello). For instance, it was already men-
tioned that ecological approaches lean to-
wards direct realism, while extended mind
theorists generally accept weaker versions of
representationalism.
« 47 » But the diferences do not end
here. here seem to be at least two further
factors involved in the proliferation and
attenuation of views on enaction and em-
bodiment. he irst of these relates to the
disparities that are inherent in the original
Editorial
Epistemological Odyssey Sebastjan Vörös et al.
exposition of enactivism. tEM drew its in-
spiration from various sources (phenom-
enology, theory of autopoiesis, dynamics
theory, Buddhist philosophy, etc.), all of
which are extremely variegated and thus
lend themselves to diferent interpretations.
take, for instance, phenomenology. Already
a cursory glance (e.g., Moran 2000) reveals
great diversity within the ield; in fact, the
heterogeneity is so pronounced that some
critics feel that speaking of the “phenome-
nological tradition” is a misnomer (Dennett
1991). here are, to be sure, not only great
discrepancies between diferent authors, but
also within a single author.
« 48 » Husserl is a prime example of
this. His voluminous oeuvre displays a
whole array of (seemingly?) diferent, even
mutually opposing views on a variety of top-
ics. his, coupled with the fact that Husserl
is not always as clear in his expression as one
would want him to be, has resulted in very
diferent portrayals of Husserl’s philosophy,
ranging from direct realism (early works),
to full-blown idealism (middle period), to
the idea of reciprocal co-dependency of the
subject and the world, which is said to tran-
scended the realism-idealism impasse (later
and unpublished work; see, e.g., Zahavi 2003
for a critical overview). In addition, his phil-
osophical views difer in many important
respects from those of, say, Heidegger or
Jean-Paul Sartre. Hence, one can, by focus-
ing on this or that aspect of Husserl’s work,
ind support for a whole array of diferent
metaphysical and epistemological positions.
his helps to explain why Husserl was ini-
tially avoided by tEM, but has since then
become an important source of inspiration
for enactivism (see appendix in hompson
2007). of course, not all interpretations are
equally plausible, but even within the con-
ines of the permissible, there seems to be
plenty of room for disagreement (see for in-
stance diferent accounts of Husserl’s take on
embodiment: Carman 1999; Moran 2010).
« 49 » Similar disparity can be found,
to take another example, in the tradition
of autopoietic theory. Early formulations of
the theory (e.g., Maturana & Varela 1980)
leaned more on the side of (bio)idealism in
that they emphasized the concept of struc-
tural determination: an organism selectively
senses and responds to environmental per-
turbations as deined by its internal struc-
ture. However, this emphasis is in tension
with the relational notion of cognition as
structural coupling, and it also makes it dif-
icult to account for the constitutive role of
the heteronomous processes that are char-
acteristic of our sociocultural environment
(see the contribution by Matthew Harvey, Ras-
mus Gahrn-Andersen & Sune Vork Steffensen).
hen, ater Maturana and Varela stopped
collaborating, their construals of autopoiesis
also came to diverge, with Maturana stick-
ing to the cybernetic tradition, while Varela,
at least in his later work, embraced a Kan-
tian and Jonasian philosophy of the organ-
ism involving strong notions of self-organi-
zation, purpose, and the lived body, which
ultimately led him to experiment with the
concept of co-determination as a means of
transcending the realism/idealism divide
altogether (Froese & Stewart 2010; Froese
2011). Debates continue today as to what
extent, and how, the early simpliied claims
that autopoiesis is life and that life is cogni-
tion should be modiied (e.g., Bourgine &
Stewart 2004; Bitbol & Luisi 2004; homp-
son 2011), and to what extent a role for a
phenomenological-existential reading of the
biological record is permissible (see Mario
Villalobos and Dave Ward’s contribution).
« 50 » his brings us to the last con-
tributing factor. Although open to various
renditions, enaction and embodiment have
been, at least traditionally, closely associ-
ated with anti-realism. hat is to say, from
the perspective of the prevalent “either-or”
way of approaching the realism-antirealism
debate, the enactivist talk of entre-deux has 197
been usually taken simply as an anti-realist
hyperbole. his way of approaching the mat-
ter is very telling, as it prospectively confers
special status on “realism,” treating all alter-
natives as its negation and thus barring all
possibilities for stepping out of the debate
(but see Beaton’s contributions, as an attempt
at an enactivist re-appropriation of realism
in non-representationalist terms based on
direct sensorimotor coupling).
« 51 » here are probably several mo-
tivations for the preferential treatment of
realism, but one of them is the fear that ev-
erything anti- or non-realist “runs the risk
of obscuring the scientiic value of an em-
bodied, embedded approach by linking it
to the problematic idea that objects are not
independent of mind” (Clark 1997: 173).
http://constructivist.info/11/2/189.editorial
 { SEBASTJAN VÖRÖS
is an Associate Professor at the Department of Philosophy (University of Ljubljana). In 2008, he
graduated in English language and literature and philosophy (double-major study programme),
and in 2015 he graduated in history. From 2010 to 2013, he was employed as a Junior
Researcher at the University of Ljubljana, where he successfully defended his doctoral thesis,
which was later published in book form (The Images of the Unimaginable: (Neuro)Science,
Phenomenology, Mysticism). His main areas of research include philosophy of mind, philosophy
EDITORIAL SPECIAL ISSUE ON ENACTIVISM AND NEUROPHENOMENOLOGY

