Steering a middle course between intentionality and representation: some remarks about John Stewart's enactive stance. (October 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Steiner, Pierre
• Other Names: Steiner Pierre guest-editor.; Gapenne Olivier guest-editor.; Lenay Charles guest-editor.
• Is Part Of: Adaptive behavior. Volume 29:Number 5(2021)
• Page Start: 471
• Page End: 483
• Publication Date: 2021-10
• Subjects: Enaction -- intentionality -- autopoiesis -- representationalism -- pragmatism -- sense-making; Animal behavior -- Periodicals; Animals -- Adaptation -- Periodicals; Adaptability (Psychology) -- Periodicals; Adaptation, Psychological -- Periodicals; Artificial intelligence -- Periodicals; 591.5
• DOI: 10.1177/1059712319865741
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1741-2633

Abstract

John Stewart commits himself to the defence of a demanding version of enaction. Among its many original features, John's version of enaction includes a questionable form of anti-representationalism, and leaves room for the Varelian idea that intentionality is a biological property. This stance anticipates contemporary endorsements in 4E cognition of intentionality as a non-representational and non-contentful property. Once it is deprived of its representational tinsels, intentionality appears to us again as a property of object-directedness. Nevertheless, is the autopoietic model of intentionality as object-directedness coherent and convincing? And do we need intentionality when we describe the meaningful relations between organisms and their environments? The article seeks to answer to these questions.