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Beyond the Brain
Bold Visions in Educational Research
Volume 57

Series Editors:

Kenneth Tobin, The Graduate Center, City University of New York, USA
Carolyne Ali-Khan, College of Education & Human Services, University of North Florida, USA

Co-founding Editor:

Joe Kincheloe (with Kenneth Tobin)

Editorial Board:

Barry Down, School of Education, Murdoch University, Australia

Daniel L. Dinsmore, University of North Florida, USA
Gene Fellner, College of Staten Island, City University of New York, USA
L. Earle Reybold, College of Education and Human Development,
George Mason University, USA
Stephen Ritchie, School of Education, Murdoch University, Australia

Scope:
Bold Visions in Educational Research is international in scope and includes books from two
areas: teaching and learning to teach and research methods in education. Each area contains
multi-authored handbooks of approximately 200,000 words and monographs (authored and
edited collections) of approximately 130,000 words. All books are scholarly, written to engage
specified readers and catalyze changes in policies and practices. Defining characteristics of books
in the series are their explicit uses of theory and associated methodologies to address important
problems. We invite books from across a theoretical and methodological spectrum from scholars
employing quantitative, statistical, experimental, ethnographic, semiotic, hermeneutic, historical,
ethnomethodological, phenomenological, case studies, action, cultural studies, content analysis,
rhetorical, deconstructive, critical, literary, aesthetic and other research methods.

Books on teaching and learning to teach focus on any of the curriculum areas (e.g., literacy, science,
mathematics, social science), in and out of school settings, and points along the age continuum (pre
K to adult). The purpose of books on research methods in education is not to present generalized
and abstract procedures but to show how research is undertaken, highlighting the particulars that
pertain to a study. Each book brings to the foreground those details that must be considered at every
step on the way to doing a good study. The goal is not to show how generalizable methods are but to
present rich descriptions to show how research is enacted. The books focus on methodology, within
a context of substantive results so that methods, theory, and the processes leading to empirical
analyses and outcomes are juxtaposed. In this way method is not reified, but is explored within
well-described contexts and the emergent research outcomes. Three illustrative examples of books
are those that allow proponents of particular perspectives to interact and debate, comprehensive
handbooks where leading scholars explore particular genres of inquiry in detail, and introductory
texts to particular educational research methods/issues of interest to novice researchers.
Beyond the Brain
An Agentive Activity Perspective on Mind, Development, and Learning

Igor M. Arievitch
College of Staten Island, The City University of New York, USA
A C.I.P. record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

ISBN: 978-94-6351-102-5 (paperback)

ISBN: 978-94-6351-103-2 (hardback)
ISBN: 978-94-6351-104-9 (e-book)

Published by: Sense Publishers,

P.O. Box 21858,
3001 AW Rotterdam,
The Netherlands
https://www.sensepublishers.com/

All chapters in this book have undergone peer review.

Printed on acid-free paper

All Rights Reserved © 2017 Sense Publishers

No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted

in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming,
recording or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the
exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and
executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work.
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgementsvii

Chapter 1: Introduction 1
The Goals and Starting Points of the Book 1
The Structure and Main Topics of the Book 4

Chapter 2: The Mind Is Not in the Brain 7

A New Wave of Brainism in Psychology and Education 7
Recent Criticism of Brainism 9
Summary of Arguments against Brainism and “Mindless Neuroscience” 20

Chapter 3: The Mind Is the Form of the Individual’s Activity: The Emergence
of the Active Agent 25
Historical Context of Research on Non-Automaticity 28
James’s Concept of the “Efficacity of Consciousness” 30
Dewey’s Notion of Coordination of Self-Guided Activity 31
An Activity-Based Approach to Mind 33
Background of Galperin’s Work 33
The Concept of Orienting Activity 35
The New Type of Causality 39
The Mind Is the Embodied Agent’s Activity, Not the Brain Functioning 40
Comparison to Other Recent Attempts to Introduce an Agentive Approach
to Mind 42

Chapter 4: The Developmental Trajectory of Cultural Mediation (I):

From Joint Activity to Semiotic Mediation 55
Approaches to Semiotic Mediation 57
Vygotsky on Semiotic Mediation 60
Taking a Broader View on Mediation: Pre-History of Semiotic
Mediation64
From Earlier Forms of Cultural Mediation to Semiotic Mediation:
The “Magic of Signs” 72

v
TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 5: The Developmental Trajectory of Cultural Mediation (II):

From Semiotically Mediated Activity to Psychological Process 77
The Internalization Controversy 77
An Activity-Based Approach to Internalization 81
Focusing on External Activity 81
Mental Processes as Activities 86
Mental Processes Are the Agent’s External Actions 91
Demystifying the Process of Mediation by Cognitive Tools 95
Reframing the Mediation Research 95
Cognitive Tools Are Directed toward External Objects, Not “Inward” 99
Broadening the Non-Mentalist Framework 103
Neo-Piagetian Theorizing of Mental Processes and Internalization 104
The Human Agent: Adapting Organism or Inherently Social Actor? 106
“Internal” Processes as Acting with Social Meanings 109
Summary and Conclusions 112

Chapter 6: The Quality of Cognitive Tools and Development of the Mind 115
Development and Learning: The Relevance of Culturally Evolved
Cognitive Tools 116
The Role of Learning in Cognitive Development 120
Types of Learning 120
Types of Learning and Cognitive Development 132
Implications for Developmental Studies 137
Developmental Teaching and Learning 140
An Illustration: Bloom’s Taxonomy from the DTL Perspective 142

Chapter 7: Conclusion: Overcoming the Contemplative Fallacy by

Adopting the Agentive Activity Perspective 147

References153

About the Author 169

vi
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The writing of this book has benefited greatly from the constant support and
encouragement from my colleagues and friends at the School of Education of the
College of Staten Island, CUNY, for which I am very grateful.
My special thanks go to my long time colleagues and friends Andrei Podolskij,
René van der Veer, and Joseph Glick, who provided precious support and advice at
different stages of my professional career.
I am indebted to my academic teachers and brilliant thinkers Alexander Luria,
Alexei Leontiev, and especially Piotr Galperin, who is one of the major inspirational
figures of this book.
My deep gratitude is to Anna Stetsenko, with whom this book had been initially
started as part of our joint project because we share much of the most fundamental
perspectives, approaches, and thinking. We later decided to split the project into
two separate books, due to the wealth of ideas and materials to cover for each of us.
Anna’s input, feedback, and all kinds of support have been vital during the writing
of this book and far beyond.
I am also grateful to my daughter Maria for her help in editing the text of the
book.

vii
 CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

THE GOALS AND STARTING POINTS OF THE BOOK

This book presents a radical alternative to the rising wave of aggressive brainism and
biological reductionism in contemporary psychology, philosophy, and education.
It addresses major challenges and charts out possible steps in achieving what
constitutes a daunting and elusive goal for contemporary psychology: constructing
a coherently non-reductionist account of the mind by overcoming the entrenched
dualisms which still plague major psychological frameworks and Western thought
in general. It argues that such an account requires a consistently non-mentalist and
non-individualist view of mental (psychological) processes, yet without discarding
the individual mind altogether. In this vein, the book outlines an alternative
agentive activity perspective on mind and development, conceptualizes from this
perspective their relationships to the processes of teaching and learning, and lays
out the important implications of this approach for psychology and education. The
overall approach is based and expands on the recently influential Vygotsky-inspired
framework of cultural-historical and activity theories. It is also generally compatible
with several contemporary approaches, especially interactivism and the embodied
cognition theories; yet it is distinct in its conceptualization of the human mind as
a unique emergent property of human embodied meaningful activities that are not
reducible to physiological processes in the brain.
It is necessary to clarify my usage of several terms from the start. First, by a
consistent account of the mind I mean an account which would go in a conceptually
coherent fashion from a most foundational conceptual perspective on the mind through
elaboration and empirical research of key notions that emerge from this perspective, all
the way to articulating critical implications for an educational vision and practices. Such
a consistent account would also need to include the development of the mind across
three major dimensions – phylogenetic, ontogenetic, and microgenetic dimensions.
That is, it would need to address the evolutionary emergence of the mind, the individual
psychological development, and the functional, or microgenetic, development of
psychological processes (development within a limited period of learning).
Second, by a non-reductionist account of the mind I mean an account which
would reduce the unique characteristics and functions of the individual mind neither
“downwards,” that is, to physiological processes in the brain, nor “upwards,” that is,
to linguistic discourses, social communication, or communal practices.

