The primacy of Knowing-how : cognition, know-how and an enactive action first epistemology

The Enactive Approach (EA) is a project of naturalization of the mind. EA should be able to offer a naturalization of knowledge, such underlying naturalization is what is found in this dissertation. The result is an epistemology where the most basal aspect of knowledge is not to accurately represent. For an enactive epistemology, the primary relation is how knowers relate, contact or engage with what is known. I argue in the final chapter that knowing is a perspectival, affectively entangled, historically situated relation between knower and known. Knower, known and knowing are characterized in broad naturalistic terms. EA is first presented in the context of a larger trend of studying cognition in an ecological way. The understanding of mind in the context of the living leads me to argue that living systems and precarious autonomous systems in general are intrinsically teleological systems whose defining activity consists in being responsive to the viability boundaries or conditions of their own existence. Cognitive systems skillfully change in adaptive manners to not disintegrate, even if their changes are not optimal. The account provides a relational account of adaptive behavior as the basis for an account of know-how. The more general notion of know-how can be articulated from the notion of perception as mastery of sensorimotor contingencies. Know how in general is understood as the organization and reorganization of bodily processes and structures that enables reliable successful action. Know-how as the bodily sensitivities and capabilities relative to the cognitive domain that reliably result in the success of action is a feature of all forms of cognitive engagement. The cognition or knowing-how of languaging consists in acquiring, producing, interpreting and modifying the know-how shared within linguistic communities. Crucially, the influence of the interactive context in a participant’s sense-making varies in a continuum of participation. In one end of the spectrum one finds sense-making that remains largely (but not absolutely) individual and in the other end where what characterizes the activity is a joint process of sense-making. Knowing-how to language is knowing-how to be in dialogue with plural and idiosyncratic identities while being both yourself. A shared community of practices emerges as the basis of objectivity; knowing-how is a communal affair. If cognition is the skillful and not necessarily optimal adaptation of a precarious systemic identity to an always changing environment, all cognition rests on know how. Cognition rests on know-how in the sense that all cognition is understood in terms of skillful transition between states of a system struggling with possible disintegration. Intelligent behavior is not based on symbolic structures and context-free knowledge, it is based on richly detailed, context-specific know-how. The knowledgeable interaction with the world is the responsiveness to the now that incorporates the history leading up to it.A Abordagem Enativa (AE) é um projeto de naturalização da mente. AE deveria ser capaz de oferecer uma naturalização do conhecimento, tal naturalização subjacente é o que apresento ao leitor nesta tese. O resultado é uma epistemologia na qual o aspecto mais básico do conhecimento não é representar acuradamente. Para uma epistemologia enativa, a relação privilegiada é como conhecedores se relacionam, entram em contato ou engajam com o que é conhecido. Argumento no capítulo final que o conhecimento é uma relação perspectival, afectivamente emaranhada, historicamente situada entre conhecedor e conhecido. Conhecedor, conhecido e conhecer são caracterizados em termos liberalmente naturalistas. AE é primeiro apresentada no contexto de uma ampla tendência de estudar-se ecologicamente a cognição. O entendimento da vida no contexto do vivo me leva a argumentar que sistemas vivos e sistemas autônomos precários em geral são teleológicos e sua atividade definidora consiste em ser responsivo às fronteiras de viabilidade de sua própria existência. Sistemas cognitivos habilidosamente mudam de modos adaptativos evitando a desintegração, mesmo que as mudanças não sejam optimais. A abordagem provê uma visão relacional do comportamento adaptativo como base para o conhecimento prático [know-how]. A noção mais geral de conhecimento prático pode ser elaborada a partir da noção de percepção como maestria de contingências sensório-motoras. Conhecimento prático em geral é compreendido como a organização e reorganização de processos e estruturas corporais que possibilita de modo confiável a ação bem-sucedida. Conhecimento prático como as sensibilidades e capacidades corporais para o confiável sucesso da ação é uma característica de todas as formas de engajamento cognitivo. A cognição ou o sabendo-fazer do lingueajear consiste em adquirir, produzir, interpretar e modificar o conhecimento prático compartilhado entre comunidades linguísticas. Crucialmente, a influência do contexto interativo na produção de sentido de um participante de uma comunidade varia em um contínuo de participação. Num extremo encontra-se produção de sentido que permanece majoritariamente (mas não absolutamente individual, e no outro encontra-se atividades caracterizadas como processos conjuntos de produção de sentido. Sabendo-fazer linguagem é saber como estar em diálogo com identidades plurais e idiossincráticas enquanto se é uma você mesmo. Uma comunidade de práticas compartilhadas emerge como a base da objetividade, saber-como é um assunto comunal. Se a cognição é a adaptação habilidosa e não necessariamente optimal de uma identidade sistêmica precária em um ambiente constantemente mudando, toda cognição apoia se em conhecimento prático. Cognição apoia-se em conhecimento prático na medida que toda cognição é entendida em termos da transição habilidosa entre estados de um sistema sob a possibilidade de desintegração Comportamento inteligente não é baseado em estruturas simbólicas e conhecimento geral, baseia-se em conhecimento prático ricamente detalhado e relevante ao contexto específico. A interação com o mundo dotada de conhecimento é a responsividade para o agora que incorpora a história que nos levou até aqui

