The cognition research stream brings the APS framework into dialogue with contemporary cognitive science, particularly the enactivist and embodied cognition traditions. If agency is grounded in the self-maintaining organisation of living systems, what does this imply for our understanding of cognition?

Key Questions

  • Is cognition a special case of biological agency, or something qualitatively different?
  • How does the APS framework relate to 4E cognition (embodied, embedded, enacted, extended)?
  • Can the concept of scale help resolve debates about the boundaries of cognitive systems?

This stream draws on foundational work in enactivism (Thompson, 2007; Di Paolo, 2005) and applies APS concepts to longstanding problems in philosophy of mind.