Enactment: A Preliminary Study in Varela and Traditional Metaphysics

Abstract

This paper targets the concept of enactment as a genuinely metaphysical idea. Its goals are two-fold. First, a reappraisal of enactment in its proper historical context, as well as an articulation of the core innovations enactment brings to traditional metaphysics. Here the idea of 'productive' cognition, as I provisionally term it, comes to the fore. The second goal is a reinterpretation of certain themes from traditional metaphysics, including the key question of why there is something rather than nothing, so as to make it more open to insights originating from enactivism. For that, the concept of 'situated metaphysics' is introduced and elaborated upon.