of science, epistemology, philosophy of religion, phenomenology, and radical constructivism.

{ TOM FROESE
is Associate Professor at the Applied Mathematics and Systems Research Institute (IIMAS) of the
National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) in Mexico City, where he heads the 4E Cognition Lab.
He is also a member of the Centre for the Sciences of Complexity (C3), also at UNAM. He graduated
with a DPhil in cognitive science from the University of Sussex in 2010, and with a MEng in computer
science and cybernetics from the University of Reading in 2004. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the
Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science of the University of Sussex (2010), the Ikegami Lab of the
University of Tokyo (2010–2012), and the Self-Organizing Systems Lab of UNAM (2012–2014).

{ ALEXANDER RIEGLER
obtained a PhD in artificial intelligence and cognitive science from Vienna University
of Technology in 1995 with a dissertation on artificial life. Riegler’s interdisciplinary
work include diverse areas such as knowledge representation and anticipation
in cognitive science, post-Darwinian approaches in evolutionary theory, and
constructivist and computational approaches to epistemology, see http://tinyurl.com/
riegler. Since 2005 he has been the editor-in-chief of Constructivist Foundations.

198 It would seem, then, that the main bone
of contention lies in the fact that a move
away from realism threatens to undermine
the currently predominant views of, and
attitudes within, the scientiic community
at large. his applies in particular to neu-
rophenomenology, which, unlike enactiv-
ism, has never actually gained widespread
acceptance and to date is still limited to
only a handful of studies (Froese, Gould &
Barrett 2011; but see a recent special issue
on the topic in Hasenkamp & hompson
2013). With its exclusive focus on the practi-
cal enactment of the fundamental circular-
ity, it was probably seen as too vague or as
too extreme to be wholeheartedly embraced
by the majority of scientists. In this sense,
hompson’s words, written in a 2004 tribute
paper to Varela, still apply. here, hompson
claims that the “central theme [of tEM] has
yet to be fully absorbed,” namely “the need
for back-and-forth circulation between sci-
entiic research on the mind and disciplined
phenomenologies of lived experience.” For
“tation
[i]t’s one thing to have a scientiic represen-
of the mind as ‘enactive’ – as embodied,
emergent, dynamic, and relational; as not ho-
muncular and skull-bound; and thus in a sense
insubstantial. But it’s another thing to have a cor-
responding direct experience of this nature
of the mind in one’s own irst-person case.
(hompson 2004: 382)
” proaches, is an open question. he contribu-
« 52 » It is precisely this type of experi-
ential and existential transformation that the
Varelian enactivism and neurophenomenol-
ogy try to undertake, both on personal and
professional levels (Bitbol 2012: 165). But to
someone who is unwilling to leave the con-
ines of the established theoretical and prag-
matic framework, the proposed (dis)solution
is not an actual (dis)solution, but rather a
full-blown cop-out. hus, it might be said
that Varelian enactivism was cherry-picked
for those aspects that may prove empirically
lorid but are theoretically tame. However,
whether such “domesticated enactivism” can
still be called enactive or embodied, and how,
if at all, it difers from the more classical ap-
tions by Kirchhoff & Hutto and Urban Kordeš can
be read as attempts to provide an antidote to
this tendency, reminding us of neurophe-
nomenology’s revolutionary ambitions that
yet remain to be fully realized in the ields of
philosophy and methodology, respectively.

