Table Of Contenti
Sensorimotor Life
ii
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Sensorimotor Life
An Enactive Proposal
Ezequiel A. Di Paolo
Thomas Buhrmann
Xabier E. Barandiaran
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1
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v
Acknowledgments
This work is the result of years of collaboration, friendly conversations, and heated discus-
sions. It would not have been possible without the support and criticisms of many people.
Many of the ideas in this book have been discussed at academic meetings, research semi-
nars, and lectures. We are thankful to audiences and students who in many cases steered us
in the right direction by asking very tough questions. We are grateful in particular to the
following friends and colleagues: Eran Agmon, Miguel Aguilera, Malika Auvray, Michael
Beaton, Manuel Bedia, Randall Beer, Fernando Bermejo, Leonardo Bich, Maggie Boden,
Seth Bullock, Giovanna Colombetti, Elena Cuffari, Hanne De Jaegher, Matthew Egbert,
Andreas Engel, Arantza Etxeberría, Tom Froese, Thomas Fuchs, Shaun Gallagher, Takashi
Gomi, Inman Harvey, Matej Hoffmann, Phil Husbands, Daniel Hutto, Hiroyuki Iizuka,
Takashi Ikegami, Eduardo Izquierdo, Peter König, Miriam Kyselo, Charles Lenay, Hugo
Gravato Marques, Alexander Maye, Marek McGann, Alvaro Moreno, Erik Myin, Jason
Noble, Susan Oyama, Rolf Pfeifer, John Protevi, Vasu Reddy, Andreas Roepstorff, Marieke
Rohde, Kepa Ruiz-M irazo, John Stewart, Evan Thompson, Steve Torrance, Nathaniel
Virgo, Mike Wheeler, and Dan Zahavi. Our work over the years has benefited from the
advice, criticism, and suggestions of these people and, in many cases, from the inspiration
we have drawn from them as researchers and as persons.
Some people were kind enough to read chapters and sections of this book. We are grate-
ful to Miguel Aguilera, Hanne De Jaegher, Matthew Egbert, Verena Fischer, and Marek
McGann for their invaluable comments.
Much of the work presented here has been made possible by different sources of fund-
ing, in particular the project eSMCs: Extending Sensorimotor Contingencies to Cognition
(EU FP7- ICT- 2009- 6 no: 270212), which ran between 2011 and 2014. Other sources
that contributed to our work are the Basque Government Financing for Research Groups,
IT590- 13 (IAS- Research) and the project Interidentidad: Identity in Interaction, (MINECO,
FFI2014- 52173- P) of the Spanish Ministry for Economy and Competitiveness.
Some of the chapters are based on work appearing previously in journal publications,
although they have been substantially revised and extended.
Chapter 3 is based on Buhrmann, Di Paolo, and Barandiaran (2013). A dynamical sys-
tems account of sensorimotor contingencies. Frontiers in Psychology, Volume 4, p. 285.
Chapter 4 is based on Di Paolo, Barandiaran, Beaton, and Buhrmann (2014). Learning
to perceive in the sensorimotor approach: Piaget’s theory of equilibration interpreted
dynamically. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, Volume 8, p. 551.
vi
vi AcknowlEDgmEnTs
Chapter 7 is based on Buhrmann and Di Paolo (2015). The sense of agency—a phe-
nomenological consequence of enacting sensorimotor schemes. Phenomenology and the
Cognitive Sciences, doi: 10.1007/ s11097- 015- 9446- 7. (Online first).
Some sections in Chapter 8 are based on Di Paolo (2016). Participatory object percep-
tion. Journal of Consciousness Studies, Volume 23, Issue 5–6, pp. 228–58.
The epigraph at the start of Chapter 2 was reproduced with kind permission of the
Finnish Philosophical Society from Haugeland, J. (1995). Mind Embodied and Embedded.
In: L. Haaparanta and S. Heinamaa (eds.), Mind and Cognition: Philosophical Perspectives
on Cognitive Science and Artificial Intelligence, Acta Philosophica Fennica, Volume 58, pp.
233–267. Copyright © 1995 Finnish Philosophical Society.
The quotation from Bruner in Section 2.2 was reproduced with kind permission from
ACTS OF MEANING: FOUR LECTURES ON MIND AND CULTURE by Jerome S.
Bruner, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, Copyright © 1990 by the President
and Fellows of Harvard College.
The epigraph at the start of Chapter 4 was reproduced with kind permission of Taylor
and Francis from Merleau-Ponty, M. (2012). Phenomenology of Perception. 2nd edition.
(D. Landes, trans.). London: Routledge. (p.155). Copyright © 2012 Taylor and Francis.
The epigraph at the start of Chapter 6 was reproduced from Langer, Susanne K.,
Mind: An Essay on Human Feeling. 3 volumes. pp. 310–311. Reprinted with permission of
The Johns Hopkins University Press.
The epigraph at the start of Chapter 7 was reproduced with kind permission of Taylor
and Francis from Taylor, C. (2002). Foundationalism and the inner-outer distinction.
In: Nicholas, H. S. (ed.), Reading McDowell on Mind and World. London: Routledge.
Copyright © 2002 Taylor and Francis.
The epigraph at the start of Chapter 8 was reproduced with kind permission of Taylor
and Francis from Merleau-Ponty, M. (2012). Phenomenology of Perception. 2nd edition.
(D. Landes, trans.). London: Routledge. (p.155). Copyright © 2012 Taylor and Francis.
Finally, we are immensely indebted to someone none of us met in person but whom
we had the fortune to know a little through the memories and contagious admiration
of his many friends and colleagues: Francisco Varela. His influence on our work will be
difficult to miss. He has been our imaginary interlocutor at various stages during the writ-
ing of this book. We hope that readers will perhaps encounter in it a trace of the spirit of
his ideas.
vii
Contents
1. Introduction 1
2. Representational pull, enactive escape velocity 11
3. Structures of sensorimotor engagement 41
4. Mastery: learning to act and perceive 76
5. The missing theory of agency 109
6. Sensorimotor agency 141
7. The sense of agency 182
8. Virtual actions and abstract attitudes 218
9. Epilogue 250
Bibliography 255
Index 279
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1
Figure 6.4 Networked sensorimotor schemes. A (hypothetical) sensorimotor network is
depicted at three different stages of development. Initially (top), the network is relatively
small, but different sensorimotor schemes already appear connected, forming clusters that
correspond to types of activities. Individual clusters may themselves be organized differently, e.g.,
mostly hierarchically (pink) or sequentially (turquoise). Some pairs of clusters are more strongly
connected than others. Over time (middle and bottom) clusters get progressively interconnected
and differentiated as the network develops. A wider range of transitions (links) is available,
activity bundles are split into smaller subunits, and so on.
Copyright © 2017 Ezequiel A. Di Paolo, Thomas Buhrmann and Xabier E. Barandiaran, with permission.
Description:How accurate is the picture of the human mind that has emerged from studies in neuroscience, psychology, and cognitive science? Anybody with an interest in how minds work - how we learn about the world and how we remember people and events - may feel dissatisfied with the answers contemporary scienc
