Enactive Perspective Research Articles

Seeing to learn and learning to see: histology teaching between new technologies, old paradigms and natural cyborgs.

Histology is a foundational course in many life science programs. Microscopes have long been the primary instruments used in this discipline, playing a crucial role in histology education for decades. However, with the current significant technological advancements, digital tools are progressively replacing microscopes in university classrooms worldwide. Due to their expense and maintenance requirements, educators are questioning whether the use of traditional microscopes remains a practical approach to teaching this subject. This work aims to present an alternative perspective on the importance and the epistemic peculiarities of microscopes in understanding the microstructure of tissues, moving from internalist approaches to enactive perspectives. Rather than adjudicating a technological contest that many programs have already resolved pragmatically, we offer a philosophical and pedagogical reflection that clarifies what kinds of understanding are cultivated by optical and virtual practices and how those understandings align with contemporary research.

Society/nature: Enactive perspectives for social systems theory

This article examines the society/nature distinction within sociological and anthropological discourse, particularly concerning Luhmann’s social systems theory. The increasing urgency surrounding climate change and the complexities of the Anthropocene has necessitated reconsidering this dichotomy, often seen as reinforcing sociocentrism. Social systems theory’s emphasis on the system/environment distinction has overlooked the importance of the environment, relegating it to a mere backdrop for societal functioning. By engaging with three critical perspectives – Ontological Relativism, Transcendent Connectionism, and Circular Cosmologism – we emphasize both the contributions and shortcomings of social systems theory in this regard. We then propose a synthesis of these insights through a systemic enactive approach, suggesting that its theoretical framework can enhance our understanding of the society/nature distinction within social systems theory. Ultimately, this article aims to open new research avenues that address the intricate relationship between social systems and their natural environments.

Linguistic relativity from an enactive perspective: the entanglement of language and cognition

Linguistic relativity from an enactive perspective: the entanglement of language and cognition

Health care as participatory sense-making: an enactive perspective on relations between patients and health care providers

Health care as participatory sense-making: an enactive perspective on relations between patients and health care providers

Large models of what? Mistaking engineering achievements for human linguistic agency

In this paper we argue that key, often sensational and misleading, claims regarding linguistic capabilities of Large Language Models (LLMs) are based on at least two unfounded assumptions: the assumption of language completeness and the assumption of data completeness. Language completeness assumes that a distinct and complete thing such as “a natural language” exists, the essential characteristics of which can be effectively and comprehensively modelled by an LLM. The assumption of data completeness relies on the belief that a language can be quantified and wholly captured by data. Work within the enactive approach to cognitive science makes clear that, rather than a distinct and complete thing, language is a means or way of acting. Languaging is not the kind of thing that can admit of a complete or comprehensive modelling. From an enactive perspective we identify three key characteristics of enacted language; embodiment, participation, and precariousness, that are absent in LLMs, and likely incompatible in principle with current architectures. We argue that these absences imply that LLMs are not now and cannot in their present form be linguistic agents the way humans are. We illustrate the point in particular through the phenomenon of “algospeak”, a recently described pattern of high-stakes human language activity in heavily controlled online environments. On the basis of these points, we conclude that sensational and misleading claims about LLM agency and capabilities emerge from a deep misconception of both what human language is and what LLMs are.

Enhancing Agency in Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Therapies Through Sensorimotor Technologies.

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a significant public health concern, with only a third of patients recovering within a year of treatment. While PTSD often disrupts the sense of body ownership and sense of agency (SA), attention to the SA in trauma has been lacking. This perspective paper explores the loss of the SA in PTSD and its relevance in the development of symptoms. Trauma is viewed as a breakdown of the SA, related to a freeze response, with peritraumatic dissociation increasing the risk of PTSD. Drawing from embodied cognition, we propose an enactive perspective of PTSD, suggesting therapies that restore the SA through direct engagement with the body and environment. We discuss the potential of agency-based therapies and innovative technologies such as gesture sonification, which translates body movements into sounds to enhance the SA. Gesture sonification offers a screen-free, noninvasive approach that could complement existing trauma-focused therapies. We emphasize the need for interdisciplinary collaboration and clinical research to further explore these approaches in preventing and treating PTSD.

