Converging enactivisms: radical enactivism meets linguistic bodies

Abstract

We advance a critical examination of two recent branches of the enactivist research program, namely, Radically Enactive Cognition and Linguistic Bodies. We argue that, although these approaches may look like diverging views within the wider enactivist program, when appraised in a conciliatory spirit, they can be interpreted as developing converging ideas. We examine how the notion of know-how figures in them to show an important point of convergence, namely, that the normativity of human cognitive capacities rests on shared know-how. Radical enactivism emphasizes the diachronic dimension of shared know-how, and linguistic bodies emphasize the synchronic one. Given that know-how is a normative notion, it is subject to success conditions. We then argue it implies basic content, which is the content of the successful ongoing interactions between agent(s) and environment. Basic content does not imply accuracy conditions and representational content, so it evades Hutto and Myin’s Hard Problem of Content. Moreover, this account is amenable to the central claim by Di Paolo et al. that the participatory sense-making relations at play in linguistic exchanges are explained in continuity with explanations of biological organization and sensorimotor engagements.