ConStRuCtIVISt FounDAtIons vol. 11, n°2


A way forward: Towards
a unified paradigm or
a plurality of approaches?
« 53 » What, then, can be said of the
future of embodied approaches in general
and enactivism in particular? oten, specu-
lations of this nature tend to be couched in
Kuhnian terms – will the newly emerging
ield be able to make a successful transi-
tion from the chaos of pre-paradigmatic
era to the calm of normal (paradigmatic)
science – giving the impression that phi-
losophy of science reached its unsurpass-
able climax with he Structure of Scientiic
Revolutions. Après Kuhn le déluge! In our
view, this is a rather unfortunate trend, as
it not only throws an overly simplistic light
on the nature of scientiic development, but
it also instigates unwarranted disputes as to
which theoretical model might be the most
suitable candidate for a new paradigm and
precludes enactivism from engaging fruit-
fully with some of the more recent trends in
philosophy of science. Speciically, it severs
potentially productive links to approaches
that question the idea that the ultimate goal
of scientiic inquiry is a complete account of
the phenomena couched in the framework
of a uniied paradigm and that instead argue
for a more open and pluralistic image of sci-
ence (Cartwright 1999; Kellert, Longino &
Waters 2006; Mitchell 2003).
« 54 » We can see some of these pro-
ductive links emerging from the diversity
of positions expressed by the target articles
in this special issue. For example, there is a
fascinating debate about the proper domain
of intrinsic teleology (see Figure 2). he
most inclusive approach seems to be advo-
cated by the ecological approach (Fultot, Nie
& Carello), which grounds goal-directedness
in far-from-equilibrium thermodynamics.
he approaches of enaction and interactiv-
ity are more conservative, restricting goal-
directedness to living systems and their
sociocultural manifestations (Harvey, Gahrn-
Andersen & Steffensen), while the biology of
cognition is most conservative, restricting
the validity of explanations that appeal to
teleology to language users alone (Villalobos
& Ward).
« 55 » Another example of productive
links stems from the debate about the relative
contributions of the inner and the outer. Va-
Editorial
Epistemological Odyssey Sebastjan Vörös et al.
Ecological approach
Far-from-equilibrium
thermodynamics
Enaction
and interactivity
Living systems and their
sociocultural manifestations
Biology of
cognition
Teleology of
language users
Figure 2 • Domains of goal-directedness. Enaction and interactivity, which relate normative
behavior to life, mind, and sociality, sit in the middle of a more restrictive position advocated by
biology of cognition and a more inclusive position developed by the ecological approach.
Enactive approach to sense-making
Perception
Ecological Radical
approach constructivism
Imagination
seeing seeing-as dreaming
Figure 3 • The relative contributions of the inner and the outer mark out a spectrum of non-
representationalist epistemologies. The enactive approach to sense-making consists of a mid-
dle way between the premise that meaning is pregiven in the external world in an observer-in- 199
dependent way (the ecological approach) and the premise that meaning is constructed by the
observer without direct access to the external world (radical constructivism). Sense-making
implies that meaning is always co-constituted by inner and outer, although phenomena can
involve diferent relative contributions.
rela’s enactive approach is characterized by mediate states are possible, for example the
promoting a middle way of co-determinism, human capacity of seeing-as. his spectrum
which leads to the idea of sense-making as is bordered at the inner extreme by radical
an intertwinement of perception and imagi- constructivism – meaning is projected by
nation whose relative contributions can the agent – and at the outer extreme by the
shit depending on our state of conscious- ecological approach – meaning is pregiven
ness: perception is a case of sense-making in in the world (see Figure 3).
which the world plays a signiicant constitu- « 56 » he contributions about neuro-
tive role (Beaton), while dreaming is a case of phenomenology can also be situated with
sense-making where the contribution of the respect to each other. Kirchhoff & Hutto argue
outer is minimal compared to the contribu- that Varela’s proposal of the mutual irreduc-
tion of the inner (Solomonova & Sha). Inter- ibility of the mental and the physical still
http://constructivist.info/11/2/189.editorial

