PLEASE DO NOT CITE. PRELIMINARY VERSION
Zuzanna Rucinska
Chapter III. The Nature of the Investigation – seminar version
1. Introduction
The purpose of this chapter is to clarify the metaphysical commitments behind
taking different methodological routes to explaining pretence. The nature of the
investigation changes depending on whether one appropriates, for example, a
functionalist methodology or an enactivist methodology. In result, the types of
explanations one can provide about pretence will strategically differ.
What this chapter will involve is the following. Firstly, in subsection 2, I point
to a common practice in the present literature on pretence, which is that mental
representations get to enter both as essential make-up of pretence, and as explanatory
posits that partake in the mechanism of pretence. In what follows I look at the
relationship between essences and mechanisms. I challenge the validity of the claim
that mental representations must explain pretence even if it is to be described as
representational. I conclude that the essential make-up of any aspect of cognition
should not influence how it is to be explained.
In subsection 3, I engage in a discussion about different approaches to
explaining mental phenomena, providing brief sketches of two very different
approaches, functionalism and enactivism. Functionalism is discussed because it is
one of the most popular, but at the same least demanding (unlike, for example,
identity theory), approaches, which uses mental representations to both explain and
constitute mental phenomena like pretence. It will be compared with enactivism,
which is the non-representational approach I follow throughout the dissertation.1 This
subsection focuses on how mental representations get introduced in the explanatory
1
While it could be, in principle, possible to argue for functionalism without mental representations
(though it has not been practiced), and although some who claim enactivism do make use of a weak
notion of mental representations (for example, see Scarinzi’s critique of O’Regan’s enactive
sensorimotor approach in Bishop and Martin (2014, p. 71), hereby for simplicity sake I will equate
functionalism with a mental representational account and enactivism with non-mental representational
one.
1
story of a functionalist: as forming the essence of pretence, and as forming their
implementation mechanisms. On the functionalist story, external factors are treated
as causes and are separate to the role-realiser structuring of pretence. A comparison to
enactivism will be made, which has a different approach to explanations: by following
the dynamical systems theory, the distinction between ‘synchronic’ implementation
mechanism and ‘diachronic’ causal factors get blurred in enactivism.
Then, in subsection four, I hone in the question of providing mechanistic
explanations. I discuss the mechanistic nature of the cognitivist (including
functionalist) explanations, and show that, while commonly used to explain various
phenomena from perception (Marr) to empathy (Gallese), they may not always work.
I will also provide examples from enactivism to explaining perception (Varela et al.)
that do not lean on just taking a mechanistic approach to explaining colour
experience. What follows is a discussion on the types of strategy enactivists can take:
either endorsing a ‘no-mechanism’ view that says that proposing an explanatory
mechanism of pretence cannot be appropriated by enactivists, or a ‘wide-mechanism’
view that tries to incorporate social and environmental aspects into the explanatory
mechanism (without changing the explanandum in the relevant sense). I propose that,
ultimately, non-representational explanations of enactivists should not follow a
mechanistic structure.
With subsection five I conclude with possible objections of a cognitivist
interlocutor to the question of whether the enactivist is proposing a genuine
alternative explanation, or whether or not the enactivist changed the target of
investigation. I provide enactivist rebuttals to both worries, engaging in a brief
investigation into the nature of philosophical explanations and the question of what is
the role of an enactivist philosopher.
I will clarify that functionalism and enactivism have different ways of
explaining what seems to be the same target – the phenomenon of pretence. However,
as proponents of representational theories take pretence to be constitutively a mental
representational phenomenon (with features such as imagination or knowledge), they
target enactivism as a theory that is targeted at a different explanandum. In that sense,
both theories are possibly compatible. However, I will argue that the explanandum is,
or at least could be, the same (broadly construed pretence phenomenon that has the
same features like knowing and imagining, but which are described non-
2
representationally), and thus, the theories cannot be compatible, and enactivism is a
relevant counter approach to functionalism.
This chapter is an important addendum to the thesis as it clarifies the overall
dialectic of the thesis; it brackets some worries with seeking non-mental
representational explanations of pretence, and clarifies the reason why certain
working assumptions will be taken to provide such explanations. The argument for
non-representational explanation of pretence is not yet settled in this chapter, as this
chapter does not engage with specific aspects of pretence at all. This chapter crucially
sets the stage for these later arguments to have a fighting chance against
representational explanations, it aims to bracket general worries with providing such
alternative explanations. It also has a wider significance: with this chapter the reader
finds out that while in some sense the topic of pretence is small and focused,
considering it will involve some of the deepest and most difficult topics in
philosophy, such as when is the use of mechanistic explanations or the causalconstitutive divide appropriate in philosophy.
2. Constitutive vs. explanatory role of mental representations
Pretence can be conceived of in different ways; one may ask a constitutive
question about what is the essence of pretence or an explanatory question about what
mechanisms underlie it. It is important to keep these questions distinct. It will become
apparent that many theorists who investigate pretence begin by assuming that
pretence is mental-representational in nature. That leads them to justify using mental
representational explanations for how pretence comes about. I will argue that this is
not a valid justification, and that the questions of constitution and explanation can be
kept separate. What follows is a discussion about the relationship between essences
and mechanisms.
Philosophical work usually aims to address the constitutive question (what is
the essence of X), while cognitive science approaches (and some naturalistic
approaches to philosophy) seek explanations of how it is that X is accomplished.
Applied to pretence, contemporary theorists invoke representations of some sorts in
the answers to both questions. Constitutive question about essences is asked to give
an account of what is the nature of pretence. In the philosophical tradition, pretence is
said to be a representational state of mind. Pretence has been traditionally defined as
3
requiring representational capacities, such as i.e. imaginations, symbolism, belief/desire-like states, concepts or double knowledge of what is real vs. not real. In a
sense, the explanandum has been construed in representational terms.
There are as many definitions of pretence as there are people who write about
it, but mainly the most important ‘ingredients’ of pretence across the theories are said
to be, in no particular order, possession of conceptual knowledge, having knowledge
of what is real and not real, imagination, intentionality, being in a right mental state,
having mental attitudes that are ‘belief-like’, shifting perspectives, mapping and
following rules, symbolic thinking, and meta-communicating (Piaget, 1945/1962;
Leslie, 1987; Harris and Kavanaugh, 1993; Lillard, 1993a; Mitchell, 1994a, 2002;
Goldman, 1998, Nichols and Stich, 2000, 2003).
Taking collectively from different papers, three common and important
aspects of pretence are:
(i)
Double Knowledge (DKN): “The actor must entertain two representations
of
a
single
situation,
one
literal/veridical/real
and
the
other
nonliteral/distorted/pretend/imaginary, simultaneously, without confusion,
and deliberately (Piaget 1945/1962; Leslie 1987; Harris and Kavanaugh
1993; Lillard 1993a; Mitchell 1994a, 2002)” (Russon in Mitchell (2002),
p. 237).