1
CHAPTER 1

And third, by a non-mentalist account I mean an account which would

conceptualize the mind without presuming the existence of a special “mental”
(internal) realm for psychological processes and mental representations, presumed
to be fundamentally different from the outside world, thus creating the dualistic
Cartesian split between the body and the mind, the material and mental, the external
and internal, and so on.
The main reason for the persistence of these crippling dualisms and the major
stumbling block in constructing a consistently non-reductionist and non-mentalist
account of the mind is identified in this book as the centuries-old implicit
but powerful contemplative fallacy associated with the contemplative stance
(spectator perspective) that continues to shackle many contemporary psychological
frameworks. This contemplative stance underlies the “mind-body” and “internal-
external” dualisms, since to a contemplating observer (spectator) the body and the
mind inevitably and invariably appear as separate and incommensurable entities.
As Descartes stated, the mind, in stark contrast to the body, cannot be measured by
any spatial (dimensional) measures. In particular, the contemplative stance leads to
a misleading “objectification” of psychological phenomena (mental representations,
perception, memory, thinking, emotions, etc.), that is, to viewing these phenomena
as separate “objects” which in self-observation seem to exist independently within
a special “internal” realm that is profoundly different from everything in the outside
world. This fallacious objectification of psychological processes creates a mentalist
illusion that they take place “in the head” or in the brain.
The radical alternative discussed in the book – the agentive activity perspective –
addresses these stumbling blocks and overcomes the contemplative fallacy by
building on and advancing the key principles stemming from the activity-based
framework which includes (a) the cultural-historical and activity theory in the
works of Lev Vygotsky, Alexei Leontiev, and Daniil Elkonin, and (b) the theory of
orienting activity (as an expansion of activity theory) developed by Piotr Galperin.
This perspective also connects to important aspects of other recently developed and
increasingly influential approaches – rarely drawn upon in the cultural-historical
approach – such as the embodied cognition framework, especially its Piaget-inspired
action-based theoretical branch. The concept of the embodied agent’s object-
directed activity serves as a pivotal point for re-conceptualizing the mind and its
role in behavior. Consequently, in a radical departure from the traditional mentalist
perspective, psychological processes can be understood as not taking place “under
the skull” but as constituted by and emergent from the agent’s activities out in the
world. Within the agentive activity framework advanced in the book, the Cartesian
“mind-body” and “internal-external” dichotomies are transcended and ultimately
eliminated, without all together dissolving the agentive mind in “agent-less”
contexts and processes (as typically happens in existing approaches due to implicit
inconsistencies in their foundational assumptions).
The crux of the outlined perspective is that it conceptualizes the mind as an
emergent property of the individual’s active and constantly evolving engagements

2
 INTRODUCTION

with the world. This approach implies that the mind, specifically the human mind,
is not a mysterious capacity that individuals are endowed with from birth, and is not
an information-processing or brain activity strictly “in the head.” Neither is the mind
reduced, in this conceptualization, to the exclusively social levels of reality, such as
participation in community practices, social roles, or narratives and discourses. Such
a conceptualization makes it possible to avoid many old but constantly reincarnated
traps of reducing the mind to something that it is not – activity of the brain cells
or computer-like information processing, social interaction or linguistic discourse,
narratives or internal storing of representations.
Along these conceptual lines, the development of psychological processes is
analyzed across three major dimensions – phylogeny (evolutionary development),
ontogeny (individual development), and functional genesis (or microgenetic
development, i.e., occurring within a limited time of structured learning). A
systematic analysis across these three dimensions is often claimed as necessary for
a non-reductionist account of the mind, but is seldom consistently implemented
in various theoretical frameworks, including the Vygotskian and activity theory
extensions and interpretations.
The exploration in this book goes deeper than the now familiar templates typically
used to portray the cultural-historical and activity theories. Recent scholarship has
helped to establish the Vygotskian and activity research schools as the major influence
in the present landscape of psychology and education and has turned their works into
an indispensable source for new conceptualizations and ideas. The importance of
this scholarship notwithstanding, a deeper examination, and often substantial re-
conceptualizations of the key concepts developed in this school, such as mediation
and internalization, is still necessary for advancing a consistently non-reductionist
account. The analysis of the key concepts in Vygotsky’s and activity theory offered
in this book differs from their now established interpretations in a number of ways.
In particular, this analysis uses the lens of the agentive activity framework for taking
a fresh and deeper look at the developmental stages of semiotic mediation and
internalization in order to demystify the power and the “magic” of these processes as
giving rise to complex levels of psychological functioning. Such analytical strategy
includes operationalizing the initial Vygotskian insights by exposing and describing
the processes that underlie them.
This approach to the mind is also closely linked to a re-conceptualization of
how learning and teaching are implicated in the processes that constitute human
development. Whereas human development has been traditionally viewed as being
separate from teaching and learning, the book explains how these three processes
are inextricably linked. It follows the spirit of and elaborates upon the Vygotskian
approach to teaching, learning, and development. Namely, based on the post-
Vygotskian and activity studies and especially on Galperin’s line of research, the book
addresses the question of how exactly teaching-and-learning can lead development.
In particular, it focuses on the critical role of learners’ mastery of advanced cognitive
tools, understood as reifications of culturally evolved social practices. This aspect of

3
CHAPTER 1

the book therefore addresses the key problems at the intersection of psychology and
education – it articulates a re-conceptualized perspective on the major driving forces
of psychological development by placing the character of teaching and learning at the
center of developmental processes. Importantly, a consistent agentive activity view
of human psychological development and learning has fundamental implications for
educational practices, which are also delineated in the book.
To date, a number of works have been conducted within the sociocultural and
embodied cognition frameworks (e.g., Bakhurst, 2011; Clark, 2008; Noë, 2009;
Overton, Müller, & Newman, 2008; Wertsch, 1998) in pursuit of conceptualizing
the mind in a non-reductionist way, that is, “beyond the brain,” which is also one of
the goals in this book. These two lines of works have made a significant impact and
helped to advance our understanding of the “externality” of psychological processes.
Across several chapters of the book, I discuss different aspects of these works and
return to the same authors in order to expand the analysis of their ideas that are
relevant to the focus of a particular chapter. Based on such analysis, I argue that
neither of these works makes an effort to integrate the key concepts and principles
of the sociocultural and embodied cognition frameworks into a coherent non-
reductionist and non-mentalist account on the basis of an agentive perspective. Also,
importantly, these works do not strive to consistently connect their main concepts
and principles to an educational vision and to address the major implications of a
non-mentalist approach for teaching and learning. Partly because of this existing
gap and the resulting lack of an agentive perspective in educational theorizing,
education remains a conceptually disjointed area which is particularly vulnerable to
aggressive brainism and to mechanistic interpretations of learning and development.
Yet another goal of this book is to attempt to bridge the gap between a non-mentalist
psychological account of the mind and an educational vision by using the agentive
activity perspective as a foundation.