Evald Ilyenkov and the enactive approach

Abstract There is a growing interest in Evald Ilyenkov’s work and its significance for contemporary debates. This interest spans several disciplines. One key thread in Ilyenkov’s ideas concerns a perspective on the relation between biology and psychology. In rejecting crude reductionism and individualism, Ilyenkov put forward a view of mind and personhood as emerging from activity and social practice. In his rejection of brain-bound notions of the mind, Ilyenkov’s ideas bear interesting resonances with current work in 4E cognition. One particularly interesting resonance that has occasionally been noticed are the connections with the enactive approach to life and mind. However, beyond some hints at interesting convergences, there is to date no detailed comparison between the two views. The present article attempts to address this gap, examining both complementarities and possible tensions between the two approaches. Rejecting cognitive views detached from environmental and social processes, the enactive approach, as exemplified by De Jaegher and Di Paolo’s concept of participatory sense-making, emphasises the dynamic constitution of cognition through embodied and situated activities. The article draws parallels between Ilyenkov’s emphasis on historically and culturally situated activity, notably labour, and the enactive understanding of human bodies as dynamically constituted in human activity. The article explores the Ilyenkovian and enactive perspectives on the dialectics of ideality, challenging traditional dualistic views and proposing that the ideal emerges as metastable patterns in the ongoing interactions between world, practices, norms, and bodies. The article concludes by suggesting future research directions for the enactive approach, particularly in areas emphasised by Ilyenkov, such as labour and the mediation of material/cultural artefacts.

The clash between physical and digital realm: hybrid movement training during the pandemic

This article is based on ethnographic research conducted in one of the physical training institutions that offer the Laban/Bartenieff Movement Studies (LBMS) certification program in 2021. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis, the training was held in a hybrid format in which some participants were in the studio while others were attending remotely via Zoom. Zoom-mediated movement training for long hours revealed how the intervention of telematic technologies challenged practitioners’ sensorial experience and sense-making process. Moreover, bringing co-located and remote participants’ experiences together in the hybrid setting disclosed different modes of interaction dynamics in the studio and online. Overall, participants described their hybrid experience as a clash. In the article, starting from unfolding those clashes from the enactive perspective, I discuss how remote intercorporeality through an audio–video streaming system, Zoom, challenges participants’ sensorial experience and how remote interaction affects the shared sense-making process in the hybrid format setting.

A tale of Two Schools

Digital devices and learners cannot be seen as separate entities but as a functional entanglement that come (and stay) together in a performative encounter in which they are mutually saturated with each other's agencies. This research intends to explore the nature of the entanglement between secondary school learners and their digital devices as well as the implications of this entanglement when theorising a framework for learning in secondary school. This presentation proposes a language and a series of metaphors to describe and understand why the integration of technology in the classroom seems to have failed to deliver the promised transformation. 
 
 From an enactive perspective, it primarily uses a mix of phenomenological and ethnographic methodology to analyse students’ experience of learning with digital devices. Whilst a micro-phenomenological approach attempted to explore the unfolding of particular experiences, a socio-material micro-ethnographic approach was used as a form of contrasting the phenomenological first-person account with a socio-technical analysis of the entanglement. . 
 
 
 Bio
 Cristian Rodriguez is Deputy Principal at Whangaparāoa College, a secondary school in Auckland, New Zealand. His portfolios include Technology & Innovation and Future Learning Pathways. He has a background in education leadership, and a particular interest in change management, contemporary education and the future of schooling. Cristian is a final-year PhD Candidate at AUT. His thesis, ‘The Digital Entanglement: how students and devices come (and stay) together’, looks into the role of digital technologies in supporting cognitive processes in the context of secondary school. His work aims at creating a better understanding of the impact of design and adoption of digital technologies for learning in educational settings. Cristian’s areas of expertise include: Philosophy of Education, Embodied Cognition, Contemporary Education and Pedagogies, Culturally Responsive Pedagogy, Digital learning implementation, The digital as a structure of perception, and Microphenomenology.ResearchGate Profile & Linkedin Profile.

