Enactivism and the Continuity of Life and Mind

Enactivism is a contemporary approach to cognition that emphasises the role of embodiment, action, and organism–environment interaction. Rather than treating cognition as internal computation or representation, it proposes that cognition arises through the ongoing engagement of an organism with its world.

Central to this view is the idea of sense-making: the process by which an organism brings forth a meaningful environment through its activity. Meaning is not imposed from outside or constructed internally as a representation, but emerges through the dynamic relation between organism and environment.

Enactivism therefore rejects both strictly internalist and purely externalist accounts of cognition, locating mind within the activity of living systems.

Points of Convergence with APS

APS and enactivism share several important commitments.

Both reject the separation of organism and environment, emphasising that biological systems exist through ongoing coupling with their surroundings. Both treat cognition as continuous with life, rather than as a distinct or higher-level phenomenon.

In this respect, enactivism captures an important aspect of biological organisation: that meaning and responsiveness arise through activity rather than through passive reception or internal representation.

These shared insights make enactivism one of the closest contemporary approaches to the APS framework.

The Explanatory Starting Point

Despite this convergence, APS and enactivism differ in their explanatory starting point.

Enactivist accounts often begin with cognition or sense-making as the primary phenomenon to be explained. From there, they extend the concept downward, identifying simpler forms of cognition in biological systems.

This approach successfully dissolves sharp boundaries between mind and life, but it risks giving explanatory priority to cognition. Biological organisation can then appear as something defined in terms of its cognitive or sense-making capacities.

From an APS perspective, this reverses the order of explanation.

APS: From Viability to Cognition

APS begins not with cognition but with viability-oriented, constraint-closed organisation.

Living systems are defined by their ability to sustain and regulate the conditions of their own persistence. This activity is biological agency: the ongoing, self-regulating maintenance of viability.

Cognition, on this view, is not the basis of life but a development within it. It arises as a further elaboration of the same organisational principles that underlie all living systems.

APS therefore reverses the explanatory direction:

  • Enactivism often moves from cognition to life
  • APS moves from life to cognition

This shift ensures that cognition remains grounded in the material and organisational conditions that make it possible.

Sense-Making and Biological Normativity

Enactivism introduces the concept of sense-making to describe how organisms generate meaning through their interaction with the environment.

APS captures a closely related phenomenon but grounds it in biological normativity. What matters to a living system is determined by its own organisation: processes contribute to or undermine its continued viability.

In this sense, meaning is not an additional layer imposed on biological activity. It is intrinsic to the organisation of life itself. The asymmetry between what sustains and what degrades a system constitutes the basis of all biological evaluation.

APS therefore treats sense-making as an expression of viability-oriented organisation rather than as a primary explanatory concept.

Agency and the Scope of Cognition

A further difference concerns the scope of cognition.

Enactivist approaches often extend cognitive language broadly across living systems. While this captures important continuities, it can blur distinctions between different forms of organisation.

APS maintains a more structured relation between key concepts:

  • Semiosis as the most basic form of biological responsiveness
  • Cognition as a more integrated and flexible form of regulation
  • Agency as the defining activity of life

In this framework, cognition is not synonymous with life, but a particular mode of biological organisation. This preserves continuity while maintaining conceptual clarity.

Enactivism Within APS

From an APS perspective, enactivism provides a powerful account of how meaning and cognition arise through organism–environment interaction.

APS incorporates these insights while situating them within a broader explanatory framework. By grounding sense-making in viability-oriented organisation, APS ensures that cognition is understood as part of the activity through which living systems sustain themselves.

In this way, enactivism is neither rejected nor subsumed. It is integrated as a theory of cognition within a more general account of life.

In Brief

Enactivism explains cognition in terms of embodied interaction and sense-making, emphasising the continuity between life and mind. APS shares this continuity but grounds it in viability-oriented, constraint-closed organisation. Cognition is not the basis of life but a development within biological agency, and sense-making is an expression of the normative structure of living systems.