Merleau-Ponty, Embodied Cognition and Enactivism

Jack Reynolds is Professor of Philosophy at Deakin University, Australia, a Member of the ARC College of Experts, and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities (FAHA). His research has been supported by Australian Research Council grants and an NHMRC Ideas grant (2025-27) on Tourette's Syndrome. He is the author of several other books, including Phenomenology, Naturalism, and Science: A Hybrid and Heretical Proposal (2018) and Analytic versus Continental: Arguments on the Methods and Value of Philosophy (2010, with James Chase). His recent work has become more interdisciplinary in nature, while continuing to address philosophical and empirical issues concerning embodiment, temporality, and social cognition, including their variability.

A thorough and original re-examination of Merleau-Ponty’s thought in the light of his contribution to contemporary debates on 4E cognition. Essential reading for anyone wishing to understand what the philosophy of mind owes to Merleau-Ponty and what aspects of his thought remain relevant to contemporary thinking.

• AcknowledgementsIntroduction: Merleau-Ponty Vivant: “Living on” in embodied cognition and enactivisma) Introductionb) The structure of the bookPart 1: Merleau-Ponty, Enactivism, and Embodied Cognition1. Merleau-Ponty and method: minimal naturalism and abductiona) Liberal and scientific naturalismsb) Merleau-Ponty on perception and embodiment: an initial sketchc) Merleau-Ponty as liberal naturalistd) Abductive phenomenological philosophye) “Mutual constraint” and abduction2. Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty on life, animality and naturea) Heidegger on the captivation of the animalb) Merleau-Ponty and the Structure of Behaviorc) Merleau-Ponty’s Nature: Intertwining life and matter, animality and institutiond) Enactivism, The Embodied Mind, and the return of the organism3. Merleau-Ponty’s “world of perception”: realism and illusionism about phenomenal character and the object perceiveda) The world of perceptionb) The perceptual faithc) Dennett’s illusionismd) Garfield’s illusionisme) Enactivism and naïve realism4. From embodied habits to social perception and cognitiona) Merleau-Ponty and habitsb) Enactivism, habits, and the problem(s) of higher-order cognitionc) Extending habits into the extended evolutionary synthesis: ecology, physiology and evolutiond)Social perception and cognitionPart 2: Scientific and Metaphysical Questions for Embodied Cognition and Enactivism5. Embodied cognition, enactivism and epigenetics (with M. Meloni)a) Embodied cognition and enactivismb) Post-genomics and epigeneticsc) Memory and learningd) Embodied cognition (Clark and Wheeler) versus enactivism?6. From metabolism to the microbiome: autonomy and its attenuation (with J. Baedke)a) Metabolism in enactivism: From Maturana and Varela to the “Jonasian turn”b) Metabolism and cognition: the charge of cognitive bloat?c) Host-microbiota systems and autopoietic enactivism7. Framing the Predictive Mind: Dreyfus on the frame problema) Dreyfus, Merleau-Ponty, and the frame problemb) Predictive processing and the frame problemHyper-priors and the free energy principlePrecision-weightingPP on the frame problem: implicit and explicitBeing, doing, and habitsc) Replies and objections: Pluralism, relevance, and the body as model8. Temporal naturalism and the 4Ms: Mind, Meaning, Morality and Modality/Mathematicsa) Scientific naturalism and the placement problemb) The 4Ms and temporalityMind, mentality and ‘mineness’Meaning and modalityMorality and timec) Illiberal and liberal naturalisms: From Huw Price to Peter Godfrey-SmithProto-cognition and points of viewTime and morality reduxd) Conclusion: the time of bodies/bodies of timeBibliography