You as a stylistic vector of otherness: from self-ascription to enactment in Kincaid (1988), Adichie (2009) and Azumah Nelson (2021)

Abstract Based on a theoretical pragmatic model (Sorlin, Sandrine. 2022. The stylistics of ‘you’. Second-person pronoun and its pragmatic effects. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), this article compares the use of the second-person pronoun in three different narratives written by Black writers: Jamaica Kincaid’s essay, A Small Place (1988), Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s short story “The Thing Around Your Neck” (2009) and Caleb Azumah Nelson’s first novel Open Water (2021). It highlights how the racial nature and assumed universality of you is exposed in the texts and argues that the pronoun works as a powerful vector of otherness, bringing the (white Western) reader to experience racism in most intimate terms. The three texts propose varied stylistic constellations that draw on the flexibility of the pronoun in terms of potential reference, entailing different positionings of audiences, going from “self-ascription” (Wechsler, Stephen. 2010. What ‘I’ and ‘you’ mean to each other: Person indexicals, self-ascription, and theory of mind. Language 86(2). 332–365) to “enactment” (Caracciolo, Marco. 2014. The experientiality of narrative. Berlin: De Gruyter; Popova, Yanna B. 2015. Stories, meaning and experience: Narrativity and enaction. London & New York: Routledge). The article also evidences how the inter/intra-personal pronoun triggers a blurring of traditional stylistic and narratorial labels and lines. Lastly, from an enactive perspective that sees reading as an intersubjective participatory act where meaning emerges in the very interaction between a teller and a reader, this article sees communicating as an act of coordination based on the metaphor, communicating is dancing, inspired by Azumah Nelson’s rhythmic novel.

What could come before time? Intertwining affectivity and temporality at the basis of intentionality

Abstract The enactive approach to cognition and the phenomenological tradition have in common a wide conception of ‘intentionality’. Within these frameworks, intentionality is understood as a general openness to the world. For classical phenomenologists, the most basic subjective structure that allows for such openness is time-consciousness. Some enactivists, while inspired by the phenomenological tradition, have nevertheless argued that affectivity is more basic, being that which gives rise to the temporal flow of consciousness. In this paper, I assess the relationship between temporality and affectivity from both a phenomenological and an enactive perspective. I argue that, as opposed to the classical phenomenological view (which favours temporality), and to the enactive view (which favours affectivity), we must take affectivity and temporality as co-emergent. Jointly, affectivity and temporality constitute the basic structures of intentionality. Additionally, using examples from phenomenological psychopathology, I conclude that all intentionality is defined by an anticipatory and affective structure that gives rise to general feelings related to our bodily possibilities in the world.

Marxism and Science from an Enactive Perspective

Marxism and Science from an Enactive Perspective

The words we die by

The words we die by

ICT as a collectively enacted artifact? A collective enactment perspective

ICT as a collectively enacted artifact? A collective enactment perspective

A process model of mindsets: Conceptualizing mindsets of ability as dynamic and socially situated.

Mindsets of ability (i.e., "fixed" and "growth" mindsets) play a pivotal role in students' academic trajectories. However, relatively little is known about the mechanisms underlying mindset development. Identifying these mechanisms is vital for understanding, and potentially influencing, how mindsets emerge and change over time. In this article, we formulate a comprehensive theoretical model that purports to account for the emergence and development of ability mindsets: the process model of mindsets (PMM). The PMM is rooted in complex dynamic systems and enactive perspectives, which allow for conceptualizing psychological phenomena as dynamic and socially situated. The PMM accounts for how mindset-related behaviors, action tendencies, beliefs, and social interactions can become codependent and robust over time. We discuss how the model helps to further our understanding of the efficacy of mindset interventions and the heterogeneity thereof. The PMM has a broad explanatory scope, is generative, and paves the way for future process studies of mindsets and mindset interventions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Affectivity in mental disorders: an enactive-simondonian approach

Abstract Several enactive-phenomenological perspectives have pointed to affectivity as a central aspect of mental disorders. Indeed, from an enactive perspective, sense-making is an inherently affective process. A question remains on the role of different forms of affective experiences (i.e., existential feelings, atmospheres, moods, and emotions) in sense-making and, consequently, in mental disorders. This work elaborates on the enactive perspective on mental disorders by attending to the primordial role of affectivity in the self-individuation process. Inspired by Husserl’s genetic methodology and Simondonian philosophy of individuation, sense-making is described as the process of progressive concretization and structuration of the self-world structures that support the intentionality of conscious experiences. Accordingly, affectivity is described as the force that anticipates a partial self-world coherence in sense-making. Structurally different types of affective experiences are integrated into the genetic picture and, on this basis, a reinterpretation and classification of certain mental disorders, such as schizophrenia, depression, and the anxiety spectrum, is provided. In this way, this work contributes to a phenomenologically informed enactive account of mental disorders as disorders of affectivity.

