Talk:Embodied philosophy

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[edit] Ecoregions?

Do either Johnson or Lakoff want to tie politics to ecoregions?

the field is not defined by them alone.
Most importantly, it is not defined by you, 24. AxelBoldt
Ecoregions as such, probably not explicitly? Ecology? Somewhat. Environment. Absolutely. (see below). But I didn't answer that way to cover for their lack of interst in the topic. Look, you tell me what the inclusion criteria are, e.g. Kant's Categorical Imperative has an "embodied" element, i.e. you are supposed to rely on your own cognition and assume something about the impact on others based on your similarity to them, a la Golden Rule. Am I allowed to say that the systems of philosophy that rely on naive individual projection, empathy and aesthetic are "embodied" to the degree that they rely on it? The "emotionalist school of moral philosophy" that gave rise to Adam Smith... is that embodied? What has emotion that is not embodied? You set the borders of the fence, and I'll fill in the pasture. I think of this evidently too broadly for Sanger, so, whatever, tell me how you bind meaning to J & L's words, and I'll tell you who else thinks that. 24
Embodiment is generally understood to imply that the environment or ecology that shapes cognition is responsible for at least part of the development of mind, as evidence by linguistic correspondence between biodiversity and linguistic diversity (see bioregional democracy where some of this stuff is cited.24
"Generally understood" by whom? Apparently not by the inventors of the term and the main proponents. (And don't hope for a second that bioregional democracy won't be cleaned up as well.) AxelBoldt
have you read any of Lakoff's political material? He's the most serious anti-globalist there is next to Zerzan (who isn't that serious). And yes, bioregional democracy should be cleaned up, but if you cut out the linguistic guts of it (democracy implies a common language rich enough to express all the phenomena that the public may have to talk and decide about), it won't make much sense. Many of my articles have key bridging points cut out for some vague reason, and are left making strange leaps. More specific feedback helps, and I'm grateful for this to the degree that you do it. The problem with going and cleaning up bioregional democracy right now is that there is no democracy on this wiki (;-)) and it is not in any one bioregion (;-)) so how does one demonstrate what should be included by example?24

I suspect this is just a pet idea of 24,

I don't have such unruly pets, Axel ;-) So far, by the way, of a few hundred contributions, only one (party disapproval) has proven to have insufficiently deep roots in academie or culture to be considered worthy of inclusion - considering I'm deliberately going to the edges of certain topics to find extreme views for illustration purposes, for the reader's sake by way of contrast (a dialectic style), that's pretty good.

not one of Johnson or Lakoff. References, please.

I could cite the linguistic connection, and stuff by Carol Moore on this issue in particular, but if you think this is a "pet idea" you likely don't understand the thesis or epigenetics of cognition - so these have to be explained too. Of course, some clown will
Your misunderstanding of epigenetics has been cleaned up in the meantime. AxelBoldt
it's a pretty damn broad "misunderstanding" - you simply replaced the evolutionary biologist's version with the molecular biologist's version. I assure you that I have sat through long boring lectures that covered all the topics I laid out as "epigenetic". Have you? Anyway that's covered in the talk for that article. Do as you will. 24
claim that linguistics and embodiment are "unrelated", which is contrary to the whole thesis. If one grants embodiment, then one grants the linguistic-ecology connection too - it seems
Lakoff doesn't as you admitted above, and it would seem that he knows his linguistics and grants embodiment, therefore your claim is provably wrong. AxelBoldt
I didn't say that Lakoff doesn't - quite the contrary - Lakoff would be the first to grant that the "metaphors we live by" come from our local living environment, e.g. gardens, ships, etc, and his strong preference for democracy and the "garden versus ship" metaphor implies to me that he does in fact understand this very very well. But we can ask him if you want.24
embodiment is probably the only satisfactory explanation for diversity of language matching diversity of ecology. Moore thinks Gandhi actually originated the connection between embodiment and ecology sans language, although he didn't call it that at the time, she thinks that's what he meant when he said Western civilization "would be a good idea", and she's got a pretty weighty set of related quotes on that issue. Of course, if he was not expressing an opinion on the imperialism of the English language, then he was not leaving a trail an academic would respect.24
However, some assumptions re: human cognitive bias and falsifiability of assertions regarding it seem to be shared by both schools.

