Banca de DEFESA: MANOEL ABREU FERNANDES

Uma banca de DEFESA de MESTRADO foi cadastrada pelo programa.
STUDENT : MANOEL ABREU FERNANDES
DATE: 09/12/2025
TIME: 09:00
LOCAL: online
TITLE:

COGNITIVE AGENCY AS A QUESTION: EPISTEMIC DIVERGENCES FROM ENACTIVISM

KEY WORDS:

Radical Enactivism, Autonomist Enactivism, Epistemic Divergence, Content, Intentionality, Autonomy.

PAGES: 120
BIG AREA: Ciências Humanas
AREA: Filosofia
SUMMARY:

This dissertation deals with the epistemic divergences within the enactivist research program for the philosophy of mind and cognitive sciences. To do that, we start with a focus on the comparison between the Autonomist and Radical brands of Enactivism regarding how they understand cognitive agency. In Chapter I, the relationship between Cognitivism and Enactivism is explored, making explicit the foundational concepts of this program. While cognitivists proposed to explain cognition through a representational model centered on the agent's internal structures, enactivists assume that the characteristic locus of cognition is not internal but expresses the inseparable interaction between agents' bodies and the environment. Furthermore, we seek to understand how this principle relates to the notions of autopoiesis and sense-making. Following the argument built from the Autonomist brand,
we explore how such notions are taken as a consequence of the idea of embodiment and, therefore, indispensable to Enactivism. Based on this discussion, Chapter II addresses the critique made by Radical Enactivism against the Autonomists, centered on the so-called “hard problem of content”. This debate exposes the divergences between those two brands, based on how they conceive the relationship between cognition, in a broad sense, and human cognitive agency, in particular. Finally, Chapter III proposes an interpretation that promotes a theoretical
complementarity between Radical and Autonomist Enactivism, emphasizing how both their arguments for explaining cognitive agency relate to the notions of intentionality and biological autonomy.

COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
Presidente - 1418569 - GIOVANNI ROLLA
Externo ao Programa - ***.531.125-** - FREDERIK MOREIRA DOS SANTOS - UFBA
Externo à Instituição - JEFERSON HUFFERMANN - UFRGS