Among Umwelten: Meaning-Making in Critical Posthumanism

Conceptualizations of meaning ground formulations of human/nonhuman animal similarity and difference. Anthropocentric accounts of meaning-making are increasingly untenable in light of contemporary knowledge of nonhuman life, yet they remain influential, implicit and intractable even within conceptual frameworks that otherwise reject their explicit premises. This study traces dynamic, process-oriented notions of meaning from Jakob von Uexkll's seminal work through autopoietic, phenomenological, biosemiotic and Deleuzian thought. I critically examine how this lineage counters Cartesian dualist and humanist notions of meaning-making in favour of a view of meaning as dynamic process. The relationship between organism and environment is characterized by Uexkll as a relationship of meaning. Uexkll envisions life as myriad complex melodic relations that entwine organism and environment in a practice of meaning-making. Uexkll's work and its extensions across a range of disciplines form a rich theoretical foundation for contemporary critical posthumanist efforts to change how human/nonhuman animal difference and similarity is conceptualized. Contemporary critical posthumanism especially the work of Karen Barad, Rosi Braidotti, Elizabeth Grosz and Cary Wolfe works to resituate human meaning-making within a wider ecological context. Yet a cohesive and comprehensive view of meaning grounded in critical posthumanism and its foundational works is fragmented across a broad and complex disciplinary and conceptual terrain. I draw out and develop from this literature the key components for a critical posthumanist concept of meaning

An Enactive-Ecological Approach to Information and Uncertainty

Information is a central notion for cognitive sciences and neurosciences, but there is no agreement on what it means for a cognitive system to acquire information about its surroundings. In this paper, we approximate three influential views on information: the one at play in ecological psychology, which is sometimes called information for action; the notion of information as covariance as developed by some enactivists, and the idea of information as minimization of uncertainty as presented by Shannon. Our main thesis is that information for action can be construed as covariant information, and that learning to perceive covariant information is a matter of minimizing uncertainty through skilled performance. We argue that the agent’s cognitive system conveys information for acting in an environment by minimizing uncertainty about how to achieve her intended goals in that environment. We conclude by reviewing empirical findings that support our view and by showing how direct learning, seen as instance of ecological rationality at work, is how mere possibilities for action are turned into embodied know-how. Finally, we indicate the affinity between direct learning and sense-making activity

Observing Environments

> Context • Society is faced with “wicked” problems of environmental sustainability, which are inherently multiperspectival, and there is a need for explicitly constructivist and perspectivist theories to address them. > Problem • However, different constructivist theories construe the environment in different ways. The aim of this paper is to clarify the conceptions of environment in constructivist approaches, and thereby to assist the sciences of complex systems and complex environmental problems. > Method • We describe the terms used for “the environment” in von Uexküll, Maturana & Varela, and Luhmann, and analyse how their conceptions of environment are connected to differences of perspective and observation. > Results • We show the need to distinguish between inside and outside perspectives on the environment, and identify two very different and complementary logics of observation, the logic of distinction and the logic of representation, in the three constructivist theories. > Implications • Luhmann’s theory of social systems can be a helpful perspective on the wicked environmental problems of society if we consider carefully the theory’s own blind spots: that it confines itself to systems of communication, and that it is based fully on the conception of observation as indication by means of distinction

Law and technology through the lens of autopoiesis:An analytical framework for dealing with regulatory disconnection illustrated through the case of the GDPR