It is unclear what "it" is and what "schools" we are talking about.

that's because every attempt to discuss the other schools has been censored. If you're going to listen to Larry Sanger about what schools of philosophy do and do not exist, you're going to have gaps in your coverage.24
No, it's because your writing was unclear. Nothing had been cut from your version at the time. AxelBoldt
so much hassle would be saved if you would separate complaints about bad writing from assertions that topics don't exist or aren't worth covering or where you personally see a lack or a bias. Really! Bad writing is pretty objectively defined, and isn't such an emotional issue that we need fight about it. Point out bad passages and they get rewritten. Simple. If you want me devoting my time to that, max your time spent finding bad or unclear or wrong (by typo or by spoonerism or even by intent ;-)) passages, and list 'em in talk. 24

What is an example of a political scientist who searches for an "embodied political economy"?

the ones who work on local economies, and bioregionally-tied economics, e.g. via LETS.
those may be factions that you like, but you cannot usurp a term such as "embodied political economy" and then put all nice people in that bag. AxelBoldt
nor would I, and nor did I - there's no article on that term, and I deliberately use it loosely with quotes to imply "here there be demons". It could be clearer. Such an embodied political economy would *have to be* from green economists since they study all the forms of embodiment (as "natural capital", and in the individual body in its interaction with same, and cognition of things like moral purchasing). So not all "nice people" (some Marxists, classicals and neoclassicals are nice people, and some (like Lovins) are even environmentalists who follow non-embodied measurement-heavy systems like Natural Capitalism). But, by "green" in "green economists" I mean specifically the ones who follow the Four Pillars of the Green Party or Ten Key Values of the Green Party, which is the global political use of that term. So if you take "political economy" and swap in "green" for "political" you get "green economy" and thus green economists. I am not putting all nice people in that bag, I am putting all who follow the four or ten in that bag. Admittedly, it's a big bag (and a big tent party), but that's why they're "green economists" and not a "green economics"... 24
But, in the strict cognitive sense of the term as used by Lakoff and Johnson, I'd say Amartya Sen's "Development as Freedom" model is the closest thing to this ideal. Sen is an economist but his work verges on being a full political economy. This issue needs more explanation, so if the censorship or the claims that the topic doesn't exist are over for now, I'll fill it out. Otherwise, I won't bother, as I'm tired of educating Sanger 24
Does he, or anybody else except you, use the term "embodied political economy" for his work? I suspect not. Here's a suggestion: write an article about him and his work. That way, you don't have to invent new terms left and right. Every idiosyncratic invention of yours will eventually be removed, without any question. AxelBoldt

AxelBoldt, Saturday, April 13, 2002

I'm not "inventing" but I may miss some subtle distinctions those authors would make. It may be simpler, as a process, to start with the theorist, i.e. write George Lakoff or Mark Johnson or Amartya Sen or Carol Moore or Jane Jacobs first, lay out what makes them unique or weird, and then it becomes much easier for you to find contradictions between the fields they jointly created or are ceating, and their individual points of view. Is that sensible? 24
also, side note - Sanger claimed that there was no such thing as a "philosophy of body" or "body philosophers" - I am quite sure that a poll of philosophers worldwide which included all the schools that are listed in the articles here, and also included that term, even with "embodied philosophy" and "philosophy of action" already there, would cause > 51% of philosophers to check off that it *did* exist. If you added "feminist philosophy" and "queer philosophy" and "philosophy of medicine" then some might assert that "philosophy of body" was part of one of those, but the numbers would likely be about equal. In some ways, all philosophy is about the body and the proper use and disposal of it. 24

Removed passages copied from other web pages.

