There have been monumental advances in the study of the social dimensions of knowledge in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. But it has been common within a wide variety of fields--including social philosophy, cognitive science, epistemology, and the philosophy of science--to approach the social dimensions of knowledge as simply another resource to be utilized or controlled. I call this view, in which other people's epistemic significance are only of instrumental value, manipulationism. I identify manipulationism, trace its manifestations in the aforementioned fields, and explain how to move beyond it. The principal strategy that I employ for moving beyond manipulationism consists of synthesizing enactivism and neo-Kuhnian social epistemology. Specifically, I expand the enactivist concept of participatory sense-making by linking it to recent conceptual innovations in social epistemology, such as the concept of immanent cogent argumentation.

The potential of a broad enactive approach in education has yet to be realized. This thesis contributes to the development of a well-rounded enactive educational theory and practice. This thesis argues that a broad enactive perspective has the potential to challenge, reframe and reconfigure problems, issues and practices in education in ways that improve teaching, learning and research communities. It establishes that a broad enactive approach as a theory of embodied mind, a dynamic co-emergence theory, and a method of examining human experience helps to realize the meaning, scope, and potential of enactive education. It takes as its point of departure Dewey’s broad enactive philosophy of mind, cognition, embodiment, experience, and dynamic co-emergence. It shows, through an examination of an actual public classroom encounter, that a broad enactive approach has the potential to reconfigure responsibility, ethics and justice in education. It demonstrates using a case study of the enactment of impostor feelings in higher education how a broad enactive approach to education as the potential to reconfigure teaching, learning and research practices.

The potential of a broad enactive approach in education has yet to be realized. This thesis contributes to the development of a well-rounded enactive educational theory and practice. This thesis argues that a broad enactive perspective has the potential to challenge, reframe and reconfigure problems, issues and practices in education in ways that improve teaching, learning and research communities. It establishes that a broad enactive approach as a theory of embodied mind, a dynamic co-emergence theory, and a method of examining human experience helps to realize the meaning, scope, and potential of enactive education. It takes as its point of departure Dewey’s broad enactive philosophy of mind, cognition, embodiment, experience, and dynamic co-emergence. It shows, through an examination of an actual public classroom encounter, that a broad enactive approach has the potential to reconfigure responsibility, ethics and justice in education. It demonstrates using a case study of the enactment of impostor feelings in higher education how a broad enactive approach to education as the potential to reconfigure teaching, learning and research practices.

Theories of cognition and theories of social practices and institutions have often each separately acknowledged the relevance of the other; but seldom have there been consistent and sustained attempts to synthesize these two areas within one explanatory framework. This is precisely what my dissertation aims to remedy. I propose that certain recent developments and themes in philosophy of mind and cognitive science, when understood in the right way, can explain the emergence and dynamics of social practices and institutions. Likewise, the view I construct explains how social practices and institutions shape the character of cognition of their constituent agents. Moreover, I explain both cognitive and social agency under the single explanatory framework provided by Dynamic Systems Theory. Drawing upon the phenomenological tradition, "embodied, "extended", "embedded", "enactive", and "ecological" approaches to cognition, as well as the conceptual resources of Dynamic Systems Theory, I construct a theory of agency that sees cognitive and social agents as far-from-equilibrium, open, recursively self-maintenant dynamic systems. Depending on the specifics of concrete circumstances, such systems, which I call "Dynamic Embodied Agents" (or DEAs), may develop and possess emergent capacities for error-detection, flexible learning, normative behavior, representation, self-reflection, various modes of pattern-recognition, a temporal sense of self, and even moral responsibility. Some such systems are also sensitive to perceived social influences (practices and institutions); while reciprocally constituting and causally affecting them.

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Ce mémoire procède à une lecture critique du rôle du corps dans la théorie énactive d’Alva Noë. La première partie consiste essentiellement en un résumé des premiers chapitres d’Action and Perception (2004), tout en accordant une attention particulière à sa critique du représentationnalisme et à la réponse énactive au problème phénoménologique de la présence perceptuelle. En expliquant les grandes lignes de la théorie énactive de Noë, nous en soulignons également les points forts, notamment celui d’ouvrir un dialogue entre la phénoménologie et les sciences empiriques actuelles. La deuxième partie développe cependant une critique sévère de la théorie énactive de Noë en démontrant comment elle s’appuie sur une conception très pauvre du corps, ce qui nous permet d’avancer que la théorie énactive de Noë s’élabore à partir d’une incarnation à moitié assumée. En effet, mis à part le filon des schèmes de dépendance sensorimoteurs − qu’il exploite par ailleurs plutôt bien −, il passe sous silence plusieurs aspects de la perception que nous considérons pourtant très importants, comme l’affectivité et l’intersubjectivité, mais également la passivité et la temporalité. C’est principalement en nous appuyant sur les oeuvres Husserl, Merleau-Ponty et Gallagher que nous pointons vers les lacunes de la théorie énactive d’Alva Noë. / This thesis proceeds to a critical reading of the role of the body in the enactive theory of Alva Noë. The first part consists essentially of a summary of the first chapters of Action in Perception (2004), while paying particular attention to his critique of representationalism and the enactive response to the phenomenological problem of perceptual presence. While explaining the main lines of Noë’s enactive theory, we also underline its strengths, notably that of opening a dialogue between phenomenology and current empirical sciences. The second part, however, develops a severe criticism of Noë's enactive theory by demonstrating how it is based on a very poor conception of the body, which allows us to argue that Noë's enactive theory is developed from a half-assumed embodiment. Indeed, apart from the vein of sensorimotor dependence schemes ─ which he otherwise exploits rather well ─, he ignores several aspects of perception that we nevertheless consider very important, such as affectivity and intersubjectivity, but also passivity and temporality. It is mainly by relying on the works of Husserl, Merleau-Ponty and Gallagher that we point to the shortcomings of Alva Noë's enactive theory.