(ii)
Imagination (IMG): “Pretence or make-believe is a mental activity
involving imagination that is intentionally projected onto something
(Goldman 1998, Lillard 1994)” (Mitchell 2002, p. 4); “All authors agree
(…) that pretend play implies some displacement from the reality plane
and thus meaning transformations relative to the meaning that the actions
and the objects involved would have were they considered “literally”
(Veneziano in Mitchell (2002), p. 60).
(iii)
Presence of mental plans or models (MPMs): “Internal plan recedes and
guides the pretend action”; “The capacity to utilize such internal models of
previous experience is considered to be the foundation of the capacity to
engage in mental representation, and hence pretending” (McCune &
Agayoff in Mitchell (2002), p. 47, 45).2
2
These have been argued by different theorists to be necessary for pretence. As can be noticed, these
aspects happen to be ones that are often appropriated to the internal mental capacities of an agent; nonmental or external factors are scarcely mentioned, such as, for example, non-serious emotional tone or
4
The other question that can be asked about pretence is how pretending gets to
be implemented. Here we will find those who think that mental representations of
some form will figure in our best explanations of how pretending is accomplished.
Most quoted and most elaborate current theories that are said to explain how it is
possible to pretend are Leslie’s (1987) metarepresentational theory, various so-called
‘behaviourist’ theories (Stich and Nichols 2000, 2003; Perner, 1991; Harris, 1994),
and intentionalist theory (Rakoczy et al., 2005). These have been discussed in detail
the previous chapter.
To re-count the relevant part, what the theories propose to do is, inter alia, to
provide answers to variations of these three ‘how’ questions:
(i)
How can children hold a distinction between what is real and what is not
real, how they do not get confused by pretence, or how can children use
one object “as if” it is another one without losing track of the reality?
(ii)
How do children remain or persist in a pretence role, follow-up on their
pretence, or step outside pretence when convenient?
(iii)
How do children choose one pretence act over another, produce contextappropriate play or play in a structured way?
To answer these questions, pretence theorists invoke mechanisms that involve
mental representations. We can characterize the three functions that mental
representations are supposed to serve as (i) function of discriminating, (ii) function of
transforming, (iii) function of guiding.
The theorists then invoke these exemplar explanatory mechanisms to explain
how the following work: (i) a mechanism of ‘quarantining’ (Leslie, 1987) or
‘flagging’ (Harris, 1999) to discriminate what is real from not real, or the ‘true’ from
‘pretend’ meanings; (ii) a mechanism of ‘decentring’ to transform one thing into
another, which underlies the capacity to ‘imaginatively see as’ (Currie, 2004, 2006);
or (iii) a guiding mechanism that manipulates propositions or forward models and
images to guide one in ‘accurately’ acting the pretence scenario out (Nichols and
Stich, 2001; van Leeuwen, 2009).
By now, it should be apparent that mental representations get to come into the
story through both doors: as essences of pretence, and as part of its supporting
mechanisms. The three questions that aim to explain how pretence works (how agents
involvement of bodily activity. These two features of pretence Lillard considers as ‘additional’ to
pretence (in Lewis & Mitchell 1994, p. 214).
5
discriminate, be transformed and be guided) mirror the constitutive assumptions about
the nature of pretence – that it involves the mental states of Double Knowledge (DK),
Imagination (IMG), and being guided by Mental Plans and Models (MPMs).
Often, pretence and mental representation are put on par; pretending is to be
mentally representing, as, for example, the last quote of McCune and Agayoff shows
(“…capacity to engage in mental representations, and hence pretending” (idem,
emphasis added). Pretending is also often seen as a mental representational ‘state of
mind’ or ‘attitude’.
We could ask, are the commitments of these theorists ad hoc? When asking
whether pretending requires representing, are they pre-supposing what they are trying
to explain? While that may be likely, I will not engage in whether the reasons for
believing that pretence is essentially mental representational are valid, as that is
orthogonal to my main point. What is important is what follows from taking such a
stance. Namely, there seems to be a consensus that some form of mentally
representing must be involved in explaining pretence, because pretence is an
essentially mental representational state to begin with. This is a line of thought that
can be discredited, as even if some phenomenon is representational, it need not use
representations in explanations of how the phenomenon arises. It is all too easy to
claim that a child has Double Knowledge because of the quarantining mechanism in
play; a child can has Imagination because of the decentring mechanism in play, etc.
However, this argumentation would be fallacious.
Consider linguistic practice as an example. Language can be said to be a
representational activity, in essence. To use language, in all its forms, is at root to
represent how things are, one way or another. However, that does not necessitate
invoking a mental representational mechanism. Many have argued already that we
need not have mental representations to have representations in the environment
(Dennett, Price, etc.). So the linguistic capability can be explained without invoking
mental representations, such as through socio-cultural, practical accounts (see, for
example, Hutto’s (2008) Narrative Practice Hypothesis). Pretence may be
characterized as a representational activity tout court just as language is, which
means that by its nature pretence represents in a linguistic sense. We see such
characterization plenty in the literature, when pretending is taken on par to be
symbolizing (e.g., Lillard 1994). Pretence can be thus thought of as essentially a
representational phenomenon: in pretence, something stands for or symbolizes
6
something else, so in that respect it is representing. However, we can separate the
question of whether one needs to invoke mental representations to implement
pretence, even if seen as a representational activity. The point is simply that even if
when we’re pretending we’re representing, that does not mean that what enables us to
pretend (or represent) involves further (mini-)representations. That would be
analogous to saying that a house has to be made out of little houses; it is simply an
unnecessary move.3
Just as with language, it is logically possible for pretence to be constitutively
representational, while mental representations need not be invoked to explain it. One
can think about pretence as essentially representational (or symbolic) without having
to invoke symbol-swapping on a sub-personal level, which is one of the things
invoking mental representational mechanisms is supposed to achieve (see, for
example, Leslie). Thus, while ‘being representational proper’ could describe the
system as a whole, that is irrespective of whether mental representations are to be
used to describe its implementation or not.
Interestingly, this does not seem to hold other-way around. That is, while
mental representations ‘constituting essence’ need not require invoking mental
representational
‘implementation
mechanism’,
claiming
that
implementation
mechanism is mentally representational seems to say something about the constitutive
essence of the phenomenon at hand, specifically, that it is mentally representational
too. This holds for identity theory and some forms of functionalism. So are we
justified in assuming that mental representations invoked in implementing pretence
are not at the same time constitutively essential of pretence after all? Answering that
question lies heavily on what notion of explanation one has in mind. This will be the
topic of the next subsection.
For now, it is enough to accept that, irrespective of whether we buy into the
view that mental representations both constitute and implement mental phenomena or
not, we can accept that mental representations play different functions as explananda
and as explanans, even though cognitivist theories do not draw a sharp divide between
them (Ramsey, 2007).4 It is my aim to dissociate the explananda from the explanans,
and focus solely on the explanans. Thus, to argue for non-mental representational
3
I’d like to thank Sam Coleman for this analogy.
As Ramsey claims, “the distinction between theories that posit representations and theories that try to
explain representation is not as sharp as one might assume. A large number of cognitive models –
indeed, perhaps the majority – do a little of both” (p. 36).