THE STRUCTURE AND MAIN TOPICS OF THE BOOK

Chapter 2 of the book makes a case for why the current bold claims made by many
neuroscientists and psychologists to explain the mind and consciousness through
research into the brain processes are grossly misleading in conceptual terms and
are not supported by actual research findings. It also considers and summarizes
the most advanced arguments against brainism recently put forth by a number of
scholars in psychology, philosophy, anthropology, and education. At the same time,
this chapter identifies the most important vulnerabilities and gaps in these arguments
as one of the main reasons for why brainism not only persists but is currently on the
rise. The main point advanced in this chapter is that a more consistently non-dualist
perspective on the emergence and the unique role of the mind in behavior is needed
in order to counter the biological reductionism in psychology and education.
Chapter 3 first examines the development of the concept of non-automatic
(psychological) regulation in psychology, starting from historical figures including

4
 INTRODUCTION

William James and John Dewey and progressing to more contemporary accounts,
such as research on automaticity in social perception, in order to explicate the
important aspects concerning automatic and non-automatic regulation. After that,
the chapter articulates Galperin’s perspective on the emergence and functions of
psychological regulation in evolution, as contrasted with automatic, physiological
regulation. His works represent the most far reaching and, at the same time, the least
understood part of the legacy of cultural-historical and activity theories. The key
points from these accounts are highlighted and drawn together for constructing a
non-mentalist and non-reductionist agentive activity perspective on the emergence
and functions of the mind in evolution. This implies the radical move to overcome the
Cartesian “mind-body” and “external-internal” dichotomies that still haunt the major
theoretical approaches. I also explore the ideas recently put forth within the embodied
cognition framework (particularly those stemming from the neo-Piagetian research)
and discuss ways to incorporate them into a unified non-reductionist account while
addressing their imbalances and gaps.
Chapter 4 analyzes the initial stages of the developmental trajectory of semiotic
mediation in individual development (ontogeny), especially in early childhood. The
same agentive activity perspective is applied to identify and explore theoretical gaps
in Vygotsky’s views on the development of semiotic mediation. The main argument
is that the principles of cultural mediation should be broadened to include the earlier,
pre-linguistic periods of development and pre-semiotic forms of mediation, from
which semiotic forms gradually emerge. From this perspective, Vygotsky’s notion of
two separate lines in ontogenetic development – the natural and the cultural ones – is
challenged and re-conceptualized. This is a critical step in constructing a consistently
non-dualist account of psychological development.
Chapter 5 focuses on the later phases in the developmental trajectory of semiotic
mediation, which include gradual internalization of semiotically mediated activities.
Building on Galperin’s ideas about the individual mastery of new activities, the
agentive activity perspective allows to re-conceptualize Vygotsky’s initial insights
about internalization. This helps to bring about this concept’s contemporary relevance
and highlight its important role in a consistently non-mentalist account of the mind,
contrary to many recent calls to dispose of this concept due to its potentially mentalist
connotations. Internalization is revealed to be not about a transfer of anything from
the outside world to “inside the head,” but instead as having to do with the dynamic
sequence of transformations in the uniquely human mastery of new semiotically
mediated goal-directed activities, with a number of distinct characteristics.
Chapter 6 addresses the role of culturally evolved cognitive tools in the processes
at the interception of development and learning. The agentive activity perspective,
drawing on Galperin’s research on different types of learning, allows to critically
revise and operationalize Vygotsky’s ideas about the leading role of teaching and
learning in development (the task which he insightfully sketched out but never
completed) by identifying a specific type of learning that has the potential to directly
induce cognitive development. The critical role of the quality of cognitive tools

5
CHAPTER 1

employed in learning that has been illuminated in this line of research is accentuated
and connected to the broader questions about the driving forces of development,
and to the still ongoing “nature-nurture” debates. In many of these debates, the
two-factorial (nature/nurture) model of development is almost taken for granted.
However, the “nature versus nurture” and the “nature plus nurture” options, presented
in the two-factorial model as the only existing conceptual options, are exposed
in the chapter from the agentive activity perspective as false choices that need to
be replaced with a coherently dialectical alternative. Such a paradigmatic shift in
perspective on development and learning bears major implications for education.
Chapter 7 (Conclusion) draws together and systematizes the main threads of the
analysis and argumentation across the chapters to outline again the key ideas and
to highlight their inter-connections, so that they stand as a viable and potentially
productive framework for advancing a consistently non-reductionist and non-
mentalist account of mind, development, and learning.

6
 CHAPTER 2

THE MIND IS NOT IN THE BRAIN

A NEW WAVE OF BRAINISM IN PSYCHOLOGY AND EDUCATION

This book is not about the brain or the role of brain studies in psychology and
education. Instead, it is about understanding the mind as a property of the active
agent and as a form in itself of the agent’s external activity, as well as the critical
educational implications of such an understanding. So why start with a review of
recent criticism of the “brain-based” approach that claims to provide full and complete
explanations of consciousness, behavior and learning exclusively in terms of brain
functioning? The first reason is my strong belief that the steadily rising wave of
“brainism” coming from the “neuromarketing” branch of neuroscience, by generating
misguided expectations while at the same time depleting valuable resources in these
disciplines, poses a seriously detrimental threat to psychology, and in particular to
education. This “brainism” is promoted with mind-boggling confidence by many
authors in research and media who declare that there is “overwhelming evidence” that
the causes of behavior and mind can be traced to brain processes, and announce the
advent of neuro-explanations of all things human (e.g., Dennett, 1991; Kandell, 2007,
2016; Pinker, 2003, 2009; Prinz, 2012). In education such claims divert attention
and resources away from explorations into the dynamics of teaching and learning as
meaningful activities that require far more than focus on the brain.
The second reason to start with such a review is my belief that the current
pushback by psychologists and educators who are skeptical about the surge of
“brainist” neuro-explanations is inadequate and needs to be more conceptually deep
and far-reaching. The final reason – and the most important one in the context of
this book – is my hope that a more consistent, non-reductionist, and at the same
time non-mentalist understanding of mind, mental development, and learning can
emerge from deeper conceptual elaborations on and intensification of the growing
opposition to “mindless neuroscience.” In this chapter, I will review these recent
critical advances that oppose “brainism” and offer a number of points that can
further strengthen and unify this opposition.
A substantial criticism of brain reductionism has recently emerged in philosophy,
psychology and education, as well as within neuroscience itself. Notable skeptical
voices coming from neuroscience include, for example, the recent books by
Lengrenzi and Umilta (2011) and Satel and Lilienfeld (2013). These authors
eloquently challenge overly enthusiastic claims from pop-neuroscience and neuro-
marketers, in actuality not supported by evidence, about the alleged link between
certain mental activities and specific brain areas and processes. Conversely, the

7
CHAPTER 2

authors discuss ample evidence that various brain areas and processes in fact
support multiple and very different human activities, including different mental
activities and problem solving, which makes establishing such direct links difficult
if not impossible. Unfortunately, most of these sobering critiques developed within
neuroscience do not articulate any philosophically viable alternatives to such
unfettered brain reductionism on ontological grounds. Moreover, they express hope
and even confidence that, with more effort and research, sometime in the future such
a direct mind-brain link will be discovered. In their conviction that neuroscientific
discoveries are on their way to this, many researchers call for patience, noting that
contemporary neuroscience does not yet know even the most elementary facts about
how the brain actually works (e.g., how the brain “recognizes” a straight line), let
alone the relationships between the brain processes and the more complex mental
states (e.g., see Marcus, 2012; Mausfeld, 2012). Yet, as many authors observe
(Jarrett, 2015; Willis, 2015), so far these calls for caution and patience fall on the
deaf ears of aggressive neuro-marketers (and, unfortunately, some neuroscientists
and psychologists) who continue to spread, with great fanfare, numerous simplistic
interpretations and outright neuro-myths.
Other neuroscientists, as well as psychologists and philosophers, have raised
more general concerns about the explanatory value of the reductionist brain-
based approaches for understanding the mind and behavior (Bem, 2001; Bissell,
1998; Carmeli & Blass, 2013; De Vos & Pluth, 2016; Harré, 2012; Hruby, 2012;
Gazzaniga, 2011; Gold & Stoljar, 1999; Miller, 2008; Rose & Abi-Rached,
2013; Tallis, 2011; Uttal, 2001). These authors argue that neuro and biological
reductionism misrepresents and simplifies human nature by claiming that it can be
derived from and attributed to brain physiology. They emphasize that such complex
social constructs as free will or responsibility, as well as presumably more “simple”
meaningful actions and behaviors (such as driving a car), have no meaning in the
“materialistic” and “deterministic” context of the brain processes.
Many critics point out that educational claims putatively derived from neuroscience
are largely oversold and not supported by rigorous evidence. Indeed, the actual
educational recommendations that can be derived from recent neuroscientific
research are strikingly disappointing and, moreover, merely translate into fashionable
neuroscientific terminology what has long already been known, thus producing an
illusion of new discoveries (e.g., Bruer, 1997, 2006; Fischer, Goswami, & Geake,
2010; Varma, McCandliss, & Schwartz, 2008). These observations have been echoed
by the findings that mere insertion of neuroscientific terms and references to brain
research has a powerful convincing effect on non-experts’ judgments about factually
flawed and even nonsensical claims and recommendations (including guidelines for
teaching and learning), masking otherwise obvious weakness of these statements
and recommendations (cf. McCabe & Castel, 2008; Weisberg, Keil, Goodstein,
Rawson, & Gray, 2008).
In mass literature and media, “brain” is routinely inserted into recommendations
which, upon closer examination, at best repeat commonplace knowledge bearing