[pt] A percepção é inerentemente representacional? Esta é, como eu a penso, a questão mais fascinante na filosofia da percepção. Para responder a essa pergunta, eu analiso duas formas rivais de pensar a percepção, a saber: representacionalista e anti-representacionalista ou, como prefiro, não-representacionalista. Assim, eu discuto se a percepção é melhor compreendida em termos representacionais ou em termos não-representacionais. Ao fazer isso, busco desenvolver uma variedade radical de enativismo segundo a qual a percepção nem sempre envolve a posse pelo próprio estado mental de conteúdo semântico representacional. Ao rejeitar a visão de que a percepção sempre tem conteúdo representacional, sustento que a percepção deve ser vista em termos de funcionalidade biológica. Ao fazer isso, distingo dois tipos diferentes de normatividade. O primeiro é o que muitos filósofos chamam de normatividade biológica. A segunda, a chamada normatividade semântica, é aquela exibida por nossas habilidades linguísticas, tais como julgamentos, crenças e inferências com conteúdo. Com essa distinção em mente, clarifico em que sentido existem erros perceptuais. Como resultado, defendo que existem erros perceptuais, embora de tipos diferentes. Finalmente, tento explicar as ilusões ópticas, dado por excelência a ser explicado por qualquer teoria da percepção. / [en] Is perception inherently representational? This is, I take it, the most fascinating question in philosophy of perception. To answer it, I analyze two rival ways of thinking about perception, namely: representationalism and anti-representationalism or, as I would rather call it, non-representationalism. Thus, I discuss whether perception is best understood in representational or in non-representational terms. In doing so, I seek to develop a radical variety of enactivism according to which perception has nothing to do with content, representation, or semantic norms. In rejecting the view that perception always has representational content, I hold that perception must be seen in terms of biological functionality. In doing so, I distinguish two different types of normativity. The first is what many philosophers call biological normativity. The second, called semantic normativity, is the kind of normativity exhibited by our linguistic abilities, such as judgments, beliefs, and content-involving inferences. With this distinction in mind, I clarify the sense in which there are perceptual errors. As a result, I argue that there are perceptual errors, albeit of different kinds. Finally, I try to explain optical illusions, datum ​par excellence to be accounted for by any theory of perception.

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[pt] Situada no campo da filosofia da educação, a tese dialoga também com o campo das tecnologias educacionais. O trabalho busca uma compreensão filosófica dos impactos da aprendizagem de máquina ou machine learning na educação. Para isso, dedica-se aos pressupostos subjacentes à aprendizagem de máquina em articulação com os pressupostos subjacentes à concepção de aprendizagem humana que descende do enativismo. Defende-se que a chegada da aprendizagem de máquina na educação encontra um campo em que ainda predomina o paradigma cognitivista, o qual é bastante profícuo para que germinem as tecnologias baseadas em dados e redes neurais. Avança-se para demonstrar que esse paradigma, no entanto, vem sendo desafiado por outras abordagens de pesquisa que se dedicam à mente humana, dentre as quais se destaca o enativismo. São explicitadas as bases teóricas fundamentais do enativismo, e como elas se desdobram em pressupostos para uma aprendizagem humana que é corporificada e essencialmente orientada ao acoplamento do ser com o mundo e com os outros agentes. É dedicada atenção especial aos impactos da aprendizagem de máquina na autonomia do cognoscente, a qual, sob a perspectiva do enativismo, somente pode existir e se manter nas trocas com o meio e com aqueles que habitam e formam esse ambiente. Demonstra-se que, para que as tecnologias algorítmicas sejam adequadas a uma concepção de cognição e de aprendizagem enativista, é preciso buscar um caminho de valorização ainda maior do corpo na aprendizagem, bem como da intersubjetividade, uma vez que as relações entre os agentes cognitivos não são concebidas como articulações opcionais, mas como um elemento que está no cerne da atividade cognitiva humana e do qual essa atividade emerge. / [en] This work is situated in the field of philosophy of education, and also relates to the field of educational technologies. The thesis seeks a philosophical understanding of the impacts of machine learning in education. To do so, it addresses the assumptions underlying machine learning in conjunction with the premises underlying the conception of human learning that derive from enactivism. It is argued that the arrival of machine learning in education found fertile ground in which the cognitivist paradigm still prevails, a situation that is rather fruitful for technologies based on data and neural networks to thrive. The thesis demonstrates that this paradigm, however, has been challenged by other research approaches that are dedicated to the human mind, among which enactivism is emphasized. The fundamental theoretical underpinnings of autopoietic enactivism are explained, as well as how they unfold in assumptions for a notion of human learning that is embodied and essentially oriented towards the coupling of the human organism with the world and with other agents. Particular attention is drawn to the impacts of machine learning on the autonomy of the cognizer, which, from the perspective of enactivism, can only exist and be maintained in exchanges with the environment and with those who inhabit and shape this environment. It is shown that for algorithmic technologies to be suited to an enactivist conception of cognition and learning a greater appreciation of the body in learning is necessary, as well as intersubjectivity, since the connections between cognitive agents are not conceived as optional articulations, but as an element that is at the core of human cognitive activity and from which this activity emerges.