Movement and activity in perceptual learning

Understanding the role of self -generated movements in perceptual learning is essential for the theories of perception based on action, such as enactive. During the second half of the twentieth century various behavioral studies focused on the role of movements self -generation as a necessary condition for learning different perceptual tasks. This work corpus received different critical interpretations, however interest in these debates has resurfaced within corporate cognitive science. In this paper we make a brief review of these iconic studies and other own studies on activity and passivity in perception. Subsequently, in the light of the enactive perspective, we analyze methodological and theoretical aspects that can help to understand the complexity of this phenomenon. In general terms, we postulate that aspects of the sensoriomotor agency such as the initiation, control and monitoring of the movement, assume different degrees of involvement in both passive and active tasks. We consider that this distinction is not binary and we propose a complex vision of the role of activity in perceptive perception and learning.

Not in the drug, not in the brain: Causality in psychedelic experiences from an enactive perspective

Psychedelics are psychoactive substances that receive renewed interest from science and society. Increasing empirical evidence shows that the effects of psychedelics are associated with alterations in biochemical processes, brain activity, and lived experience. Still, how these different levels relate remains subject to debate. The current literature presents two influential views on the relationship between the psychedelic molecule, neural events, and experience: The integration view and the pluralistic view. The main aim of this article is to contribute a promising complementary view by re-evaluating the psychedelic molecule-brain-experience relationship from an enactive perspective. We approach this aim via the following main research questions: (1) What is the causal relationship between the psychedelic drug and brain activity? (2) What is the causal relationship between brain activity and the psychedelic experience? In exploring the first research question, we apply the concept of autonomy to the psychedelic molecule-brain relationship. In exploring the second research question, we apply the concept of dynamic co-emergence to the psychedelic brain-experience relationship. Addressing these two research questions from an enactive position offers a perspective that emphasizes interdependence and circular causality on multiple levels. This enactive perspective not only supports the pluralistic view but enriches it through a principled account of how multi-layered processes come to interact. This renders the enactive view a promising contribution to questions around causality in the therapeutic effects of psychedelics with important implications for psychedelic therapy and psychedelic research.

Qualities of consent: an enactive approach to making better sense

Abstract Philosophical work on the concept of consent in the past few decades have got to grips with it as a rich notion. We are increasingly sensitive to consent not as a momentary, atomic, transactional thing, but as a complex idea admitting of various qualities and dimensions. In this paper we note that the recognition of this complexity demands a theoretical framework quite different to those presently extant, and we suggest that the enactive approach is one which offers significant value in this regard. In consonance with arguments made by Laurie Penny about how consent is a continuous and dynamic process, we outline how an enactive approach identifies consent as temporally extended (rather than momentarily transactional), and as affected by the skilfulness of the agents involved, the fitness of community-provided resources to negotiate the consensual relationship over time, and the unfolding of circumstances in the situation in which the joint action is taking place. We argue that the value of an enactive perspective on consent is in highlighting these complexities, and in providing resources to articulate and theorise them in ways that are not open to other current approaches.

Promoting creative autonomy support in school music education: An intervention study targeting interaction

IntroductionThe notion of autonomy in Self-Determination Theory is at the core of intrinsically motivated learning, and fulfilment of the need for autonomy is essential for thriving at school. Therefore teacher-provided autonomy support has grown into a key concern in educational research. In the present study into primary school music education, the notion of creative autonomy support is introduced. Research into autonomy support is typically focused on verbal interaction. However, from an enactive perspective, teachers’ gesturing, bodily movement, facial expression, and musical action form an integral part of the socially situated interaction in music lessons, inherently involving autonomy support. In the present study, a distinction is made between creative verbal autonomy support and creative musical and non-verbal autonomy support.MethodsApplying a process-based time-serial methodology, rooted in a Complex Dynamic Systems and Enactive perspective, the effects of an intervention with Video Feedback Coaching for teachers were investigated. Video data of 105 music lessons of 18 teachers (intervention and control condition) from six primary schools was gathered, to examine teachers’ creative autonomy support at both the individual and group level.ResultsThe findings show that teachers in the intervention condition, compared to the control group, achieved a meaningful increase in their ability to offer creative autonomy support verbally. Teachers also showed development for the non-verbal and musical aspects of offering creative autonomy support. However, particularly for offering higher-level creative autonomy support in the non-verbal and musical mode, significant results were found for less than half of the intervention teachers.DiscussionThese results underline the importance of embracing and studying the bodily dimension as an integral part of teacher autonomy support, aimed at emergence of students’ musical creativity, in primary school music education and in teacher training. We explain how these results might be relevant for autonomy enhancing musical activities in vulnerable groups.