  • why? Do you dispute the assertion that Kant gave up on his philosphy of mind? As it stands you are asserting that Kant never did give it up, that Carpenter is wrong, and that this philosophy is on an entirely different track 24

I won't have much time this week to clean up the articles and deal with these concerns, but here's a suggestion. Before the end of April, I'll have short articles on the "body" theorists as individuals so that others can interpret their views as easily as I can, and I'll lay out their most popular views in their own terms, so that no one concludes I'm trying to get away with something here. In the meantime I would be pleased if someone would try to read the CIA and September 11th 2001 articles and try to think like some anti-US protester... those articles simply do not satisfy "writing for the enemy", and as they stand are omitting many important and documented facts. See the talk on those articles... really, if I was to apply the same degree of "neutral" scrutiny to many of those articles as is applied to mine, there would be very little left of them. I don't know about you, but I appreciate specific feedback, nasty or nice... and I continue to thank you for it. 24


[edit] Misrepresentation of L&J

I'd have to say this article does not seem to clearly indicate which philosophers and schools it is discussing. The article implies that Mark Johnson and George Lakoff define the field, but, as a summary of Lakoff and Johnson, the article seems to miss the mark, or at least discuss things unnecessarily abstractly; their claims about "embodiment" cognition basically boil down to the idea that how we think is largely determined by the bodies we have, and the mechanisms those bodies have for dealing with the world. Additionally, while Lakoff and friends may or may not desire, say, "a more localized political science", this is hardly at the core of their embodiment ideas.

Now, if the claim is that the "field" of embodied philosophy is actually much broader than just Lakoff and Johnson, then the article may be on firmer ground. In that case, however, I'd like to hear more about who the other thinkers are, who has claimed it is appropriate to lump them together with Lakoff and Johnson, and the motivations for doing so. In its current state, the article reads like a not entirely NPOV original synthesis by one particular individual. --Ryguasu

I agree completely. Whoever wrote this article does not seem to get G. Lakoff at all. He's missed the basic insight and tried to twist it into something that it's not. Ryguasu expressess the basic idea well when we writes: "How we think is largely determined by the bodies we have." For example, we prefer to think of abstract things (like making a point) in terms of simple familiar things (like swinging a hammer).

Ok, I've totally started this article over. I think the term "embodied philosophy" is not used as it was described in the article - especially with the far-fetched connections to green economics - by anyone other than 24. I don't mean this as an attack on 24, but I'm generally suspicious of ideas held by one person and one person only, as Fred Bauder will probably attest to. Also, I'd love to be proven wrong, but I need to see some books, web sites, etc. that corroborate some of this page's original claims. --Ryguasu 07:56 Nov 25, 2002 (UTC)

As for the "if…the "field"…is actually much broader than just Lakoff and Johnson" question: Not only is it broader than L&J '99, but they are not the originators. The first (modern, if we're counting Kant) important book on embodiment is Varela, Thompson, and Rosch '91 (The Embodied Mind). Looking around at their other publications' coauthors should be useful for someone who wants to make this article (rightly) not just an appendix to Lakoff and Johnson. — eitch 17:48, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Embodied rationality" in feminism is…

For what it's worth, an article by feminist Julie A. Nelson suggests that some feminists may use the term "embodied rationality" to mean a certain "feminine" kind of rationality. The term seems to have positive connotations. Unfortunately, I don't know what feminists use the term in this way. I have strong doubts that this has much overlap with Lakoff and friends' ideas, but this might be worth investigating. --Ryguasu 22:19 Jan 22, 2003 (UTC)


[edit] v. Article:Embodiment

I am attempting to start a small discussion on distinguishing this page from Embodiment. Please have a look at Talk:Embodiment. Thanks! --mporch 23:09, 4 May 2004 (UTC)


