Critical Note

Having introduced situated affectivity, I locate the contributions to this section within this new framework: Carr and colleagues argue that embodied emotional processes strongly (though not indispensably) influence cognitive and motivational tasks. Bypassing the debate on causal dependency (embeddedness) and co-constitution (extendedness), I propose the category of environmental affective scaffolding as the one Hobson’s contribution fits in. He stresses the essential impact an infant’s capacity for social-affective relatedness has on her cognitive development. The enactive approach, as introduced by Colombetti, accounts well for the dynamical couplings between two or more emoters (or an emoter and her environment). If more persons are involved, they constitute a case of distributed rather than extended affectivity, since no single individual is the hub of such an affective process. The contribution of Zahavi and Michael promises to apply the 4E approach to empathy. Considering environmental scaffolds to empathy might enrich it.