8
 THE MIND IS NOT IN THE BRAIN

no relation to actual brain studies and findings. This exploitation of flippant neuro-
references have reached such egregious levels that one could suspect that the real
reason behind is that it is a cheap way to impress with “cutting-edge science.”
Alternatively, it is often an outright commercial ploy, since today “brain” is like
“sex” – it sells. Take for example a recent book which in its title announces nothing
less than the “Education Revolution,” and in its subtitle claims to explain “how to
apply brain science to improve instruction” (Sanzes, 2017). Although educational
recommendations provided by the author are either stunningly trivial or nonsensical,
the book is full of bizarre yet confident statements about brain research “findings.”
For example, the author proclaims that “the amygdala, the part of the brain in charge
of emotions, has three universal needs: The need to feel safe, the need to feel wanted,
and the need to be successful” (ibid., p. 99). The educational recommendation that
follows is that teachers have to test what they teach on the criterion “that the amygdala
must value it” (ibid., p. 152). Or consider the author’s “innovative” explanation of
higher order thinking, which presumably would not be possible without the cutting-
edge brain research: “Higher level thinking is simply defined as the brain making
connections, which allow students to link new information to old… based on their
prior knowledge” (ibid., p. 54). Such pieces of “revolutionary” pop-science could be
just shrugged off and forgotten were they not polluting the public discourses with
fake explanations and false promises in the critically important area of education.

RECENT CRITICISM OF BRAINISM

An elaborate critical analysis of neuroscientific interpretations of psychological

processes has been offered by Bennett and Hacker (2003, 2007). These authors
argue that psychological attributes cannot be ascribed to the brain. Instead, processes
such as remembering, thinking, and decision-making are done by people, not brains.
They point to the confusion between levels of analysis in brain-related educational
literature, such as in routine references to the “learning brain” (for one of the recent
examples, see Sousa, 2011). They identify this error as the mereological fallacy, in
which characteristics of the whole entity (in this case, the person) are mistakenly
attributed to a part of the whole (in this case, the brain). This is a very important
line of argumentation. However, its development by the authors, as well as an
alternative that they offer, are presented mostly from the perspective of linguistic
philosophy, discourse analysis, references to “psychological predicates,” and the
“normative connections of logic” rather than from a position that is concerned with
the ontological legitimacy of mental processes and their distinct role in behavior.
The authors’ legitimate and valuable point is that neuroscience cannot in principle
shed any light on many non-empirical, epistemological aspects of mind as
an a priori enquiry into the web of epistemic concepts that is formed by the
connections, compatibilities and incompatibilities between the concepts of
knowledge, belief, conviction, suspicion, supposition, conjecture, doubt,

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certainty, memory, evidence and self-evidence, truth and falsehood, probability,

reasons and reasoning, etc. (Bennett & Hacker, 2003, p. 406)
The authors do argue that consciousness, as well as other psychological states
and processes, “are bound to behavioral grounds,” not the brain. Yet again, their
point is that consciousness can be legitimately ascribed to an individual exhibiting
a particular behavior and not to the brain; therefore the focus is on the rules of
attributing mental states to the individual or to the brain (in the context of linguistic
and epistemological discourse) rather than on whether, how, and why consciousness
is distinct from brain processes in functional and developmental terms.
Particularly notable is the criticism of different aspects of brain reductionism
recently put forth by Bakhurst, Gergen, Noë, and Joldersma. These works offer
many refreshing insights about critically important differences between the brain
and the mind, about the embodied mind, and other related concepts. To clarify what
these authors suggest, their ideas are discussed in more detail below.
David Bakhurst (2008, 2011) criticizes what he calls “brainism” (reducing the
mind to the brain) and advocates “personalism” by drawing on the insights of Russian
philosopher Evald Ilyenkov and a number of contemporary Western thinkers,
particularly John McDowell. Both Ilyenkov and McDonnell develop an argument
that the brain is “not a candidate” for explaining the mind because mental processes
belong not to the physiological realm of the brain but to the individual’s activity in
the world. In so doing, Bakhurst draws on Ilyenkov’s position according to which
looking into the brain for an explanation of the mind is a fallacy. As Ilyenkov put it,
[T]he substance of mind is always [the individual’s] external activity … and
the brain with its inborn structures is only its biological substrate. This is why
studying the brain tells you as little about the mind as analyzing the physical
properties of gold, silver, or banknote paper tells you about the nature of
money. (Ilyenkov, 2002, p. 98; italics in the original)
Along the same lines, personalists maintain that the brain creates the possibility
for, but does not determine, psychological processes – in other words, brain
functioning enables “mindedness,” but is not constitutive of it. Following McDowell
(1994), Bakhurst explores an important distinction between two different types of
explanations, one of which is relevant to the brain (physiological processes), and the
other – the mind (psychological processes). That is, the brain belongs to the realm
of natural-scientific causal explanations, whereas the mind belongs to the “realm of
reasons.” According to Bakhurst,
Since there is no possibility of reducing the items that occupy the space of
reasons to those that populate the realm of law, it follows that psychological talk
represents a fundamentally different discourse from talk of the brain, and these
discourses have fundamentally different subjects. With this view of rationality
in place, we can say that the qualitative transformation in the child occurs when
it becomes an inhabitant of the space of reasons, a being whose life-activity

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 THE MIND IS NOT IN THE BRAIN

must be understood by appeal to rational, rather than merely causal-scientific,

considerations. For McDowell, what is crucial is the acquisition of conceptual
capacities…Such a creature is a rational agent, a person. This conception of
development consolidates the view that the person is the centerpiece of rational
explanation, not her brain. (Bakhurst, 2008, p. 425)
One important conclusion from this line of reasoning is worth repeating, since
several misguided assumptions and misleading language have immensely polluted
educational and popular discourse: Brains do not think, perceive, believe, and do not
make decisions (and, one could add, neither do amygdalae “need” or “feel” anything).
These and similar processes do not take place in the brain and are inapplicable to
brain processes. It is persons with brains who do all these activities and therefore
are responsible for the consequences of their decisions and actions. What Bakhurst
actually touches upon here (though does not elaborate in detail) is not just a matter
of different types of logic or different levels of incompatible “discourses” (causal
vs. rational). Rather, it is a fundamental question about ontologically different types
of causality. One of these types is mechanical (physical, physiological) causality,
which is applicable to all brain processes. Another type is qualitatively different non-
mechanical causality (a sort of “non-deterministic determinism”) which emerges in
evolution with the advent of embodied active agents who (not their brains) consider
various “reasons” for action and act upon them. I will come back to this important
point in the next chapter where I discuss the emergence of a new level of activity
regulation – the non-automatic (psychological) regulation.
To reiterate, one issue with Bakhurst’s account is that although he appears to
imply the active agent (person) in his discussion, he does this in mostly general and
indirect terms, and in the context of different “discourses” rather than in relation to
the agents’ meaningful activity. The second issue, closely related to the first one, is
that his perspective on agency and first-person perspective critical to agency seems
to have a traditional mentalist flavor. For example, in commenting on how brainism
struggles to make sense of the first-person perspective, Bakhurst writes that
[a] person does not typically stand to her own mental states as to objects of
observation. …The attitude we take to our own mental lives is one of agency:
we are the authors of our orientation to the world, responsible for what we think
and do and our attitude to our own beliefs is never one of passive observation.
Indeed, even in cases where our minds are passive recipients, as they are in
perception, we are nevertheless under a standing obligation to evaluate the
veracity of what we take ourselves to see, hear and so on. (ibid., p. 423)
From this and later passages it is apparent that Bakhurst is still wavering between
two radically different positions: one which posits an active agent and mind, and
another that is rooted in the traditional mentalist paradigm about the mind. The latter
position transpires in Bakhurst’s claims that in perception “our minds are passive
recipients…” and that only after perceiving something “we are under a standing