4
7
explanations of pretence, I will not provide arguments on what is the nature of
pretence.5 What I am interested in is an explanation that does not need to make use of
mental representations. The alternative I suggest comes from enactivism. It is a
different methodological tradition to the cognitivist one. Although I will, for the rest
of this dissertation, focus on the explanans (what mechanisms are in place that explain
pretending), I also point out that with enactivism, it is possible to re-characterize the
explananda. While logically the re-characterization should not be required, doing so
upon occasion makes it easier to see how a non-representational explanation would
work. Thus, based upon the above considerations, I will assume that there is a
difference between essences and mechanisms, in this thesis I will be solely concerned
with how mental representations enter into explanations of pretence, not whether
pretence is essentially mentally representational.
3. Different approaches to explaining cognitive phenomena
There are different approaches one can take to investigate cognition in
philosophy of mind. That applies to investigating pretence as well. As I mentioned
before, on the one hand, one can seek to know what pretence is and focus on its
nature. That is a question of determining its conceptual essence. (This is the question I
will not engage in any more in this chapter.) On the other hand, one can ask how we
explain how pretending comes about. This section deals with looking more carefully
at the explanations, about which another distinction can be made.
One kind of explanation asks for implementation mechanisms of the
explanandum, examples of which were mentioned in the section above. These are
synchronic mechanisms that explain how pretending gets implemented at a time.
They are also constitutive of what they explain; they form what metaphysically
suffices for pretence, or, in other words, how it is realized (they need not, however, be
essential, as there is room for multiple-realizabiliy). Another kind of explanation asks
for external factors to the explanandum. These form causal explanations, which are
not constitutive of the explanandum. They are diachronic mechanisms that aim to
5
For example, it could be that pretence does not involve mental representations in its explanatory role
even if it is representational in essence, just as it could be that pretence still requires invoking mental
representations to explain it, even if we conceive of pretence as a form of behaviour, not a mental state.
8
explain how, for example, a particular act of pretence (token explanandum) came
about.
In what follows, I will clarify what kind of explanation functionalism and
enactivism seek. What I will point to is that functionalism only considers
implementation mechanisms, while in enactivism, the distinction between
implementation and causal factors (or synchronic and diachronic explanans) gets
blurred. The issue is complex, and I intend to untangle certain commitments that are
often left untold when investigating the topic of (social) cognition in philosophical
methodologies. In this thesis I will specifically target pretence, and the explanatory
models and mechanisms of pretence offered by various philosophers.
a) Functionalism
While there are many notions of functionalism (Sellars, 1956; Lewis, 1966;
McLaughlin, 2006), the uncontroversial claim made by most functionalists is that the
synchronic mechanisms ultimately explain phenomena, by acting as implementation
mechanisms, or realizers, of functional roles. The mechanism is constitutive of the
essence, but it can only be sufficient and not necessary to it (the mechanism can
change as the role can be multiply realised).
Realizers are constitutive of the phenomenon; they are an integrated part of
what they explain, as if they were its ‘ingredients’. Consider an analogy to a clock,
functionally understood as a device for measuring time. Its ability to measure time is
realized by the internal mechanism of the clock. Its mechanism is the integral part of
the clock, making it a clock (or sufficing for it to be a clock functionally understood as
time-measurer) and at the same time explaining how it works (in the sense of being
how it works). Importantly, the claim is not one of causality, as causal factors lay
‘outside’ of what we are explaining (they explain diachronically), while realizers are
integral parts of what they explain (they explain synchronically). 6 The mechanism
6
While buying into role-realizer distinction, and proposing existence of realizers in explaining
pretence, does not necessarily commit one to functionalism, it is not clear how one could step away
from functionalism here, as no other approach to philosophy of mind has used this terminology so far.
It is also not helpful to learn that the notion of realization has been used in many different ways.
Papineau says of realisation, “There is no agreed analysis of this notion, however: philosophers tend to
use it more freely than they explain it” (Papineau 1993a: 24, cf. also Tye 1996: 40-42, Melynk 1997:
390–395). In a bid to redress this, he offers the following definition: “In order for a mental or other
special type M to be realized by an instance of some physical type P, M needs to be a second-order
property, the property of having some property which satisfies certain requirements R. And M will be
realized by P in some individual X if and only if this instance of P satisfies requirements R. In such a
case we can say X satisfies M in virtue of satisfying P” (Papineau 1993a: 25, emphases original).
9
doesn’t cause the clock to be, for it is its clock master who made the clock into
existence. In a token standard clock, its mechanical mechanism is sufficient for the
clock to tell time. However, it is not a necessary mechanism; we can imagine a digital
clock, whose mechanism is built of completely different parts, sharing nothing of the
original clock’s structure (e.g., projecting numbers instead of moving handles, and so
on), which still realizes the clock’s function to measure time. In that respect clocks
can be multiply realized.
Functional mechanisms give us multiple ways to instantiate the explanandum
through their multiple realizability. As Bickle (2013) explains,
In the philosophy of mind, the multiple realizability thesis contends that a single
mental kind (property, state, event) can be realized by many distinct physical
kinds. A common example is pain. Many philosophers have asserted that a wide
variety of physical properties, states, or events, sharing no features in common at
that level of description, can all realize the same pain. (…) [For example], a given
psychological kind (like pain) can be realized by many distinct physical kinds:
brain states in the case of earthly mammals, electronic states in the case of
properly programmed digital computers, green slime states in the case of
extraterrestrials, and so on.7
How does this analogy to clock pertain to pretence? I will first explain how
speaking of realizers of pretence would look like, after which I will suggest an
alternative.
We can think of pretence in a similar way to a clock. For example, of an
instance of pretence we could say it exemplifies the property, or role, of Imagination,
i.e., just is an episode of Imagination. That property would be realized by a mental
representational mechanism of, for example, ‘decentring’ (Currie 2006). On this
story, Imagination is a property of pretence, which is part of the functional role of
pretence (transforming), and what realizes it is the decentring mechanism. From this
description, it should be clear that when applied to pretence, proposing a mechanism
of ‘decentring’ should be treated as constitutive of and sufficient for ‘Imagination’,
though perhaps not necessary (unless the philosopher at hand buys into identity theory
or claims that his mechanism is the actual, not just possible, explanatory mechanism
of pretence). Nichols and Stich (2001), for example, who propose ‘decentring’,
7
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, entry on ‘Multiple Realizability’. Retrieved on 11.02.2015.
10
engage in philosophy of cognitive science. They claim not to be offering constitutive
formats, but whether indeed they do so or not depends on this debate. I believe their
theories do answer the constitutive questions about the nature of pretence, even
though that is not what they aim at, as they offer a substantive mechanism of
pretence.8
We seem to be discovering through scientific investigation what is the essence
of pretence and what its roles are. Under the functionalist model, we often speak of
mental states and their properties, such as the mental attitudes of belief having a
functional role of tracking truth, or the mental attitude of desire having a functional
role of motivating. Following that picture, pretence would have to be considered as a
mental state (like a ‘mental representational state of mind’ or a ‘mental
representational attitude’), with a unique functional role of knowing what is real and
not real (DK), imagining counterfactual scenarios (IMG) and being guided to play in
a specific way (MPM).