[edit] Embodied cognition should not redirect here

As I just commented in the Talk:Embodiment discusion, this page covers only philosophical and cognitive linguistic contributionst to embodied cognition. There are also substantial contributions to the field from cognitive psychology and neuropsychology. There is an excellent literature review on embodied cognition in: Wilson, M. (2002). Six views of embodied cognition. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 9(4), 625-636. That would be a good starting point for a separate page on embodied cognition that does not redirect here. I also suggest that the cognitive linguistic material be moved to that page, so that this page only discusses philosophy, as its title suggests. Mark.Howison 07:07, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Agree. Lakoff & Johnson '99 is, despite both being professional "cognitive scientists," really much more a work of philosophy (I won't even try to say what sort of philosophy, since I'll misuse terms and get jumped on) than a work about cognition. I would go so far as to say that, while embodiment philosophy may provide the background to embodied cognition, and their thinking may have given some researchers their first push, the bulk of the book does not apply to what pro-embodiment cognitive scientists and psycholinguists are doing. — eitch 17:27, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
Agree that these articles need to be sorted out <forgive me for deleting my earlier comments> All of these articles are about the same term: embodiment, the Embodiment, embodied philosophy, embodied cognition, embodied Embedded Cognition, embodied psychology, and several unrelated uses, such as embodied energy, embodied Imagination, embodied agent, embodied music cognition. There really should be some structure to what these articles are about. A large number of them mention Lakoff, Turner, Johnson, etc.,, several mention Edelman & co., several mention Brooks & co., and several mention ideas from enviromentalism (that I don't really get.) We need to determine how many articles there should be, and what they should be about. I also think there should be a disambiguation page for (both of) "embodied" and "embodiment" that points to all these articles, at the very least so that readers can easily find the right article and editors can easily link to the correct article. ---- CharlesGillingham 11:27, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
One more: embodied cognitive science ---- CharlesGillingham 11:05, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
And another: embodied water — eitch 15:03, 4 December 2007 (UTC)


The grand sort-out

  • I'd say embodied music cognition should be put into music cognition, and [emb music cog] should redirect to [music cog] (the people studying emb music cog are already specifically music cog scientists). Embodied cognitive science should have a blurb about emb music cog with a link to the main article.— eitch 15:10, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Not yet sorted (cut from the below list and paste into the above one):
to do with the mind

---

not to do with the mind

[edit] Merge/Split proposal

I think we need (where <x is a redirect):

  1. A disambiguation page, listing all the terms above. (I have a draft at: User:CharlesGillingham/Drafts/Embodiment)
    Embodiment <Embodied
  2. An article on the ideas of Lakoff, Johnson and Turner and closely related ideas of Maturana and Varela. The specific idea that "how we think depends on the kind of bodies that we have."
    Embodied mind thesis <Embodied psychology <Embodied cognitive science <Embodied cognition <Embodied mind thesis <Enactivism (psychology)
  3. An article on the research paradigm for AI and cognitive simulation based on robotics, advocated by Rodney Brooks, Hans Moravec and others.
    Embodied approaches to artificial intelligence <Nouvelle AI <situated <situated robotics <behavior-based AI <embodied cognitive science <embodied Embedded Cognition <embodied agent
  4. An article on the various uses of "embodiment" in philosophy, with short (two paragraph) sections on theology, politics/ethics, cognitive science (with a Main template pointing to (2) above), AI/robotics (with a Main template pointing to (3) above).
    Embodiment (philosophy) <Embodied philosophy
  5. Pages to leave alone:
    the Embodiment, embodied agent, embodied energy, embodied Imagination, embodied Embedded Cognition, embodied water

--- CharlesGillingham (talk) 07:16, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
Updated: added robotics CharlesGillingham (talk) 23:10, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
Updated: found another article CharlesGillingham (talk) 03:30, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
Updated: CharlesGillingham (talk) 12:09, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
Updated: found a few more articles to merge, came up with a title for AI article, linked to my draft. CharlesGillingham (talk) 19:15, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

--- paros (talk) 06:14, 17 February 2008 (UTC) Hello again. Please read what I have posted here first. ECS=Embodied Cognitive Science. I'm not sure where to go with this. The discussion page on ECS has a splash template demanding the article be put into a WikiProject on Robotics. I know that this is going to make some people angry, but I agree with this decision. Lakoff, Johnson, and Turner, Andy Clark, etc etc all need placed in the Embodied psychology article. I'm totally convinced of this. The article on a research paradigm for AI and all those Nouvelle AI <situated <situated robotics all this stuff needs moved into the WikiProject on Robotics. Wikipedia is in dire need of a more realistic indexing of robotics topics. I am well aware that the phrase "Embodied Cognitive Science" is desirable because it has a ring to it. It is an unfortunate twist of history that robotics researchers have already seized the phrase!

