Learning as Embodied Action

Abstract

The position advanced in this paper is derived in part from the work of Varela, Thompson and Rosch [24] as described in their 1991 book, The Embodied Mind: Cognitive science and human experience, which in turn draws heavily from Varela’s earlier work with Maturana [19] as found in their 1987 book, The Tree of Knowledge: The biological roots of human understanding. We begin with a brief perspective of the philosophical background which gave rise to and inspired Varela et al.’s enactive view of cognition. The major issues addressed revolve around the notion of representation and what is commonly referred to as the mindbody problem. Attempts to resolve this problem essentially define and motivate developments in cognitive science, thus affecting our understanding of mental imagery as well. It will be seen, as we subsequently present Varela et al.’s formulation, of their enactive view of cognition as embodied action, that their theory is no exception in this regard. Implications of this view will eventually require a complete reconsideration of the notion of representation. Theories of mental imagery presupposing a representationalism must then, in some manner, be recast in terms of the immediate experiential presentations of consciousness in all of its modalities. In the final section of the paper, some of the manifest implications of this view for teaching and learning and the environments in which these occur will be discussed.