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obligation to evaluate the veracity of what we take ourselves to see, hear, and so
on” (ibid., p. 423). Interpreting the mind as a recipient of external information
or experience is clearly an instance of the traditional mentalist and cognitivist
(information-processing) framework. Therefore, one can conclude that although
Bakhurst raises important concerns with regard to brainism and articulates some
potentially promising points for a possible “personalist” alternative, his overall
account is contradictory, since it still operates with the elements of the traditional
mentalist paradigm, which assumes that the mind passively receives information to
process it “in the head.” Consequently, in his further elaborations Bakhurst ends up
claiming that there is “no reason to assume a priori that causal factors relevant to
explaining a person’s… ability” do not come from the brain and that “there are no a
priori grounds to declare brain science irrelevant to educational issues” (Bakhurst,
2008, pp. 427–428). This conclusion by Bakhurst seems inconsistent given that he
spends the larger part of his article arguing that from the personalist perspective,
which he seems to share, there are actually very serious theoretical grounds to
assume exactly that – namely, that the brain is irrelevant in terms of “causal factors”
in behavior and that the “brain is not a candidate” for explaining the mind and mental
processes.
Several topics raised by Bakhurst in his discussion of brainism resonate with the
critique of cortical explanations of human behavior put forth by Kenneth Gergen
(2010), who also adds several important threads to critiquing and potentially
debunking brainism. Gergen claims that looking into the workings of the brain by
using imaging technology, however sophisticated, can actually tell us very little, if
anything at all, about the human mind, behavior, and learning. According to Gergen,
the “causes” of behavior are not in the brain but in the outside world, which for
humans is their social and cultural world. The human brain (and more broadly the
nervous system) enables all forms of cultural activities and behaviors due to its
enormous plasticity, but the brain is not “responsible” for human behavior because
it is not the cause of behavior.
Based on evidence from neuropsychological research, Gergen makes a
compelling case that human activity is unintelligible in terms of neural processes
and that the brain’s primary function is to serve as an enabling tool for achieving
socially originated goals. Accordingly, Gergen articulates the conceptual premise
that the brain processes can be only viewed as a necessary organismic precondition
for mental processes and abilities, but in no way as their causes or determinants.
He points to the intractable conceptual problem with understanding the brain as the
causal source of the mind states:
The distinction is represented primarily in the assumption that the brain is a
causal source of both mental states and behavior. We thus commonly speak
of the neural basis, source, or grounds of cognition, emotion, altruism,
aggression, and so on. Yet this assumption of the brain as a causal source raises
major difficulties. There is, at the outset, Descartes’ intractable problem of how

12
 THE MIND IS NOT IN THE BRAIN

brain states affect mind states. If mind states are not material, then how are we
to conceptualize the causal link between material and non-material worlds?
(Gergen, 2010, p. 802)
Gergen further states that the brain should be viewed not as causing behavior (and
therefore not as being somehow “responsible” for specific behavior) but instead, as
an “organ” that supports all kinds of activities:
There are dramatically different social implications between the conclusion
that “my brain made me do it,” and “my brain prevents my doing it.” In the
latter case, there is considerable utility in determining whether a given
incapacity, for example, is cortically determined. It would be useful to know
if symptoms characterized as autism resulted from neurological as opposed to
social factors – or some combination. (ibid., p. 811)
Instead of deriving behavior from the “programs” contained in the brain, Gergen
suggests viewing the function of the brain as “preparatory” – that of preparing the
individual for an infinite variety of actions (in the form of what he terms “protean
action”) which implies innovation and continuous adjustment to ever-changing
environmental conditions. In this context, Gergen points to the brain’s enormous
plasticity as its most important property for human life that requires the individual to
be prepared for an infinite variety of activities that cannot be predetermined from the
beginning. He further draws attention to these requirements being cultural in origin,
and sums his position as follows,
In this context, it seems far more reasonable to view the brain not as prophetic,
but as preparatory in function. That is, it is an organ specifically preparing
the individual for protean action, for continuously responding, innovating, and
initiating, as the conditions of life unfold over time. It is at just this point that
an enormous body of evidence for neural plasticity becomes relevant. (ibid.,
p. 806)
Insisting that efforts to find explanations of behavior in the brain are misguided,
Gergen makes a point that is similar to Ilyenkov’s reasoning (as discussed
by Bakhurst) – that these explanations should be looked for not in the realm of
physiology but in the realm of culture and human meanings. He discusses what
resonates with Ilyenkov’s example (quoted earlier in this chapter) about the futility
of trying to discover the nature of money by examining the physical composition of
banknotes, explaining why the concept of time cannot be found in the mechanism of
the clock itself. In Gergen’s words,
The physical mechanism of a clock may be fully understood; the functioning
of its parts wholly predictable… Yet, there is nothing about the physical
functioning of the clock that yields information about time. That a clock
furnishes us the time of day is entirely dependent upon shared agreements
within the culture… To return to the earlier issue of causality, it makes little

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sense to say that the working of the clock as a physical instrument is the causal
basis (a “hard-wired origin”) of the time. We are dealing here not with cause
and effect, but with two functionally distinct discourses. (ibid., p. 809)
Gergen also convincingly argues that it makes no sense to view the brain in
isolation from the nervous system and the whole body, as well as from its behavior,
and instead suggests the broader “body-in-environment” system as a more viable
alternative and core focus of analysis. This shift in focus eliminates the traditional
distinction between brain and behavior and, likewise, refutes the view of the brain
as a cause of behavior:
… [T]he brain is but a constituent part of the nervous system as a whole, and,
separated from the remainder of the system, bodily movement is severely
attenuated. In effect, it makes little sense to view the “brain as behavior”
separated from the broader system of which it is a part. It is also apparent
that the neural system is scarcely independent of the pulmonary system; each
depends on the other for its functioning. And, too, neither of these could function
effectively without the digestive system, skeletal structure, and so on. Remove
any part of the system and “behavior” is essentially negated. Given that what
we commonly distinguish as the brain acquires its function within the bodily
system as a whole, it defies common meaning to assert that the movement of
the body represents behavior, for which the brain is a cause. It is the functioning
of the full array of interdependent bodily systems that is synonymous with
behavior itself. Remove the functioning of this systemic process and there is
no behavior; remove behavior and there is nothing remaining to be called the
body. The traditional distinction between brain and behavior is erased, and
likewise the view that the brain is a cause or basis of behavior. (ibid., p. 804)
In this passage, in addition to its main line of argument that the functioning of
the brain cannot be separated from the functioning of the body as a whole and that,
therefore, claims about the brain causing behavior are unsubstantiated and misleading,
one can also identify at least an implicit hint to what other authors (Joldersma, 2013;
Noë, 2008, among others) refer to as the embodied agent who acts in the world,
including various cultural environments. However, this important concept has not
been further developed by Gergen, which leads to the following problems with his
account.
From the very beginning of the discussion, Gergen considers two types of
factors as possible candidates for the determinants of the individual’s behavior: the
physiological factors (brain processes) and cultural factors. Having established these
two alternatives, Gergen clearly chooses “cultural conditions” as more suitable:
It is not the brain that brings about problem solving, but the cultural conditions
in which the very idea of solving problems and the kind of behavior defined
as problem solving are nurtured. In this case the brain is simply a conduit that
carries the cultural tradition. (ibid., p. 803)

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 THE MIND IS NOT IN THE BRAIN

