Maintaining coherence in the situated cognition debate: what computationalism cannot offer to a future post-cognitivist science

Abstract

It has been claimed that post-cognitivist approaches to cognition might be compatible with computationalism. A growing number of authors argue that if computations are theorized as non-representational and mechanistic, then many concepts typical of the enactive approach can also be used in computational contexts and vice versa. In this article, we evaluate the solidity and coherence of this potential combination and shed light on some of the most important problems that have been neglected by its defenders. We conclude by arguing that this potential integration between enactivism and computationalism might not be a priori impossible but, at the moment, it is still seen as problematic at best.