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THE ARCHE OF COGNITION 265
output layer (motor control), and the layer in between (cognition) as the delicious filling of
the sandwich. The embodied cognition research program directly addresses the shortcomings
of the traditional views, where the body and its interactions with the world are considered as
peripheral to the understanding of the nature of mind and cognition. This deficiency is
pointed out by proponents of a new research program stating that cognition is “embodied” or
“grounded”, though it is often unclear what these terms mean.
Proponents of the embodied cognition research program typically aim not only at challenging
and further undermining classical views of the mind, such as the computational and
representational theories of mind presented by Newell & Simon and Fodor, but they also
often deny the commonly accepted assumption in the philosophy of mind that the mind is
identical to the brain or is somehow realized by it. We say “typically” and “often” because the
research program of embodied cognition does not have a single or specific theoretical
perspective (for an overview cf. Wilson 2002). It is rather characterized by a heterogeneous
variety of accounts, which altogether stress the relevance of the body of a cognitive system
and its interactions with the environment for its cognitive processes; according to this general
view, cognition presupposes a perceiving and moving body (cf. Gallagher 2005; Thompson
2007). Due to the variety of viewpoints, the precise meaning of the terms “embodied
cognition” or “embodiment” is hardly univocal (cf. Clark 2008a, Clark 2008b, Kiverstein &
Clark 2009, Shapiro 2011). Indeed, perhaps these different accounts are only unified by
sharing a commitment to criticizing or even replacing traditional approaches to cognition.
Many do so by focusing on the contribution of the nonneural body itself to cognitive
processes, such that mind itself is constituted by both brain and body (see Shapiro 2011: 158-
200). Others do so by arguing that real biological systems do not require representations to
achieve cognitive tasks, and that a fortiori they should not be modeled as representational
systems, because they are computationally too costly.
2. Representationalism and Anti-Representationalism
In the very beginning of embodied cognition approaches, researchers were generally inspired
by anti-representationalist theories like Gibson’s ecological psychology and new models for
robotics capable for guiding adaptive behavior and flexible interactions with the environment.
Gibson developed an ecological theory of perception (1979) to explain visual perception as a
result of interactions between the body of a cognitive system and the environment. On this
account perception is understood as “direct”, i.e. not involving additional computation or
internal representations. For Gibson there is no need to postulate further cognitive processing
in addition to perception and action because for him all necessary information for guiding
action is already given in perception. For the influence of Gibson’s account for further
conceptions of embodied cognition is most important that the bodily constitution of an
organism determines every perception and action. And more precisely, especially the
perception of one’s own body is the underlying and prevailing principle for perceiving the
environment:
[E]xteroception is accompanied by proprioception – that to perceive the world is to
perceive oneself. (Gibson 1979: 141)
Nowadays, the most prominent anti-representationalist view is the dynamical systems theory,
as presented by, e.g., Beer (2000, 2003), Thelen and Smith (1994) and Port and van Gelder
(1995), and most recently by Chemero (2009). Dynamical systems theory is used to explain
adaptive behavior and is also supported by research in robotics and artificial intelligence (cf.
Pfeifer and Bongard 2007). Generally, a dynamical system is understood as a system that
changes over time and is best described by the elements and products of a set of differential