Perhaps a temporary solution to this problem is simply a disambiguation page for ECS? ECS in robotics could link to my page. ECS in psychology could link into all the philosophy, psychology, linguistic guys like Lakoff and Andy Clark and Johnson. But this seems redundant since there is ALREADY an Embodied psychology article!

Okay so that's a really horrible solution. Having "Embodied Cognitive Science in psychology" link into Embodied psychology is needless semantic run-around. I hope you see this as clearly as I do. I'm going to go ahead and put my foot down now. ECS is now a robotics article. Anyone may submit their complaints here.

My main concern is that there are a dozen stub articles about the same three subjects. One is cognitive science, one is robotics, and one is about embodiment in philosophy (especially in ethics and phenomenology). What we need are three excellent articles and a disambiguation page. Would you at least agree to that analysis?
It's far less important to me what the articles are called. It's most important that the articles are excellent (i.e., the are comprehensive, and they have line-by-line citations to the most reliable sources on the subject.)
If I understand you right, you are proposing that the article on cognitive science be named "embodied psychology", and that the article on robotics be named "embodied cognitive science", is that right? (When I say "cognitive science", I am of course talking about the discipline at the crossroads of philosophy, psychology and neuroscience: i.e. the study of cognition, i.e. not robotics.) ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 19:01, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
I've done some research. Since your primary concern seems to be Rolf Pfeifer's use of the term "embodied cognitive science", I've posted my thoughts about the term at Talk:Embodied cognitive science ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 11:58, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Moving towards merge

I've begun to execute the merge I outlined above. I've drawn together all the material from several articles that directly applies the embodied mind thesis. I've removed the article embodied psychology, taken a few things out of embodied cognitive science and I am in the process of changing embodiment into a disambiguation page. I removed this section, because it has no sources and I'm not sure who it is who talks about embodiment this way and whether they are really connected to the embodied mind thesis.

The goals of this school of philosophy include a more localized political science, perhaps one tied to ecoregions rather than to global ideology, and a non-dualistic account of the body to complement the more dualistic accounts of philosophy of law and philosophy of medicine, which literally dispose of the body and parts of the body. These all have deep roots in traditional anti-Cartesian approaches, such as Immanuel Kant's "skeptical view, arguing that we can have no positive knowledge about the nature of the mind and rejecting Cartesian claims that we have a privileged self-knowledge." Kant was likewise concerned with medicine and law, and had long sought to find general principles of personal conduct, most famously his categorical imperative, the basis of his ethics.

However, some assumptions regarding human cognitive bias and falsifiability of assertions regarding it seem to be shared by both schools. Likewise, some of embodied philosophy is clearly convergent with postmodernism, feminism, "queer" and other social construction paradigms that discuss socially-enforced metaphorical construction as a product not only of an "embodied" cognitive bias or an "isomorphic" notation bias but also of culture bias. In this broader sense, embodied philosophy has most of its influence on political science, on green economists and their search for an "embodied" or "body-respecting" political economy. It could also be said to be the main thrust of the anti-globalization movement, i.e. embodiment as localization, although that claim is disputed by those who view that movement as one narrowly opposing just capitalism.

The article still needs a lot of work to fill it out and make it totally accurate, but at least its all on a topic now. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 10:03, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Just to be clear: I cut and pasted material from several articles into this one. I didn't rewrite the material. (So the whole article is choppy and still incomplete.) The only thing I deleted is the section above, and quite a bit of the old article embodiment. The only thing I wrote is the new introduction to this article, which I'm still not completely happy with. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 11:09, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] TODO

Things I think this article needs.

  1. It should be moved to either embodied cognition or embodied mind.
  2. References need to be cleaned up.
  3. It needs to discuss the relationship of the embodied mind thesis to other theories of cognition -- how it solves problems with other approaches.
  4. It needs to discuss criticism of the idea.

--- CharlesGillingham (talk) 11:09, 18 May 2008 (UTC)