Thus, what we gain from taking a functionalist approach is the following
picture is the following. Knowing real from not real, imagining and being guided can
be treated as aspects of the functional roles of pretence, both constitutive and essential
to pretence. (Mental states like DK, IMG and MPMs embody these roles into
properties of pretence.) Pretence mechanisms, like decentring, quarantining, etc.,
implement these roles of pretence; as realizers, they are also constitutive but not
essential to pretence.
However, there is a worry with taking the functionalist approach when
studying cognitive phenomena. With regard to considering pretence, do we have
reasons to think it is anything like clocks? Is it something that can have synchronic
realizers, or can be broken down to constitutive subpart(s)? Can pretence be explained
without taking under consideration, for example, the context in which it occurs? I
would tend to say ‘not necessarily’ to all of these questions, but that leans heavily on
what notion of explanation one has in mind. That will be engaged in below in
subsection 4, but before that, I will put another approach to studying cognition on the
8
There is an ongoing debate about what is supposed to be the job of the philosopher. Some say that it
is to answer constitutive questions about the nature of things (e.g., what is the nature, or essence, of
cognition). These are the ‘traditional’ philosophers. However, we have also less orthodox philosophers,
ones engaging in cognitive science. According to Barry Smith, philosophers play part in larger
scientific enterprise and make interdisciplinary contributions (in Haug (ed.) 2013, p. 295). To take
another example, David Papineau is interested in the actualities, not necessities (idem, p. 192).8 Thus,
there are different ways in which philosophers are interested in the constitutive question.
11
table – enactivism. It is crucially different from the other two, and it is highly relevant
to this thesis as it is the approach that promotes non-representationalism.
b) Enactivism
There are many variations of enactivism, the spectrum varying from biological
enactivism that stresses autopoietic structuring of a living organism like a cell (Varela
et al., 1991), to radical enactivism that stresses lack of mental, semantic contents in
early forms of cognition (Hutto and Myin, 2013). However, there are some aspects of
enactivism shared by all (or most) parties.
The first is that enactivism is (or should be seen as) a non-representational
account of cognition. Enactivism questions most commitments of cognitivists (and
connectionists), against which it has been proposed. As Varela et al. (1991) claim,
It questions the centrality of the notion that cognition is fundamentally
representation. Behind this notion stand three fundamental assumptions. The first
is that we inhabit a world with particular properties, such as length, color,
movement, sound, etc. The second is that we pick up or recover these properties
by internally representing them. The third is that there is a separate subjective
“we” who does these things. (…) We propose as a name the term enactive to
emphasize the growing conviction that cognition is not the representation of a
pregiven world by a pregiven mind but is rather the enactment of a world and a
mind on the basis of a history of the variety of actions that a being in the world
performs (p. 9).
The second is that enactivism is modeled on ecology, not computation:
Ecological approach stresses the dynamic relation between the organism and its
environment, whereas computational approach focuses on manipulation of symbols or
representational mapping. Enactivism, thus, proposes the study of living organisms,
and describes autopoietic systems in their environments. What is interesting is Varela
at al.’s (1991) comparison of such autonomous systems from mechanistic systems.
They write:
Such autonomous systems stand in sharp contrast to systems whose coupling with
the environment is specified through input/output relations. The digital computer
is the most familiar example of this latter kind of system. Here the meaning of a
12
given keyboard sequence is always assigned by a designer. Living systems,
however, are far from being in this category. Under very restricted circumstances
can we speak as if we could specify the operation of a cell or an organism
through input/output relations. In general, though, the meaning of this or that
interaction for a living system is not prescribed form outside but is the result of
the organization and history of the system itself (idem, p.157).
The benefit of enactivism is that it considers the individual in the
intersubjective context. What that means is that it takes under account the role of
objects and others in shaping cognition. The outcome of taking an enactive approach
to cognition is that it finds mentality in the interactions, not in encapsulated mental
representations.
The third aspect of enactivism is that it stresses the constitutive role of the
body and environment in shaping the mind. That is, whatever pertains to mind is
going to be necessarily involving the body of the organism and its world.
What is important for our discussion is that on enactivist picture, the causalconstitutive divide falls apart. Enactivism talks about the holistic explanations, taking
under account the organism’s biological set-up, history of interactions, social and
culture niches, etc., and so there is no clear divide between what is the synchronic or
diachronic explanation. For example, the history of interactions is both necessary to
explain how a mental act came about now and it can be used to explain how it got to
come about yesterday.
Though there is no clear application of enactivism to pretence yet – as
establishing this possibility is the aim of this thesis – we can already imagine that
enactivists would claim that there is nothing ‘extra’ to the practices that enactivism
explains that realizes them ‘from within’, as there is no internal-external divide to be
made. Pretence would be necessarily embodied and situated in a particular context.
There may be nothing extra to realize ‘pretence’ or its aspects (roles) like DK and
IMG (non-representationally construed). Rather, it may be the history of interactions
that shape relevant know-how, or sensorimotor and perceptual capacities that allow
imaginative ‘seeing-as’, which are enough to explain pretence.
What happens to the explanatory notion of enactivists that serves as an
alternative to mental representations? While in the functionalist framework, we could
speak of them as ‘realizers’ of pretence as they take on explaining the role of, e.g.,
13
‘imagining’ or ‘guiding’; in the enactivist framework, they should not be seen as
realizers of pretence, because affordances cannot be seen as constitutive subparts of
pretence as mental representations are; affordances are to be thought of as either
relations between environment and animal (Chemero 2009) or relational properties of
the environment relative to the animal (Gibson 1979, Noe 2001, Withagen et al.
2012), and as either of the two, they are prone to dynamical interactions.
To summarise, in this section I have explained that the investigation of a
cognitive concept can take three forms: investigating its conceptual essence
(answering the question: what is it?), investigating implementation mechanism (how
is it realized?) and investigating its external factors (how does it causally come
about?). I have explained that on the functionalist picture, the first two are interlinked,
and contrast the third: findings about the implementation mechanisms (constitutive
realizers) can tell us something important about the essential make-up of what we
investigate. However, on the enactivist picture, the first stands separate to the second
and the third, which are, in turn, tightly linked; so tightly that it may not make sense
to separate them. Taking this under consideration, how does enactivism propose
alternative explanations to mental representational explanations of pretence? Are the
alternatives to be considered as mechanisms at all? Whether a mechanistic
explanation needs to be posited will be clarified upon discussion of the nature and
success of mechanistic explanations, in the subchapter below.
4. The validity of mechanistic explanations
To show how pretence can be understood without mental representations, we
must understand how pretence is usually explained in the first place. It is usually
explained though a cognitive mechanism. These mechanisms showed which aspects
(‘roles’) of pretence needed explaining, out of which I have chosen three (knowing,
imagining, guiding) to explain with a non-representational alternative. But what
would a non-representational mechanism look like? Can we even have nonmechanistic explanations? These questions need to be at least raised (if not answered)
before developing the positive proposals in order to clarify what exactly it is that the
non-representational alternative provides.