The problem with Gergen’s interpretation, however, is that it appears that

cultural factors somehow act directly and shape behavior by themselves. In other
words, Gergen seems to view cultural conditions themselves as determinants of
behavior: “The brain does not determine the contours of cultural life; cultural life
determines what we take to be the nature and importance of brain functioning”
(p. 813). Therefore, the physiological causes of behavior are replaced by Gergen
with cultural causes. As a result, there is no clearly defined human agent in Gergen’s
account. In some parts of the discussion, such as the passage above, the agent is
seemingly presumed but is neither explicitly identified nor theorized in any detail
as a potentially key concept to theorizing the mind and the role of the brain. In turn,
this leads to an implicit assumption about a direct relationship between the brain
and the outside world (which, in the case of humans, is the predominantly cultural
world). This assumption shows up right in the title of Gergen’s (2010) article – The
Acculturated Brain, which not so tacitly implies a position that the brain itself is
directly connected to culture and even “acculturated” by it. In addition, expressions
like “brain as culture carrier” (p. 805) also point to the same problematic assumption
about the direct synergy and immediate connection between the brain and culture.
Quite paradoxically, in such an account, assuming a direct connection between
the brain and culture means that there is no clear place for the mind as something
distinctly different from the brain. Consequently, one is bound to have a hard time
explaining how cultural factors (Gergen’s version of the causes of behavior) in
synergy with the brain allow for the individual’s “protean” (ever-changing) or any
other type of meaningful actions in the dynamic cultural and social environment.
That is, omitting the human agent as the defining part of the relationship between
the brain and cultural factors makes a productive conceptualization of the role of the
mind (psychological processes) very difficult, if not impossible. As I discuss in the
following chapters, the concept of active agents and their meaningful goal-directed
activities in the world is central to understanding the mind’s function as irreducible
to the brain processes and to resolving old dualistic dichotomies between the brain
and the mind, the mind and the body, the physiological and cultural processes, and so
on. My brief comment about Gergen’s view here is that while brains themselves do
not “carry” culture, neither do cultural conditions, nor cultural artifacts themselves
carry culture. Rather, real people (enabled by human brains and bodies) as they
engage in their cultural practices do.
A compelling case against brainism has been recently made by Alva Noë. In his
thought-provoking book Out of Our Heads (2009), Noë criticizes mainstream
neuroscience and cognitive science for promoting the view that the brain is the seat
of the mind and that the brain generates consciousness. His charge is that these views
are misguided, unsustainable and have no empirical support:
Brains don’t think. The idea that a brain could represent the world on its own
doesn’t make any more sense than the idea that mere marks on paper could
signify all on their own (that is, independently of the larger social practice of

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reading and writing). The world shows up for us thanks to our interaction with
it. It is not made in the brain or by the brain. (Noë, 2009, p. 164)
Noë forcefully argues that consciousness (which for him in most cases is
identical to the mind) does not “take place” in the brain in the way digestion
takes places in the stomach. The mind is not what we have; it is what we do in
the world when being engaged with the environment. The mind is embodied and
engaged with the world – there is no “Mission Control” somewhere in the brain
because the mind is not a “thing”; instead, it is relational. As Noë states, “[c]
onsciousness of the world around us is something that we do: we enact it, with
the world’s help, in our dynamic living activities. It is not something that happens
in us” (ibid., p. 65).
Since Noë’s own research focus has been visual perception, his most convincing
points come from the studies of perception. For example, he draws on the experiments
involving rewiring the brains of newborn ferrets by wiring up their eyes to the parts
of the brain normally used for hearing. It turned out that the ferrets were able to see
with their auditory brains, and Noë rightfully concludes that “this teaches us that
there isn’t anything special about the cells in the so-called visual cortex that makes
them visual. Cells in the auditory cortex can be visual just as well” (ibid., p. 54).
Such findings illustrate the brain’s plasticity, as well as an important proposition
that there are no direct neural correlates of mental cognitive functions that could by
themselves generate these functions because cognition does not “happen” inside the
brain. In Noë’s words,
Seeing is … a bodily activity. Seeing is not something that happens in us. It is
not something that happens to us or in our brains. It is something we do. It is an
activity of exploring the world making use of our practical familiarity with the
ways in which our own movement drives and modulates our sensory encounter
with the world. Seeing is a kind of skillful activity. (ibid., p. 60)
Noë criticizes the mechanistic model of visual perception, which holds that
initially the retinal image (which is “on its way” to the brain) is turned upside down
due to optical laws, and then the brain, in the process of “analyzing” that image,
turns it back into the upright position. Noë argues that this model is fundamentally
misleading. The retinal “image” is not a picture that is somehow scrutinized by the
mind’s eye, or by the brain. The brain does not see the retinal image. The claim that
the brain “adjusts the inversion of the retinal image” (because the retinal image is
“upside down”) does not make sense; it is based on the misguided assumption that
the retinal image is a picture, that is, a representation that needs to be interpreted by
some observer. From this perspective,
Seeing is active. Vision is not an internal process in the sense like digestion.
When we give up the misguided assumption that the brain generates vision,
we lose the feeling of puzzlement about how the brain does it. (ibid., p. 145)

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 THE MIND IS NOT IN THE BRAIN

One of the most provocative arguments by Noë is directed towards the information-
processing view – the presumed commonplace knowledge that the brain, and its visual
areas in particular, is an organ for processing information about the environment.
According to this disputable though widely shared view, the visual system in the
brain performs an information-processing task – it extracts information about the
environment from the retinal image, thus constructing an internal representation of
that environment. Noë contends that there are serious reasons to question such a theory
because the brain itself does not interpret information in any way:
When a detective extracts information about an intruder from a footprint, or
when an oceanographer gathers information about a prehistoric climate by
studying fossils of unicellular organisms that she dredges up from today’s ocean
floor – these are nice examples of “extracting information” about one thing
from another… Things are different when it comes to the brain and the retinal
image. No doubt the retinal image is rich in information about the scene before
the eyes…But the brain is no scientist or detective; it doesn’t know anything
and it has no eyes to examine the retinal image. It has no capacity to make
inferences about anything, let alone the remote environmental causes of the
observable state of the retina. (ibid., p. 161)
To reiterate, in this sense the brain is not an information processing device, since
the brain does not “know” the operations it is performing, just as a clock knows
nothing about time. This argument sounds convincing, especially if one assumes that
information processing includes making sense of that information rather than just
“processing” it for abstract algorithms, formulaic consistencies, and combinatorial
logistics and patterns.
Criticizing the mentalist model of cognition, Noë argues that it is a mistake to
think that the brain builds up an internal picture of the world. Rather, cognition can
be construed in terms of “access to the world”:
What I see is never the content of a mental snapshot; the world does not seem
to be reproduced inside me. Rather – and this is the key – the world seems to
be available to me. What guarantees its availability is, first of all, its actually
being here, and second, my possessing the skills needed to gain access to it. I
gather the detail as I do it by turning my head or shifting my attention… The
world doesn’t show up for me as present all at once in my mind. It shows up
as within reach, as more or less nearby, as more or less present. (pp. 140–141,
italics in the original)
The theme about “skillful access” to the world as a basis for perception, which
resonates with Gibson’s (1979) idea of affordances, is prominent is Noë’s account.
However, the subsequent important questions that follow from this position are
never discussed or even raised – namely, what exactly are those skills that are
needed to gain access to the world, how do they develop and what does this imply
for understanding the mind? These questions and a whole set of related issues lead

