Keyword: cognition

The question of the place of mind in nature is one of the oldest and deepest questions in philosophy and the sciences. If the physical sciences to tell us ‘what nature is’, what happens to mental phenomena: thoughts, beliefs, desires, emotions, memories, and ideals? For centuries, philosophers, theologians, and scientists argued about what a “science […]

In the first part I have claimed that dialectical thinking is part and parcel of the enactive approach. I will now try to substantiate this claim. In the 1991 book The Embodied Mind, Varela, Thompson, and Rosch draw on developmental and evolutionary biology to prepare the reader for the idea of embodied action as a […]

The enactive approach is a rich perspective on the big questions of life and mind originating in the work of Francisco Varela and colleagues. [1] It is a perspective in continuous development, which makes it difficult to condense in a brief text. Enaction is a way of looking at life and mind as continuous. This […]

Spontaneous Generations, an interdisciplinary journal published by the graduate students of the Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology, University of Toronto, invites contributions to its 12th volume, entitled “Levels of Agency: From Bacteria to Gaia”.  As of now, confirmed contributors include Alan Love, Anne-Sophie Meincke, Denis Walsh, Glenda Satne, and David […]

Today we have the pleasure to inaugurate Dialectical Systems, a forum where scholars and the general public interested in biology, cognitive science, ecology and philosophy of science can engage in a constructive interdisciplinary dialogue. The forum’s name is inspired by the landmark book The Dialectical Biologist (1985), in which Levins and Lewontin put forward an […]