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An enactive-developmental systems framing of cognizing systems

Corris, Amanda (2022) An enactive-developmental systems framing of cognizing systems. [Preprint]

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Abstract

Organisms live not as discrete entities on which an independent environment acts, but as members of a reproductive lineage in an ongoing series of interactions between that lineage and a dynamic ecological niche. These interactions continuously shape both systems in a reciprocal manner, resulting in the emergence of reliably co-occurring configurations within and between both systems. The enactive approach to cognition describes this relationship as the structural coupling between an organism and its environment; similarly, Developmental Systems Theory emphasizes the reciprocal nature of structurally coupled systems in its analysis of organisms as developmental processes embedded within a developmental system. Through an enactive-developmental systems framing, this paper identifies the organizational features of cognizing systems in order to motivate a picture of how organism and environment co-determine and co-construct one another. I argue that organisms can be characterized as self-organizing, operationally closed, plastic systems ecologically embedded within a developmental system. In virtue of this organizational makeup, organisms actively engage in the modulation and assessment of their coupling with their environment: cognitive strategies that entail contextualized responses to variations across the web of interactions that comprises the developmental system.


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Item Type: Preprint
Creators:
CreatorsEmailORCID
Corris, Amandacorrisa@wfu.edu0000-0002-5749-0173
Keywords: Enactivism, Developmental Systems Theory, Cognition, Living Systems, Self-organization, Plasticity
Subjects: Specific Sciences > Biology
Specific Sciences > Biology > Developmental Biology
Specific Sciences > Cognitive Science
Depositing User: Amanda Corris
Date Deposited: 08 Jul 2022 04:12
Last Modified: 08 Jul 2022 04:12
Item ID: 20848
Subjects: Specific Sciences > Biology
Specific Sciences > Biology > Developmental Biology
Specific Sciences > Cognitive Science
Date: 2022
URI: https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/20848

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