The types of explanations present in philosophy of mind have mainly been
mechanistic. As Withagen et al. (2012) claim, “Ever since the mechanization of the
14
worldview (…), philosophers and later psychologists have generally tried to
understand mind and behavior in mechanistic terms” (p. 250). Descartes (1641/2007)
was a famous promoter of such methodology, but more recently, the method of
breaking the phenomenon into smaller ‘component’ mechanisms that are ‘stupid’, and
therefore, have lesser functions, has been discussed most famously by Dennett (1993).
While there is no one accepted definition of a mechanistic explanation, Ramsey
(2007) suggests the following:
A mechanistic explanation accounts for some capacity or aspect of the mind by
showing how it comes about through (or is realized by) its structures, states and
operations that could be implemented in physical process (p. 25).
As it can be seen, treating aspects of pretence as roles that have realizers
(decentring, quarantining, etc.) fits with the mechanistic view. 9 These aspects are
something into which we can ‘break down’ the phenomenon in order to explain its
smaller component parts.
Why scientists and philosophers want to introduce
mechanistic explanations is to break the investigated phenomenon down into a
smaller set of components, so that they are easier to interpret and can be put back
together to allow making predictions about when the phenomenon would emerge. For
example, knowing what is required of pretence in terms of components would give us
an idea of what parts we would need to ‘collect’ so that when we put them together,
pretence would emerge. However, such mechanistic explanations do not seem to go in
pair with enactivist framework, the reasons why will be clarified after I introduce
some examples of mechanistic and non-mechanistic approaches to cognitive
phenomena.
Marr and Poggio’s (1976) paper is famous for introducing a differentiation
between levels of description; it was applied to understanding perception. They
approached perception from a computational theory approach, threating is as an
information processing system. As such, they distinguished three levels of abstraction
in analyzing perception (in Dawson, 1998):
1. Physical level: How the system is physically realized (neuronal structures),
2. Algorithmic/representational level: How does the system do what it does,
9
Interestingly, Ramsey himself does not see how a properly mechanistic framework of a cognitive
theory would include roles such as ‘informing’, ‘denoting’ or ‘standing in for something else’ that
mental representations are supposed to play (2007, p. 25).
15
3. Computational level: What does the system do and why it does these things.
With Marr’s consequent paper (1982), the three levels of explanation have
become popularized. In reversed order, Stich and Nichols (2003, p. 10) explain these
levels in the following way:
Marr’s highest level, which he perhaps misleadingly called the computational
level, presents an analysis of the cognitive capacity to be explained. The analysis
given an explicit account of what the system underlying the capacity does and
decomposes the system into a set of simpler subsystems. (…) At Marr’s second
level, which he calls the algorithmic level, the theory provides formal procedures
or algorithms for accomplishing each of the tasks into which the initial target task
or capacity has been decomposed. The third, or physical implementation, level
explains how the algorithms are actually executed by some real physical system –
typically some part if he brain. On Marr’s view, the three levels are largely
independent of one another.
While it hasn’t been explicitly proposed, pretence could be re-described also
in the following way:
1. Physics: what is happening at the neuronal level,
2. Functional Mechanisms: How does the system do it? (One possibility: mental
representational models)
3. Action: What does the system do? (Pretending, could be understood as
representing proper)
As the first domain clearly belongs to physics or neuroscience, not philosophy,
it will not be discussed further. Interestingly, philosophers do take on themselves to
explain the second level by providing explanatory models. This level is about asking
the question: how does the system get to do what it is doing? Applied to pretence, it
can be asked what structures or capacities need to be in place for an agent to pretend
that a banana is a phone? Here, mental representations are brought in in forms of
(often modular) mechanisms to explain what enables pretending to take place. At the
third level, we may ask, what is the child doing when she is pretending that a banana
is a phone? One answer might be that the child is representing the banana as a phone.
That notion of ‘representation’ should be understood as ‘thinks of’ or ‘takes one to be
16
another’, a kind of a symbolic thought. This is the level of description that many
target when they defend the idea that pretence involves representing proper. For the
purposes of focusing on explanatory mechanisms, how we describe pretending at the
highest level will also be bracketed.
Nichols and Stich target the ‘top’ (computational) level when proposing their
account of mindreading, of which pretending is an example. They propose a modular
mechanism to play a role at the second level. They write:
The account of mindreading we propose in this book can be viewed as a theory at
Marr’s highest [a.k.a., computational] level of analysis or, what amounts to much
the same thing, as the first level of a homuncular functionalist theory of
mindreading. Our aim is to characterize the complex and variegated skills that
constitute our mindreading capacity and begin the job of explaining how these
skills are accomplished by positing a cluster of mental mechanisms that interact
with one another… (2003, p. 10-11).
They further claim that
Most of the competing accounts of mindreading that have appeared in recent
years (along with many cognitive theories aimed at explaining other complex
cognitive capacities) are best viewed as having the same goals as our theory.
They try to explain mindreading (or some other complex cognitive capacity) by
positing functionally characterized underlying mechanisms with capacities that
are simpler than the capacity they are trying to explain. (idem, p. 11)
Thus, when following Marr’s methodology, phenomena like ‘mindreading’
are broken down to simpler mechanisms in need of further explanation.
Interestingly, Marr himself made clear that his levels of classification are to be
treated as independent of one another. What should follow is that the
algorithmic/representational level should not in any way affect (whether strengthen or
weaken) the computational level; these can and should be considered separately from
17
each other. That is why logically, the structure of the mechanism of the middle level
should not make a difference to the structure of its highest level.10
Interestingly, this is the one key point that Nichols and Stich decide not to
follow Marr on. They admit to one major change in their analysis after appropriating
Marr’s distinctions:
Though it may be helpful to think of our account of mindreading as a theory at
Marr’s ‘computational’ level of analysis, there is one important issue on which
we differ from Marr. On Marr’s view, each level of analysis is largely
independent of the level below. On our view, by contrast, findings about the
structure and functioning of the brain can, and ultimately will, impose strong
constraints on theories of mindreading of the sort we will be offering (idem, p.
11).
Nichols and Stich are thinking of the lowest (physical) level affecting the
algorithmic level, and find that not worrisome due to lack of sufficient findings about
the brain to make any changes on the next explanatory level. My attention is drawn to
a different connection: if the levels are not independent of each other, then the
computational level is to be supported by what is broken down to an algorithmic
level. Their picture is of homuncular mechanisms that entail each other, rather than
three separate levels of analysis of the same phenomenon. The reference to the
scientific approach of Marr is tainted.
Unfortunately, this entailment relation is also endorsed in different fields.
Other authors (Iacoboni, 2006; Gallese et al. 2004) used a similar distinction to speak
about empathy and social cognition. For example, Gallese et al. (2004) distinguished
these thee levels underlying understanding of social cognition:
1. Physics: Firing of mirror neurons in the brain
2. Syntax: The functional model of simulation (simulation theory)
3. Semantics: Conscious experience, phenomenology of empathy.
As Gallese and his colleagues are, first and foremost, neuroscientists, they
mainly focus on explicating the neuronal mechanisms underlying empathy at the
physical level. However, they also claim that the neuronal mirroring activity is the
10
This resembles the enactivists’ divide between mechanisms and essences, but not one of
functionalists, who take the realizer mechanisms to be telling of the essential make-up and roles of
their explananda.