English: This dissertation is about the gap between law and technology – the idea that technology develops at a faster pace than law is able to adapt. New technologies (sometimes) bring the current regulatory regime under pressure, or may even lead to a mismatch whereby the regulatory regime might need to be adapted. Such mismatches between assumptions embedded in the law and the new (sociotechnical) context are referred to in literature as regulatory disconnection, and the consequences thereof affect how the regulatory regime is supposed to work. A holistic and systematic approach to identifying regulatory disconnection is currently lacking. While a few approaches can be identified for addressing regulatory disconnection, there is currently little guidance on how to select the most suitable one in a given situation. Such guidance is important because adopting one manner of re-connection when another would have been necessary, might leave things in an even worse state. The aim of this project is to make a next step in the direction of developing a general theory of law and technology, by addressing the following research question: How can the theory of autopoiesis further our understanding of the interaction between law and technology, and what would a new, autopoiesis-inspired analytical framework for dealing with regulatory disconnection contribute to this understanding?This project brings together insights from the field of law and technology, regulation theory, and legal theory, combining elements of methodologies such as critical literature review, doctrinal method and discourse analysis. It draws inspiration from the theory of autopoiesis in law and develops a ‘ready-to-use’ analytical framework for the identification and addressing regulatory disconnection. Essentially, the theory of autopoiesis proposes that the world is composed of different (self-producing) systems. These systems can only view the world through their internal mechanisms that function as a filter. Because of this, each system develops its own world-view, or its model of reality of what other systems look like. The concept of model of reality becomes central to the three-phase analytical framework, in which the user is supported by guiding questions. Because it is developed as ‘ready-to-use’, actors such as regulators, judges and Advocate Generals, academics, lawyers, or NGOs that play a role in identifying and addressing regulatory disconnection can use the framework without a thorough understanding of the theory underlying it. The framework provides tools that support the users in conducting a systematic analysis of mismatches between law and the sociotechnical landscape, hence informing decisions regarding the right manner of re-connection. To illustrate its usefulness, the developed analytical framework is applied to the illustrative case of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), more specifically on the concept of ‘controller’, and finds a regulatory disconnection within this legislative instrument. The extent of the disconnection is in such a manner that addressing it through interpretation would not be suitable, and regulatory effort should be dedicated towards re-connection.This research concludes that that the theory of autopoiesis provides a different, yet compatible perspective to the interaction between law and technology, thereby adding an additional explanatory layer to the state of the art in literature. The autopoiesis-inspired analytical framework provides a ‘ready-to-use’ integrated and systematic approach for identifying and addressing regulatory disconnection from a substantive perspective, which strengthens the current approaches of dealing with the difference in pace between law and technology. In addition, the analytical framework also has the potential to facilitate interdisciplinary research, whose implementation is currently both a desire as well as a challenge in (legal) academia. Furthermore, the tools developed could also be used in other contexts, such as drawing inspiration from one legal domain to address issues in another. The full potential of this framework should be further investigated and tested. Dutch:Dit proefschrift gaat over de kloof tussen recht en technologie - de idee dat technologie zich sneller ontwikkelt dan het recht zich kan aanpassen. Nieuwe technologieën zetten het bestaande wettelijk regime (soms) onder druk, of kunnen zelfs leiden tot een mismatch waardoor de wet moet worden aangepast. Dergelijke mismatches tussen aannames die in de wet verankerd zijn en de nieuwe (sociotechnische) context worden in de wetenschappelijke literatuur regulatory disconnection genoemd, en de gevolgen daarvan hebben invloed op de manier waarop het wettelijke regime verondersteld wordt te werken. Op dit moment ontbreekt een holistische en systematische aanpak voor het identificeren van regulatory disconnection. Hoewel er enkele wetenschappelijke benaderingen voor de aanpak van de problematiek kunnen worden geïdentificeerd, ontbreekt het momenteel aan voldoende houvast om de meest geschikte benadering in een specifieke situatie te selecteren. Een voldoende houvast is belangrijk omdat de specifieke aanpak voor het adresseren van