No. 14 (2018): Perception and Aesthetic Experience
Session 1. Aesthetic Experience and Enactivism

Can an Enactivist Approach Entail the Extended Conscious Mind?

Qiantong Wu
University of Edinburgh

Published 2018-09-21

Keywords

  • enactivism,
  • extended conscious mind

How to Cite

Wu, Q. (2018). Can an Enactivist Approach Entail the Extended Conscious Mind?. Phenomenology and Mind, (14), 48–55. https://doi.org/10.13128/Phe_Mi-23624

Abstract

This paper discusses the enactivist attempt to entail the hypothesis of extended conscious mind (ECM). The enactists suggest that conscious experience is a relational interaction between the subject and the external environment; this personal-level description of conscious experience naturally entails an extended sub-personal characterization of the material basis of conscious experience (i.e. the ECM). However, in this paper, I am going to argue that the enactivist description at the personal level is still open to an internalist challenge at the sub-personal level. In response to this challenge, I suggest combining enactivism with the concept of predictive processing, delineating a sub-personal characterization of conscious experience that corresponds to the enactivist interpretation at the personal level.