Embodiment: a note on the evolution of the concept
It’s 2011. Nowadays, it seems reasonable to assert that growing research programs such as Embodied Cognition and Cognitive Linguistics are by now well-established as challengers to mainstream frameworks such as Mainstream Cognitive Science and Generative Grammar. As a consequence, it seems suitable to make some observation on the path these distinct, but strongly intertwined enterprises have pursued during the last decades. In particular, in this post I want to point the reader’s attention to the evolution of the (all-important) notion of embodiment in these paradigms.
In the beginning, when these alternative frameworks in cognitive science began to develop and spread, their proponents highlighted the importance of bodily experience in shaping a person’s cognition, rejecting the Cartesian strict distinction between a “res cogitants” (the mind) and a “res extensa” (the body), claiming that the body and the mind should be studied as interdependent parts of the organism, a holistic living system.
Rather soon, scholars began also to recognize the fact that embodiment is not just related to physical experience in the world, but it is also constructed by the active participation in the life of a determined sociocultural system, which exerts a remarkable influence in shaping an individual cognitive processes and functions. As such, cognition is not a purely intrapersonal affair. Rather, it is largely intersubjective.
Finally, it was recognized that embodied cognition is not just confined to the interaction between different organisms, but it is moulded by patterns of experience which involves embodied agents and the environment. The way human beings interact with the environment is all-important in the development of cognitive abilities. As such, cognition should be considered as a dynamic system which results from the bulk of situations an individual experience in their everyday life, which are embedded in a determined ecological niche. Thus, it is influenced by its cultural background, but also the physical environment they live in. In a nutshell, in order to get a better picture of human (and also animal) cognition, we had better approach it taking into consideration the role of the cognitive niche which surrounds an individual in shaping the quality of their embodiment.
As a result, while organism and environment should still be viewed as distinct entities, they make part of a bigger, bio-cultural system: they constantly interact with and exert influence on each other.