18
physical basis of our action-simulation capacity, which seems to be positing
explanatory modules on the second level. That mechanism of simulation further
explains how it is that humans feel empathy (third level).
Thus, while providing a hierarchical, mechanistic decomposition of
phenomena is a common scientific practice, that traditional approach of looking for
underlying mechanisms of phenomena may not be best applicable to complex social
and mental phenomena; it even results in contradictions.11
Explanations of cognitive phenomena perhaps should not resort to looking for
simple mechanistic explanations. Two alternatives can be thus proposed. The first is
to get rid of the mechanistic explanation altogether. The second is to embrace that the
explanation can be considered as a ‘wide-‘ or ‘extended mechanism’ that expands our
notion of mechanism to include social structures and the environment. I will now
discuss both options.
On the one hand, speaking of mechanisms may be problematic for
enactivists, and many would take a ‘no mechanism’ view to providing explanations.
One reason is that the idea of mechanistic explanations is that they just have to be
general – this is part of what it means to explain something. To apply this thought to
pretence, to explain types of pretence phenomena would be to looking for
mechanisms that instantiate pretence. But perhaps there is no unique phenomenon of
pretending that would have such a general mechanism. That is because often there is
no one accepted definition of such concepts, or a unitary account of what can be
covered by such concepts, and without such information, it is difficult to establish
whether what we are trying to explain even is a kind of a thing that can be broken
down to smaller mechanisms. Consider Hutto’s opening lines to “What is
Consciousness?” (2014):
There is no utterly clean, clear and neutral account of what exactly is covered by
the concept of consciousness. The situation reflects, and is exacerbated by, the
fact that we speak of consciousness in many different ways in ordinary parlance.
A consequence of our multifacious uses of the concept is that is has impossible to
define its essential characteristics through conceptual analysis. We have nothing
approaching a descriptively adequate philosophical consensus of what lies at the
core of all and every form of consciousness in terms of necessary and sufficient
11
See Rucinska (2015) on Fuchs
19
conditions that would be accepted by all interested parties. (…) Recognizing that
attempts to provide a philosophically robust definition of consciousness are likely
forlorn, a standard tactic for isolating core features of consciousness is to provide
clear-cut exemplars as specimens.
While Hutto speaks of consciousness (not pretence), and the inability to agree
on one definition of consciousness (not account), his words speak to pretence and its
available accounts as well. What follows is that it might be a daunting task to look for
a mechanism of pretence, one that would unitarily underlie any pretence act. For aside
no agreed definition of pretence or its account, there is no one kind of pretending
either. As was mentioned in Chapter I, pretence formulates itself in various ways,
from object-substitution play, to role-play, to full on acting and deception. It is
difficult enough to support the idea of a set of ‘components’ of pretence that would be
entailed by all these forms of pretence, let alone to propose a general mechanism that
specifies how those components interact with each other to enable pretence.
Moreover, mechanistic explanations do not seem to go with enactivism, as
aside assuming that the phenomenon can be broken down to smaller components, it
assumes that we can posit general rules that represent how things should happen.
However, giving rules of ‘pretence’ would be to de-contextualize it, so that the
component parts of a functioning ‘mechanism’ would always hold for any pretence
case. The worry is that maybe we cannot speak of a decontextualized mechanism of
an activity like ‘pretence’ to start with. Consider Withagen et al.’s (2012) explanation
of why Gibson’s ecological psychology tried to do without mechanisms:
Gibson’s (1966,1979/1986) ecological psychology can be understood as a
critique on mechanistic metaphors that dominate thinking in psychology since the
17th century (Reed, 1988a, 1996a; Withagen & Michaels, 2005). (…) In the
beginning of the 20th century, Holt (1914/1973), Gibson’s graduate school
mentor, claimed that “psychology is at the present moment addicted to the bead
theory” (p. 160) – it tried to understand behavior in terms of a chain of causes and
effects. Following his mentor, Gibson (1966, 1979/1986) took aim at the
mechanistic conceptions of perception and action. He argued that animals should
not be conceived of as machines, the responses of which are caused by stimuli
from the environment. In addition, he claimed that the mechanistic conception of
the environment as matter in motion is inappropriate to understand animal
20
behavior. In Gibson’s view, the animal’s environment consists of action
possibilities, which he termed affordances. For instance, in the human
environment, a floor affords walking upon, a cup affords grasping, water affords
drinking, and so on. With this new conception of the environment, Gibson put
agency back on the agenda and thereby overturned the mechanistic framework
that underlies many psychological approaches. After all, if the environment
consists of opportunities for action that do not cause behavior but simply make it
possible, animals appear as being autonomous, making their way in the world.
They are not mere puppets pushed by the environment like machines; rather,
animals have agency (p. 250).
On the other hand, perhaps mechanisms can be appropriated by enactivists,
and the ‘extensive mechanism’ view could be endorsed. The ‘extensive mechanism’
view would be one answer to the worry of decontextualization. Carlos Zednik (2011)
argues that we can appropriate a dynamical explanation to explain complex and
distributed mechanisms. He claims:
The theoretical frameworks of computationalism and connectionism are often
construed as a search for cognitive mechanisms, the specific structures and
processes from which cognitive phenomena arise. In contrast, the framework of
dynamicism is generally understood to be a search for principles or laws —
mathematical regularities that govern the way cognitive phenomena unfold over
time. (…) I argue that dynamical explanations may be uniquely able to describe
mechanisms whose components are engaged in complex relationships of
continuous reciprocal causation (p. 238-239).
One example how a wide, dynamic type of explanation is how Varela at al.
(1991) explain colour experience. In “The Embodied Mind”, Varela et al. discuss how
colour experience comes about. To understand colour experience, they claim that we
need to understand factors that simultaneously shape the experience, such as
appearance of the object (structured by basic colours and dimensions of hue,
saturation and brightness), illumination, retinal structures, neuronal structures
(structures of visual pathways that participate in the perception of colour),
relationship between colour and motion, and other sensory modalities. They claim
that
“Our coloured world is brought forth by complex processes of structural
21
coupling” (164), and they demonstrated that “colour as an attribute is intimately
involved with other attributes of our perceived world” (165). They conclude with:
“Our examination so far shows that we will not be able to explain colour if we seek to
locate it in a world independent of our perceptual capacities. Instead, we must locate
colour in the perceived or experiential world that is brought forth from our history of
structural coupling.” (165). According to them, colours belong to shared biological
and cultural world.
This is in line with their understanding of enactivism, which, according to
them, merges realism, idealism and non-representationalism. They claim:
Our discussion of colour suggests a middle way between these two (…) extremes
[realism and idealism]. We have seen that colours are not ‘out there’ independent
of our perceptual and cognitive capacities. We have also seen that they are not “in
here” independent of our surrounding biological and cultural world. (…) These two
extremes both take representation as their central notion: in the first case
representation is used to recover what is outer; in the second case it is used to
project what is inner. Our intention is to bypass entirely this logical geography of
inner versus outer by studying cognition not as recovery or projection but as
embodied action” (172).
