Enactivist Theory of Cognition

An Enactivist Theory of Cognition 
from "Cognition, Complexity, and Teacher Education"
Davis and Sumara, Harvard Educational Review

"This shift from the language of physics to the language of biology
is an important one, as the images of forces, trajectories, and 
direct causes are replaced with thinking about thinking in terms 
of constant change and complex interdependencies. Cognition is 
thus understood as a process of organizing and reorganizing one's 
own subjective world experience, involving the simultaneous revision, 
reorganization, and reinterprentation of past, present, and projected 
actions and conceptions."

"What happens if we reject the pervasive knowledge-as-object 
(as 'third thing') metaphor and adopt, instead, an understanding of
knowledge-as-action - or better yet, knowledge-as-(inter)action?
Or, to frame it differently, what if we were to reject the 
'self'-evident axiom that cognition is located 'within' cognitive
agents who are cast as isolated from one another and distinct from
the world, and insist instead that all cognition exists in the 
'interstices' of a complex ecology of organismic relationality?"

"In his exploration of the nature of communication, Gadamer (1990) 
suggests that conversations are distinct from other modes of 
interaction (such as debates, interview, and discussions) because
the topic of the conversation cannot be predetermined. Rather,
it arises in the process of conversing."

"We suggest that understanding emerges among people in a similar way.
The conversation winds and wanders, arriving at places that, quite
simply, could never have been anticipated. Given its unspecifiable 
path, Gadamer suggests that it is more appropriate to think of the
participants as being 'led' by the conversation than as leading it.
The conversation is something more than coordinated actions of 
autonomous agents - in a sense, it has us; we do not have it.
Put differently, the conversation is not subject to predetermined 
goals, but unfolds with the reciprocal, codetermined actions of
the persons involved. 

Davis, B. and D. Sumara (1997) Cognition, Complexity, and Teacher Education. Harvard Educational Review Vol. 67 No. 1.

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