EDITORIAL SPECIAL ISSUE ON ENACTIVISM AND NEUROPHENOMENOLOGY
200
implicitly assumes a dualist ontology that
motivates the hard problem of conscious-
ness. In a complementary way, Kordeš pro-
motes constructivism as a more suitable
epistemological framework for empirical
phenomenological research, in which any
question about the metaphysical status of
mental and physical phenomena is bracket-
ed. And Solomonova & Sha promote precisely
such bracketing when analysing dream ex-
periences.
« 57 » All in all, it can be seen that the
diversity of enactivism and neurophenom-
enology can lead to novel and more wide-
ranging perspectives. In this respect, we
want to repeat the “constructivist challenge”
expressed in the editorial of the inaugural
issue of this journal, which underlined the
“plurality of constructivism” (Riegler 2005:
2) and that “constructivism asks for an open
and more lexible approach to science in or-
der to generate the plasticity that is needed
to cope with the scientiic frontier” (ibid:
5). his is in line with a view also found in
tEM:
“though
[C]ognitive science is not a monolithic ield,
it does have, as does any social activity,
poles of domination so that some of its partici-
pating voices acquire more force than others at
various periods of time. […] Nevertheless, our bias
sis added)
”
will be to emphasize diversity. (tEM: 6; empha-
And it can be found in von Foerster as well:
“only those questions which are in principle
undecidable we can decide” (Foerster 1991:
64). In his view, solving the big questions
cannot be delegated to a monolithic objec-
tive arbiter.
« 58 » Perhaps the most crucial divid-
ing line between diferent approaches in the
ield will turn out to be between those that
try to keep the research ield diverse and
open, and those that try to narrow it down
to a single (uniied) explanatory strategy.
he Varelian notion of enaction, with its
emphasis on groundless relexivity and its
pragmatic take on scientiic modelling, leans
heavily towards the irst option. Instead of
setting out on a quest to ind the one “true
model of how things are,” it emphasizes the
inescapable multilayeredness and contextu-
ality of scientiic knowledge, which could
make it an important interlocutor in con-
ConStRuCtIVISt FounDAtIons vol. 11, n°2
temporary debates on the (im)plausibility
of the value-free ideal of science (Douglas
2009; Kitcher 2001), the nature of objectivity
(Reiss & Sprenger 2014), the role of observer
and relexivity (Riegler & Müller 2014), and
sociality in scientiic knowledge (Longino
1990, 2002). We feel that the inherent open-
ness and plurality of enactivist construals of
science open up new avenues worth explor-
ing, and might serve as a good starting point
for future debates in the ield. In this regard,
the diversity and heterogeneity of contri-
butions and open peer commentaries that
constitute this special issue are by no means
a weakness or law, but rather indicative of
the creative and productive strength of the
newly emerging ield, and as such, some-
thing not to be shunned, but wholeheartedly
endorsed.
Acknowledgement
We are grateful for the extensive com-
ments we received from Michel Bitbol, Eze-
quiel Di Paolo, Erik Rietveld, Pierre Steiner,
John Stewart, and David Vernon.
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