21st-Century Philosophy of Events
James Bahoh, Marta Cassina and Sergio Genovesi (eds)
£24.99
Intersections in Continental and Analytic Philosophy
Merleau-Ponty, Embodied Cognition and EnactivismBetween Phenomenology and the Life Sciences
Pre-order
£100.00
Pre-order
Published 30 November 2026
About this book
Updates Merleau-Ponty’s relevance for contemporary and intersecting discussions about enactivism, the life sciences and cognitive neuroscience
- Offers new interpretations of Merleau-Ponty’s work across much of his career, ranging from Structure of Behavior and Phenomenology of Perception, to his Nature course notes and The Visible and the Invisible
- Explores “4e” cognition by linking enactivism and embodied cognition to Merleau-Ponty's thought alongside contemporary biological research (postgenomics, epigenetics, microbiomics) and the cognitive sciences (illusionism, predictive processing and active inference accounts of mind) to offer a new understanding of mind and life
- Addresses a range of epistemological and metaphysical issues in 4e cognition including new responses to the problem of “higher order” cognition, as well as detailed engagement with emergentism, naturalism, and the epistemology of “mutual constraint” in empirically-minded phenomenology
Drawing on Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological work on embodiment and perception, Jack Reynolds develops a novel account of many of the recent debates in enactivism and embodied cognition, engaging specifically with the epistemological and metaphysical aspects of these views.
Reynolds sets out a Merleau-Ponty inspired view of enactive cognition, arguing that it presents the best overall explanation of both phenomenological considerations and a range of scientific evidence concerning life and mind. He defends the view against a variety of alternative positions across the putative analytic-continental divide, including predictive processing, illusionism and computationalism.
Reviews
A thorough and original re-examination of Merleau-Ponty’s thought in light of his contribution to contemporary debates on 4E cognition. Essential reading for anyone wishing to understand what the philosophy of mind owes to Merleau-Ponty and what aspects of his thought remain relevant to contemporary thinking.
Despite Merleau-Ponty’s important contributions to the development of embodied and enactive approaches to cognition, Reynolds reminds us that there are still significant insights to be found in his analyses (relevant to contemporary debates about abduction and science, post-genomic biology, autonomy, naturalism and realism). In effect, Reynolds reminds us not by looking back, but by using Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology as a framework for understanding the most recent research in a way that further contributes to the ongoing debates about embodied-enactive perspectives.
This brilliant book brims with insights drawn from an eclectic mix of research in the philosophy and sciences of life and mind, combined with a deep knowledge of Merleau-Ponty's work. It breaks new ground by giving a compelling reading of Merleau-Ponty's relationship to the life sciences, developed in dialogue with work at the cutting edge of contemporary philosophy and science of embodied cognition.
Table of contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Merleau-Ponty Vivant: “Living on” in embodied cognition and enactivism
a) Introduction
b) The structure of the book
Part 1: Merleau-Ponty, Enactivism, and Embodied Cognition
1. Merleau-Ponty and method: minimal naturalism and abduction
a) Liberal and scientific naturalisms
b) Merleau-Ponty on perception and embodiment: an initial sketch
c) Merleau-Ponty as liberal naturalist
d) Abductive phenomenological philosophy
e) “Mutual constraint” and abduction
2. Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty on life, animality and nature
a) Heidegger on the captivation of the animal
b) Merleau-Ponty and the Structure of Behavior
c) Merleau-Ponty’s Nature: Intertwining life and matter, animality and institution
d) Enactivism, The Embodied Mind, and the return of the organism
3. Merleau-Ponty’s “world of perception”: realism and illusionism about phenomenal character and the object perceived
a) The world of perception
b) The perceptual faith
c) Dennett’s illusionism
d) Garfield’s illusionism
e) Enactivism and naïve realism
4. From embodied habits to social perception and cognition
a) Merleau-Ponty and habits
b) Enactivism, habits, and the problem(s) of higher-order cognition
c) Extending habits into the extended evolutionary synthesis: ecology, physiology and evolution
d)Social perception and cognition
Part 2: Scientific and Metaphysical Questions for Embodied Cognition and Enactivism
5. Embodied cognition, enactivism and epigenetics (with M. Meloni)
a) Embodied cognition and enactivism
b) Post-genomics and epigenetics
c) Memory and learning
d) Embodied cognition (Clark and Wheeler) versus enactivism?
6. From metabolism to the microbiome: autonomy and its attenuation (with J. Baedke)
a) Metabolism in enactivism: From Maturana and Varela to the “Jonasian turn”
b) Metabolism and cognition: the charge of cognitive bloat?
c) Host-microbiota systems and autopoietic enactivism
7. Framing the Predictive Mind: Dreyfus on the frame problem
a) Dreyfus, Merleau-Ponty, and the frame problem
b) Predictive processing and the frame problem
Hyper-priors and the free energy principle
Precision-weighting
PP on the frame problem: implicit and explicit
Being, doing, and habits
c) Replies and objections: Pluralism, relevance, and the body as model
8. Temporal naturalism and the 4Ms: Mind, Meaning, Morality and Modality/Mathematics
a) Scientific naturalism and the placement problem
b) The 4Ms and temporality
Mind, mentality and ‘mineness’
Meaning and modality
Morality and time
c) Illiberal and liberal naturalisms: From Huw Price to Peter Godfrey-Smith
Proto-cognition and points of view
Time and morality redux
d) Conclusion: the time of bodies/bodies of time
Bibliography
About the author
More in this series
See the series →