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to the problem of defining and analyzing different types of the agent’s actions and
to the notion of internalization in its reconceptualized form as a major avenue of
human mental development, which is the main topic of Chapter 5 of this book.
In addition, although in contrast to the mentalist accounts Noë (2004) explains
perception as connected to external action, he seems to conceptualize action itself in
a quite narrow, sensory-motor way, as a merely physical movement of the biological
organism adapting to the environment. Along the same line of narrowly biological
reasoning, Noë posits that human mind and activity are biologically based, and
claims that “the goal is to understand the biological basis of consciousness” (Noë,
2009, p. 161). Such a biologically-driven view leads Noë to argue that the mind
is everywhere where there is life – even in bacteria: “The bacterium is not merely
a process; it is an agent, however simple; it has interests…Where we discern life,
we have everything we need to discern mind” (ibid., p. 41). Paradoxically, in such
a radical form of a blanket generalization, the call for a biological perspective
turns out to be non-evolutionary at its core, since there is no acknowledgement of
any qualitative changes and developmental trajectories across forms of life and
mind (from snails to mammals), let alone of the unique features of human mental
development. These unique features will be discussed in Chapters 4 and 5 of this
book.
To summarize, in Noë’s works there is an explicit and forceful rejection of brainism
and, as an alternative, an implicit move towards the notion of the active embodied
agent. However, due to Noë’s understanding of practically all living beings as agents,
the specific properties of active agents and the distinct and qualitative characteristics
that differentiate them from non-agents are not discussed. The analysis of such
differences and their fundamental implications for action-based conceptualization of
the mind is the main topic of Chapter 3 of this book.
Another important line of arguments against brainism has been recently advanced
by Clarence Joldersma (2013) from the perspective of the radical embodiment
model of mind. The idea of embodied cognition has been advanced by a number of
authors (e.g., Clark, 2008; Overton, Müller, & Newman, 2008; Varela, Thompson,
& Rosch, 1991), but Joldersma used it in the most systematic way to challenge
the brain reductionism. Not surprisingly, many themes in Joldersma’s account are
similar to those raised by the authors discussed above. For example, Joldersma
argues that mental process and behavior do not “supervene” on the brain – that is,
they are not determined by the brain; brain processes do not determine actions but
rather “modulate” sensorimotor patterns based on sensory feedback:
Localized sensory feedback adjusts and adapts general motor dynamic patterns
while, conversely, neural states participate as a bodily-subsystem in the entire
bodily subject’s action as informed by the network of affordances. That is, the
relations between neural activity and the sensorimotor elements of embodied
environmental interaction are modulating. (Joldersma, 2013, p. 266; italics in
the original)

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 THE MIND IS NOT IN THE BRAIN

The radical embodiment model adopted by Joldersma seeks to conceptualize the

mind as “embodiedness,” including its embeddedness in the world: “The human
mind is embodied in the entire bodily subject and embedded in the world, and hence
is not reducible to structures inside the head” (ibid., p. 266; for similar arguments,
see Marshall, 2009). This model is non-representational (no internal pictures are
assumed to exist under the skull), just as are the similar views of Noë, and it also
employs Gibson’s notion of affordances. Accordingly, this model also holds that
there is no one-to-one correspondence between neural processes and mental states.
An introduction of the active agent in this model leads to the potentially
fundamental idea that underlying all cognition is the agent’s activity, even when the
active component of cognition is not explicit:
Even in settings where action is not obvious, evidence indicates that certain
sensory and motor actions are simply bracketed while running on the same
neural machinery. Cognition remains subtended by the same neuronal
dynamics that support general patterns of sensorimotor skills. This means that
cognition centrally involves something that we do, aptly characterized by Noë
as a “temporally extended process of skillful probing” in which “the world
makes itself available to our reach.” (Joldersma, p. 267)
However, although Joldersma claims that the model is action-based, in reality
he (as well as other proponents of embodied cognition, e.g., Núñez, 2004) typically
reduces actions to physical movements (“moving around”). Consequently, he
interprets the integration of action and perception just as “sensorimotor” coordination.
I would argue that such a narrow understanding of action and activity (at least in
Joldersma’s account) substantially inhibits the ability of the embodied cognition
perspective to elaborate a radically novel alternative to brainism.
As pointed out in the foregoing discussion in this chapter, the general non-
mentalist and non-reductionist thrust in the embodied cognition framework is indeed
much needed and productive. However, apart from the references to the “extension
to the world” and statements that we “experience ourselves as minds by being bodily
oriented to the world,” there is no specific and detailed explanation of the mind’s
role in the life conduct and behavior which would be irreducible to brain functioning.
That is, the function of the mind as distinct from that of the brain is blurred in
Joldersma’s account. In my view, this is exactly because in discussing the role of
both the brain and the mind, Joldersma remains solely at the sensorimotor level of
regulation, which in his description looks as entirely physiological level. As a result,
the need for a qualitatively different level of regulation – psychological regulation
(i.e., the mind, as will be elaborated in the next chapter) – remains unspecified.
The reduction of all cognition to the sensorimotor level in Joldersma’s discussion
of the embodied view of cognitive functioning is evident when he states that
[i]n radical embodiment, cognition is understood not only as an active
process, but also as being dependent on being a body with certain patterns

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of sensorimotor actions. At minimum, some argue that cognition simply

is sensorimotor coordination…This means that in its basic form cognition
involves coordinating the sensorimotor behavior of the organism by coupling
sensory and motor patterns and capacities. (Joldersma, 2013, p. 267; italics in
the original)
Even human cognition, according to Joldersma, is no different because “human
cognition also centrally still involves patterns of sensorimotor coordination” (p. 267).
For example, speaking about thinking and mathematical concepts, Joldersma argues
that the underlying mechanisms are sensorimotor in their basis:
In abstract thinking, cognition remains geared for action, although with
interesting and marked modifications. Even, for example, in mathematical
abstractions, cognition remains enmeshed in sensorimotor dynamisms, even
though there is no overt sensorimotor activity. (ibid., p. 268)
With such a narrow focus on sensorimotor components, where even human action
is basically interpreted just as sensorimotor movement, it remains unclear which
specific functions of cognition (as a psychological level of regulation) cannot be
reduced to brain processes. When action is understood largely in a physiological way,
the embodied cognition model, at least in Joldersma’s elaboration, paradoxically misses
the all-important part: the agent’s activity (as different from “moving around” and
using “sensors and effectors”), which is mediated by meanings and goals and therefore
necessitates a qualitatively new form of regulation – psychological regulation.
In summary, with all the very important and well-reasoned arguments put forth
against brainism, Joldersma’s account of embodied cognition blurs the fundamental
difference between merely physiological regulation and cognitive (psychological)
regulation, such as perception. It is difficult to elaborate the critically important
concept of the embodied agent in a consistent way while remaining confined to
essentially physiologically-based theorizing, level of analysis, and language.
Whatever is generally claimed about the irreducibility of the mind to the brain,
the physiological level of analysis inevitably leads to the conclusion that the only
true reality is not the intentional agent, but an organism (“body-in-environment”)
with its dominating physiological forms of regulation, into which brain processes
fit perfectly. Consequently, it is difficult for this account to discern the functional
difference between brain processes and the mind, the latter understood as the
qualitatively new ability of embodied agents to regulate their activity in the world.

SUMMARY OF ARGUMENTS AGAINST BRAINISM AND

“MINDLESS NEUROSCIENCE”

Wrapping up the discussion of recent criticism aimed at countering the new wave
of brainism, the most important points of this discussion could be summarized as
follows.

20
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no related content on Scribd:
576.
Tabari, i. c. lxxix.; Abulfeda, p. 35.

577.
Rabboth, fol. 302 b; Devarim Rabba, fol. 246, col. 2.

578.
Weil, pp. 188, 189.

579.
Weil, p. 190.

580.
Rabboth, fol. 302 b.

581.
Weil, pp. 190, 191.

582.
Lyra Anglicana, London, 1864, “The Burial of Moses.”

583.
Talmud, Tract. Sota, fol. 14 a.

584.
Tabari, i. p. 396.

585.
Talmud of Jerusalem; Tract. Terumoth.

586.
Josh. vii. 1-5.

587.
Tabari, i. p. 402.

588.
Koran, Sura ii. v. 55, 56.
589.
Tabari, p. 404.

590.
Tabari, p. 401.

591.
Ibid. p. 404.

592.
Berescheth Rabba.

593.
The Mussulmans say Khasqîl or Ezechiel.

594.
Judges i. 4.

595.
Tabari, i. p. 404.

596.
Eisenmenger, i. p. 395.

597.
Hist. Dynast. p. 24.

598.
Tabari, i. c. lxxxvii.

599.
D’Herbelot, Bibl. Orient., s. v. Aschmouil.

600.
Koran, Sura ii. v. 247, 248.

601.
Koran, Sura ii. v. 248.
602.
D’Herbelot, Bib. Orientale, t. i. p. 263.

603.
Tabari, i. p. 417.

604.
This incident, from the apocryphal gospels of the childhood of
Christ, shall be related in the Legendary Lives of New
Testament Characters.

