{"pk":27022,"title":"Please Explain: Radical Enactivism and its Explanatory Debt","subtitle":null,"abstract":"Radical Enactivism is a position in the philosophy of\ncognitive science that aims to displace representationalism,\nthe dominant position in cognitive science for the last 50-60\nyears. To accomplish this aim, radical enactivism must\nprovide an alternative explanation of cognition. Radical\nenactivism offers two alternative explanations of cognition.\nThe first I call the dynamical explanation and the second I call\nthe historical explanation. The mechanists have given us\nreasons for doubting that the first alternative makes for a good\nexplanation. The historical explanation does not hit the right\nexplanatory target without the introduction of a proximate\nmechanism, but the proximate mechanisms suggested by\nradical enactivism are associationist mechanisms, the\nlimitations of which led to the initial widespread endorsement\nof representationalism. Therefore, radical enactivism cannot\ndisplace representationalism in cognitive science.","language":"eng","license":{"name":"","short_name":"","text":null,"url":""},"keywords":[{"word":"radical enactivism"},{"word":"Representation"},{"word":"dynamical\nexplanation"},{"word":"computationalism"},{"word":"explanation"}],"section":"Talks: Papers","is_remote":true,"remote_url":"https://escholarship.org/uc/item/86s219rv","frozenauthors":[{"first_name":"Lachlan","middle_name":"Douglas","last_name":"Walmsley","name_suffix":"","institution":"Australian National University","department":""}],"date_submitted":null,"date_accepted":null,"date_published":"2017-01-01T13:00:00-05:00","render_galley":null,"galleys":[{"label":"PDF","type":"pdf","path":"https://journalpub.escholarship.org/cognitivesciencesociety/article/27022/galley/16658/download/"}]}