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Enactive Cognition & Narrative Practices Research Group

Fearless adventures in loopy cognition

Daniel D. Hutto explains "Radical Enactivism" on the Olympia Looping Roller Coaster in the Vienna Prater Park

Welcome, Professor Hutto! 

Can you please explain to us as clearly as possible the essentials of radical enactivism?

Radical enactivism is... challenges the traditional cognitivist view that the mind is essentially a representational device. 

It takes the idea seriously that it is possible for forms of cognition to be representational and interactive but not representational in any contentful sense. 

It does not, however, deny the existence of content so content is actually something that... (airflow on rollercoaster) 

Involves correctness conditions such as accuracy and truth and it means that there's a way of understanding our relationship to the world that enables us to be (what?) 

That it is not possible to in a truly interactive and relational modes of engagement, very difficult way to understand the mind. 

That it opens up new slots for research in many domains and has a lot of god ideas for (say) an ecological psychologist and it is trying to promote the view that cognition essentially involves, at least in the basic forms, informational sensitivity as opposed to informational processing. 

How'd I do?

Thank you, Prof. Hutto!

You're welcome!

 

The University of Wollongong, is known worldwide for its ground-breaking signature lines of research on enactive cognition and narrative practices. The core of our tightly-focused research group, comprises an extraordinarily well-connected, world-class senior researchers and highly productive, up-and-coming researchers.

We have fostered strong cross-institutional relations with other world-class researchers working on these topics in the New South Wales region. Our researchers are a major presence at national events such as the conference hosted by the newly launched Australasian Society for Philosophy and Psychology. This has helped to establish “Eastern Australia as the place to be for those looking to develop this approach to the mind” (ARC detailed assessor).

Within Oceania, our team is regularly lauded as the “Australasian leader in enactivist philosophy of mind” by Australian Research Council, detailed assessors. Indeed, a recent ARC report proposes that choice additions to our existing team would make our university “one of the world's leading centres for research into embodied/enactive approaches to cognition … arguably *the* leading centre for this approach”.

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Founding members

We are now seeking to strengthen the research links between our local team and others around the globe who are conducting research on enactive cognition and narrative practices. Our aim is to create an international hub through which we can all stay connected by hosting events (real and virtual) and share news about the latest findings and opportunities in these areas.