605.
Weil, pp. 193-8.

606.
Koran, Sura ii. v. 250.

607.
Tabari, i. p. 418.

608.
Perhaps the passage in Psalm cvii. 35 may refer to this
miracle, unrecorded in Holy Scripture.

609.
Weil, pp. 200, 201.

610.
Koran, Sura ii. v. 251.

611. Weil, p. 203.

612.
Tabari, i. p. 421.

613.
Ibid.
614.
Tabari, i. p. 422; Weil, pp. 202-4; D’Herbelot, i. p. 362.

615.
Weil, pp. 205-8.

616.
Tabari, i. p. 423. The same story is told of the escape of S.
Felix of Nola, in the Decian persecution.

617.
Tabari, i. p. 429.

618.
Weil, p. 207.

619.
Tabari, i. p. 424.

620.
Ps. li. 5.

621.
Midrash, fol. 204, col. 1.

622.
Ps. cxviii. 22.

623.
See the story in the Legends of Adam.

624.
Zohar, in Bartolocci, i. fol. 85, col. 2.

625.
Jalkut, fol. 32, col. 2 (Parasch 2, numb. 134).

626.
Ibid. (Parasch. 2, numb. 127).
627.
1 Sam. xvii. 43.

628.
2 Sam. iii. 29.

629.
Zohar, in Bartolocci, i. fol. 99, col. 1.

630.
Talmud, Tract. Sanhedrim, fol. 107.

631.
1 Kings ii. 11.

632.
2 Sam. v. 5.

633.
Bartolocci, i. f. 100.

634.
1 Sam. xxiv. 4.

635.
Bartolocci, i. f. 122, col. 1.

636.
1 Kings i. 1.

637.
Bartolocci, i. f. 122, col. 2.

638.
Ps. lvii. 9; Bartolocci, i. fol. 125, col. 2.

639.
Talmud, Tract. Sota, fol. 10 b.
640.
Ps. xxii. 21.

641.
Midrash Tillim, fol. 21, col. 2.

642.
Eisenmenger, i. p. 409.

643.
Ps. xviii. 36.

644.
Ps. lv. 6.

645.
Ps. lxviii. 13.

646.
Talmud, Tract. Sanhedrim, fol. 95, col. 1.

647.
Tract. Sabbath, fol. 30, col. 2.

648.
Tabari, i. p. 426; Weil, p. 208.

649.
Weil, p. 207.

650.
Tabari, p. 428.

651.
The Arabs call her Saga.

652.
The story in the Talmud is almost the same, with this
difference: Bathsheba was washing herself behind a beehive,
 then the beautiful bird perched on the hive, and David shot an
arrow at it and broke the hive, and exposed Bathsheba to view.
In the Rabbinic tale, David had asked for the gift of prophecy,
and God told him he must be tried. This he agreed to, and the
temptation to adultery was that sent him. (Talmud, Tract.
Sanhedrim, fol. 107, col. 2; Jalkut, fol. 22, col. 2.)

653.
Koran, Sura xxxviii.

654.
Weil, pp. 212, 213.

655.
Weil, pp. 213-224.

656.
Greek text, and Latin translation in Fabricius: Pseudigr. Vet.
Test. t. ii. pp. 905-7.

657.
‫ ;סגולות ורפואות‬Amst. 1703.

658.
Solomon was twelve years old when he succeeded David.
(Abulfeda, p. 43; Bartolocci, iv. p. 371.)

659.
Weil, pp. 225-231; Eisenmenger, p. 440, &c.

660.
Weil, pp. 231-4.

661.
The story of the building of the temple, with the assistance of
Schamir, has been already related by me in my “Curious Myths
of the Middle Ages.”
662.
The Rabbinic story and the Mussulman are precisely the same,
with the difference that Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, instead
of the Jinns, lies in ambush and captures Sachr or Aschmedai
(Asmodeus). (Eisenmenger, i. 351-8.) As I have given the
Jewish version in my “Curious Myths of the Middle Ages,” I
give the Arab story here.

663.
Weil, pp. 234-7; Talmud, Tract. Gittin. fol. 68, cols. 1, 2.

664.
Jalkut Schimoni, fol. 90, col. 4.

665.
Tabari, i. p. 435.

666.
Tabari, i. p. 436.

667.
Koran, Sura xxvii.; Tabari, i. c. xcviii.; Weil, pp. 237-9.

668.
The Jews also believed in a purgatory; see Bartolocci, i. 342.

669.
Targum Scheni Esther, fol. 401, tells the same of the moorcock.

670.
This is the letter according to Rabbinic authors: “Greeting to
thee and to thine; from me, King Solomon. It is known to thee
that the holy, ever-blessed God has made me lord and king
over the wild beasts and birds of heaven, and over the devils,
and spirits, and ghosts of the night, and that all kings, from the
rising to the down-setting of the sun, come and greet me. If
thou also wilt come and salute me, then will I show thee great
honour above all the kings that lie prostrate before me. But if
 thou wilt not come, and wilt not salute me, then will I send
kings, and soldiers, and horsemen against thee. And if thou
sayest in thine heart, ‘Hath King Solomon kings, and soldiers,
and horsemen?’ then know that the wild beasts are his kings,
and soldiers, and horsemen. And if thou sayest, ‘What, then,
are his horsemen?’ know that the birds of heaven are his
horsemen. His army are ghosts, and devils, and spectres of the
night; and they shall torment and slay you at night in your beds,
and the wild beasts will rend you in the fields, and the birds will
tear the flesh off you.” This letter, the Jews say, was sent to the
Queen of Sheba by a moorcock. (Targum Scheni Esther, fol.
401, 440.)

671.
According to another account, “that she had ass’s legs” (Weil,
p. 267). Tabari says, “hairy legs” (i. p. 441).

672.
Weil, pp. 246-267; Tabari, i. cc. 94, 95.

673.
Weil, pp. 267-9.

674.
Tabari, i. c. xcvi. p. 448.

675.
Weil, pp. 269-271; Tabari, pp. 450, 451.

676.
Koran, Sura xxxviii.

677.
Tabari, pp. 460, 461.

678.
In the Jewish legend, Asmodeus. In “Curiosities of Olden
Times” I have pointed out the connection between the story of
 the disgrace of Solomon and that of Nebuchadnezzar,
Jovinian, Robert of Sicily, &c.

679.
Deut. xvii. 16, 17.

680.
Emek Nammelek, fol. 14; Gittin, fol. 68, col. 2; Eisenmenger, i.
pp. 358-60. The Anglo-Saxon story of Havelock the Dane
bears a strong resemblance to this part of the story of
Solomon.

681.
Eisenmenger, i. pp. 358-60; Weil, pp. 271-4; Tabari, c. 96.

682.
Weil, p. 274.

683.
Eisenmenger, i. 361.

684.
Tabari, p. 454.

685.
Koran, Sura xxxiv.; Tabari, c. 97; Weil, p. 279.

686.
Tabari, i. c. 84.

687.
Das Buch der Sagen und Legenden jüdischer Vorzeit, p. 45;
Stuttgart, 1845.

688.
Herbelot, Bibl. Orient., s. v. Zerib, iii. p. 607.

689.
Gemara, Avoda Sara, c. i. fol. 65.
690.
Anabasticon, iv. 2-12.

691.
Anabasticon, v. 1-14.

692.
Tract. Jebammoth, c. 4.

693.
Exod. xxxiii. 20.

694.
Isai. vi. 1.

695.
Deut. iv. 7.

696.
Isai. lv. 6.

697.
Tabari, i. c. 83.

698.
Bartolocci, i. p. 848.

699.
Sura, ii.

700.
Herbelot, Bibliothèque Orientale, iii. p. 89.

701.
Abulfaraj, p. 57.

702.
Hist. Eccles. lib. ix. cap. ult.
703.
Ibid., lib. xiv. c. 8.
Transcriber’s Notes:
Footnotes have been collected at the end of the text, and are
linked for ease of reference.
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