een regulatory disconnection veelal nauw komt en de keuze voor een sub-optimale aanpak de problematiek kan verergeren. Het doel van dit onderzoek is het zetten van een volgende stap in de ontwikkeling van een algemene theorie voor recht en technologie. Dat doet het onderzoek meer concreet via het beantwoorden van de volgende onderzoeksvraag: Hoe kan de theorie van autopoëse ons begrip van de interactie tussen recht en technologie bevorderen, en welke bijdrage kan een nieuw, op autopoëse geïnspireerd analytisch kader voor de omgang met regulatory disconnection, leveren aan dit begrip?Dit project brengt inzichten samen op het gebied van recht en technologie, theorie van regulering en rechtstheorie, en combineert elementen van methodologieën zoals kritisch literatuuronderzoek, doctrinair onderzoek en discoursanalyse. Het onderzoek ontleent inspiratie uit de theorie van autopoëse in het recht en ontwikkelt een 'gebruiksklaar' analytisch kader voor de identificatie en aanpak van regulatory disconnection. In de kern is de theorie van autopoëse gebaseerd op de aanname dat de wereld is samengesteld uit verschillende (zelfproducerende) systemen. Deze systemen kunnen de wereld alleen waarnemen door hun interne mechanismen die als een filter fungeren. Hierdoor ontwikkelt elk systeem zijn eigen wereldbeeld, oftewel een model van de werkelijkheid en daarmee hoe andere systemen eruit zien. De benadering via dergelijke modellen van de werkelijkheid staat centraal in een analytisch kader dat bestaat uit drie stappen waarbij de gebruiker deze stappen doorloopt aan de hand van een aantal leidende vragen. Omdat het kader als het ware 'gebruiksklaar' is ontwikkeld, kunnen actoren wiens taak het is een mismatch tussen recht en technologie te identificeren en aan te pakken, waaronder de wetgever, rechters en advocaten-generaal, academici, advocaten of NGO's, het raamwerk gebruiken zonder een grondig begrip te moeten hebben van de theorie die eraan ten grondslag ligt. Het kader biedt met andere woorden een hulpmiddel dat gebruikers ondersteunt bij het uitvoeren van een systematische analyse van mismatches tussen aannames in het recht enerzijds en de nieuwe (sociotechnische) context anderzijds, waardoor beslissingen over de juiste manier voor het adresseren van de mismatch onderbouwd kunnen worden. Om de bruikbaarheid ervan te illustreren, wordt het ontwikkelde analytische kader toegepast op het wettelijk kader van de Algemene Verordening Gegevensbescherming (AVG), meer specifiek op het concept 'verwerkingsverantwoordelijke'. Het betreft hier bij uitstek een voorbeeld waarin de mismatch niet aangepakt kan worden middels interpretatie van bestaande bepalingen maar de inspanningen gericht moeten zijn op het vinden van een hernieuwde aansluiting tussen recht en de (sociotechnische) context.Dit onderzoek concludeert dat de theorie van autopoëse een ander, maar compatibel perspectief biedt op de interactie tussen recht en technologie, en daarmee een aanvullend verklarend mechanisme oplevert binnen het bestaande wetenschappelijke debat. Het op autopoëse geïnspireerde analytisch kader biedt een 'gebruiksklare', geïntegreerde en systematische benadering voor het identificeren en aanpakken van de mismatch tussen recht en technologie. Het doet dit uit een inhoudelijk perspectief en verrijkt daarmee de huidige benaderingen voor de omgang met verschillen in tempo van ontwikkeling tussen recht en technologie. Daarnaast heeft het ontwikkelde analytisch kader ook de potentie om interdisciplinair onderzoek te faciliteren, waarvan de implementatie momenteel zowel een wens als een uitdaging is in de (juridische) academische wereld. Bovendien kunnen de inzichten mogelijk ook hun waarde tonen buiten het terrein van recht en technologie door de toepassing ook in andere contexten uit te testen. Het volledige potentieel van dit kader zal kortom voorwerp van verder onderzoek moeten zijn

Distal engagement: Intentions in perception

Non-representational approaches to cognition have struggled to provide accounts of long-term planning that forgo the use of representations. An explanation comes easier for cognitivist accounts, which hold that we concoct and use contentful mental representations as guides to coordinate a series of actions towards an end state. One non-representational approach, ecological-enactivism, has recently seen several proposals that account for “high-level” or “representation-hungry” capacities, including long-term planning and action coordination. In this paper, we demonstrate the explanatory gap in these accounts that stems from avoiding the incorporation of long-term intentions, as they play an important role both in action coordination and perception on the ecological account. Using recent enactive accounts of language, we argue for a non-representational conception of intentions, their formation, and their role in coordinating pre-reflective action. We provide an account for the coordination of our present actions towards a distant goal, a skill we call distal engagement. Rather than positing intentions as an actual cognitive entity in need of explanation, we argue that we take them up in this way as a practice due to linguistically scaffolded attitudes towards language use