It is important to focus on what it is that Varela et al. are claiming to be
explaining. It could be said that they explain what colour experience is. According to
them,
(…) the overall concern of the enactive approach to perception is not to determine
how some perceiver-independent world is to be recovered; it is, rather, to
determine the common principles or lawful linkages between sensory and motor
systems that explain how action can be perceptually guided in a perceiverdependent world (idem, p. 173).
Varela et al.’s example shows that it is possible to provide something more
than a simple mechanistic explanation of a cognitive action. They do seem to endorse
looking for ‘common principles’ or ‘lawful linkages’ (that belong to providing a
mechanistic explanation) that can be generalized to all perception, but they look also at
the relation of the sensory-motor systems to the external world, one that is perceiver-
22
dependent. It could be said that they have opened up their notion of a ‘mechanism’ to
include social and cultural structures. It would be a type of an ‘interactive’, dynamical
mechanism, one very much in line with Zednik’s proposal.
There are worries to be found with depleting the ‘wide mechanism’ view. One
worry is, how could social context be appropriated to anything like a ‘mechanism’ of
pretence? How can such mechanism be studied or implemented? While it is promising
that further research can be done to make use of the enactive framework in, for
example, an empirical study (which is what an ‘enactive mechanism’ would promise),
it has to be carefully considered whether we are speaking of anything like a
mechanism at all, let alone whether we are speaking of it consistently. In his review of
a book “Analytical Sociology and Social Mechanisms”, Bert Leuridan (2011) neatly
raises the worry with applying the talk of mechanisms to concepts of social nature. He
explains:
Whenever we start explaining ‘why’ something happens, beyond mere
description, we are necessarily led to introduce some type of causal linkage of
elements that in turn raises the question of mechanism. (…) Emphasis on the
notion of mechanism corresponds to an evaluation of the proper role of causal
linkages in the social sciences. Yet there is no consensus on the notion of ‘social
mechanism’ in analytical sociology. (…) In Analytical Sociology and Social
Mechanisms, one hardly finds explicit definitions of ‘mechanism’, while the
concept is used implicitly in many divergent ways.
As this is a big discussion, one that is beyond the scope of this research,
perhaps I can remain neutral on whether the type of explanation I will be providing is
a mechanical explanation. It may be wise to follow the steps of Tad Zawidzki (2013),
who at the introduction to his account of mindshaping (importantly, a counter view to
mindreading proposals present in the literature), says the following:
(The) view I defend is entirely neutral on the question of mechanisms. The
competencies I describe are not implemented by innate, special-purpose symbolic
modules, or by general-purpose, experience-driven neural networks, or by some
hybrid of the two, or by some other alternative” (2013, p. xiv).
23
If these are the options of how to interpret what mechanisms are – either taking
the form of innate symbolic modules, or neural networks – then my alternative will
definitely not propose mechanisms per se. Rather, what I will propose are, to put most
neutrally, factors (non-representational factors) that play a role in making pretence
happen. Taking this approach may not require taking a stance on whether the
explanation is a ‘no mechanism’ or ‘wide mechanism’ explanation.
However, should a stance be taken, for the purposes of this particular thesis, I
do lean towards a ‘no mechanism’ view. That is mainly due to the description of
mechanism that Ramsey proposes, which is that mechanisms are by nature
representational:
… (Try) to imagine what a non-representational account of some cognitive
capacity or process might look like. Such a thing should be possible, even if you
regard a non-representational account as implausible. Presumably, at the very
least, it would need to propose some sort of internal processing architecture that
gives rise to the capacity in question. The account would perhaps invoke purely
mechanical operations that, like most mechanical processes, require internal
states or devices that in their proper functioning go into particular states when the
system is presented with specific sorts of input. But now notice that in the current
climate, such an account would turn out to be a representational theory after all. If
it proposes particular internal states that are responses to particular inputs, then,
given one popular conception of representation, these would qualify as
representing those inputs (2007, p. 3)
As my proposal is to provide the possibility of non-representational pretence, I
will cautiously accept Ramsey’s premise, even if it could be defended – even if
mechanisms are not by nature representational. There is, however, no compelling
argument for that option; in fact, even Zednik accepts that dynamical explanations are
“reductive explanations (…) and may be amenable to representation hunting” (p. 239).
That is why the non-representational factors that I will propose in explaining pretence
can be, for present purposes, best conceived of as non-mechanistic explanations.
5. Interlocutor’s objections and enactivist responses
24
This is where a cognitivist interlocutor may raise an objection. Can we have
non-mechanistic explanations that serve as explanations tout court? Are these to be
counted as ‘explanations’ at all? Consider the concept of ‘affordances’ that was
mentioned in Gibson’s quote, which will be a prominent non-representational
explanatory notion I will use throughout the thesis: does invoking affordances provide
a genuine alternative explanation, or are they just re-descriptions? The cognitivist may
worry that with introducing such notions, I have not engaged in an explanatory work,
but engaged in doing something else entirely.
This is not an unjustified worry. Without structuring the explanations into
mechanisms, I could be accused of not providing an explanation. I could also be
accused of changing the topic to conceptual analysis. I will presently discuss these
two objections, and propose rebuttals. The responses will also serve as summaries of
main points made in the above sections.
To begin to answer the cognitivists’ worries, and to set the stage for rebuttals,
it must be mentioned that in the nature of what we are explaining, it is difficult to
establish up front what kind of explanation would satisfy us. It is important to
remember that there are at least two types of philosophical investigation. One equates
explanations with saying something about the constitutive nature of what is explained;
other does not. How constitutive questions about a notion X are answered could, in
turn, be derived from pragmatic use of “X”, or from analysing the concept X. The role
of X is hard to determine; often it is assumed.
Take the concept ‘thinking’ as an example. Philosophers like Peter Hacker and
Jason Stanley (2011) think that we first have to find out what ‘thinking’ is, by seeing
how we use the term ‘thinking’ in our practice (Hacker prefers good old fashioned
ordinary language philosophy for this task, and Stanley linguistic analysis). In the
second step, they say, neuroscience can find out about the (actually boring)
mechanisms, which realize ‘thinking’.12 For example, in functionalism, realizers serve
as explanations of the roles. Then what realizes X can be mechanisms; not just
physical mechanisms are used as explanations, but also theorists posit symbolic
modules (see Leslie 1987, Nichols and Stich 2000, 2003).
But the second type of investigation does not make that distinction. In asking
about the phenomenon X, enactivists want to understand how it comes about. There is
12
It is not always the case that neuroscience or cognitive science plays that role; arguably it is a
philosopher’s task.
25
no constitutive nature of X on that picture. Consider again the explanation of how
colour experience comes about by Varela at al., which includes the description of the
physiognomy of the human eye, the influence of the colour concepts of our culture on
perception, and so on. It could be said that they holistically explain how it is that we
get colour experience. Now, is there something else, the constitutive nature of colour
experience on top of that? It is likely that they would say no; there just is the
phenomenon of colour experience, and Varela et al. explain how it works (how it
came about and persists at the time). 13 That must serve as explanation on their
account.
At this point a cognitivist interlocutor may pose the following, first challenge:
the enactivist is not providing an explanation at all. That is because cognitivists are
interested in the synchronic nature of the explanation, looking at the types of
cognitive mechanisms that are at work at the very moment one is, e.g., pretending.
Cognitivists insist that to provide an explanation is to provide an answer to a
synchronic question - what makes a specific behaviour a ‘pretence’ behaviour at the
moment we are engaging in it - as opposed to a diachronic question, which would
entail some sort of a historical perspective. As the enactivist is not just after the causal
antecedents of pretence, what is left is narrowing the target down to what
synchronously (or at a particular given time) suffices for a pretence act. Realisation is
a natural way of describing this relation. The objection would be that if one is not
speaking about synchronic realization, or diachronic causal antecedents, then one is
not providing a genuine alternative explanation to mental representational
explanations of pretence. Hence, the working concepts ‘affordances’ cannot play the
alternative explanatory role as they do not fit these explanatory roles to begin with.
However, enactivists could argue that it is a genuine explanation, just one that
does not fit with the cognitivist requirements. Consider an analogy: A policeman pulls
over an intoxicated woman for drunk-driving and asks her: “When did you start
drinking?”, to which she replies: “When I was about 12 years old”. This joke of an
answer suggests something important: both this answer and one that would specify
the hour of the day (ultimately what the policeman was asking for) are acceptable
answers; they do answer the same question, and explain how the woman got to be
drunk-driving, in a sense.
13
Thanks to Martin Weichof for his helpful commentaries on the topic.
26
Enactivists negate that synchronic explanations can be cleanly divided from
the diachronic ones. They use 'history of past interactions’ as an explanation for why
we act the way we do presently. Thus, the answer to the cognitivist interlocutor might
be to argue that the enactivist explanation is a genuine explanation after all.
‘Affordances’ enter as explanations under a different methodology. They still clarify
how pretence works, but the divide between synchronic and dialogical explanations
gets lost. It is conceivable, thus, that one can provide a genuine alternative, as long as
one is not playing by the same rules. Whether they are going to form aspects of a
‘wide-mechanism’ or form a ‘no-mechanism’ explanation is beyond the scope of this
paper, though as argued in subsection 4, the ‘no-mechanism view’ may be the safer
option. Thus, the alternative may not form an alternative mechanism, but should be
counted as an alternative non the less. Speaking of realizers of pretence would stop
making sense on that account; there would be no independent mental state of
‘pretence’ outside the practice of pretending; that would just be one and the same
thing.14
The second challenge of the cognitivist interlocutor may be that the enactivists
have changed the topic. Again, it is a valid point. Another option to not providing
explanations of general phenomena is to speak of token phenomena, understanding
that we cannot decontextualize them or give any golden rules. As mentioned earlier,
there may not be, after all, a single coherent ‘pretence’ phenomenon. However, that
point will always be ad hoc, unless one provides a working definition of ‘pretence’.
Providing a definition, in turn, is engaging in a conceptual analysis, which is not what
enactivism should approach if it is to provide alternative explanatory story.
A possible response of an enactivist, then, could be to bite the bullet and
accept that the explanation is not of the same kind, and indeed perhaps enactivism has
changed the explanandum, but that it is a change for the better none the less, because
explaining pretence by mechanistic explanation fails by its own standard (as proposed
by Ramsey).
However, importantly, the enactivist should be aware that his/her task is not to
be engaging in philosophy of language, and what follows, conceptual re14
The enactivist would say that we cannot know in advance what the roles and realizers of pretence
are, and assuming them is making a mistake, because we're then looking for some 'universal principles'
of, e.g., pretence, and those would have to be decontextualized from the actual practices and the
varieties they bring. If the practice of pretending is always contextualized, then we cannot presuppose
roles (and realizers) of the pretence, and so the functions and the mechanisms these functions are
supposed to play.
27
characterizations. I will not provide an explanation of what makes one behaviour
count as pretence behaviour. One doesn’t need enactivism to answer the question
what counts as what. Ordinary Language Philosophy provides better answers to “what
counts as what within our linguistic practice” questions. The nature of the enactivists’
job is to discuss mental phenomena like pretence in the domain of philosophy of
mind, in particular by focusing on alternative explanations of pretence, not on how the
word ‘pretence’ is being used in a linguistic practice. There may be just the pragmatic
practice of using “X” (‘pretends’) in different contexts, and the phenomena of X
(pretence). But these things can come completely apart, because our ordinary
language is not made for describing phenomena, but for pragmatic purposes (e.g.,
‘thinking’ and saying things like “think harder!”).
So there could be the real phenomena of pretending on the one hand, and the
practice of using “pretence”, “pretends”, etc. on the other hand. That second analysis I
have to bracket, and for the argument sake assume that ordinary language does a fine
job in defining the boundaries of pretence. Even if that is not the case, this is not a job
of an enactivist looking at explaining non-representationally how pretence comes
about, even though on the enactivist picture, language games and cultural descriptions
could come in as part of the wide, cultural explanations.
6. Conclusion: Working assumptions and strategy
Does all this matter in finding non-representational alternatives to
explanations of pretence? Yes, as it is necessary to clarify upfront what kinds of
explanations I will be offering, and bracket any confusion of whether I am providing
an explanation. Considering the nature of the explanation is important as it shows the
possibility of interpreting my positive proposal (non-mental representational
explanations) in subsequent chapters as genuine explanations of pretence. It is also
crucial for getting clear on the working assumptions and the strategy appropriated for
the rest of the thesis.
For the purposes of this thesis, I will accept that some form of knowing,
imagining, or guiding is involved in pretending, in order to discriminate genuine
pretence acts from similar but not genuine acts of pretence. These form ‘roles’ on the
functionalist accounts, but should not be thought of as such by the enactivists (as they
do no not propose realizers of such roles). For example, I accept that some kind of
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knowledge of what is going on is present (and some kind of understanding of what
one is doing) – but whether a Double Knowledge state of mind is present is not to be
taken for granted, and whether it requires a mental representational mechanism of
‘quarantining’ or ‘flagging’ will be put to question, etc.
I will also re-describe each and every one of the aspects. To be clear, engaging
in such re-description them may not be necessary, as it is possible to endorse mental
representational aspects of pretence (on one level of description) and endorse their
mechanisms as non-mental representational (on another level of description). That
only follows if we accept that mechanisms do not constitute their essences. But in
case mechanisms do constitute their essences, it is useful for clarification purposes to
show that the ‘essences’ of pretence can also be characterized non-mentally
representationally. While it is not strictly necessary, it will be easier to see how
securing the possibility of non-representational explanans (the goal of this thesis) can
get cashed out in explaining how pretence works when I show that pretence need not
be necessarily seen as intrinsically mental representational to begin with. Thus, I will
target the constitutive commitments to show that they are not necessary or even the
only way to think about pretence. What follows is that explanatory needs will change,
and a logical space is opened where such questions of explanation can be answered in
a different way.
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