Enactive Autopoiesis and the Future of Dynamic Affective Science

Season 7 concludes with another presentation from our 2022 annual conference, Engaged Phenomenology II: Explorations of Embodiment, Emotions, and Spatiality.   This episode features a presentation from Matthew Menchaca of City University of New York, United States     Abstract: There are two sub-theses to the Embodied Mind’s (1991) core five theses which I contend Engaged Phenomenology needs to reconcile: phenomenology and autopoiesis. In particular, how is what is revealed in experience (phenomenology) connected to the neuro-immuno-cognitive-networks that make us living (autopoiesis)? In Evan Thompson’s 2007 book Mind in Life, he provides a history of autopoiesis and a genealogy of phenomenology which attempts to provide such an answer. In later work, Giovanni Colomobetti, in the book The Feeling Body (2013), views autopoiesis as too restricted a concept for the purposes of characterizing the features of a field she has invented (for the purposes of better understanding the intersubjective reality of emotions): Dynamic Affective Science. In this essay, I present the core features of autopoiesis, give examples of failed attempts to artificially generate such living structures, and situate the sub-concepts on the conditions of life and meaning of “adaptation” (according to autopoiesis) against evolutionary theory. In particular, I suggest that the autopoietic formulation of “adaptation” properly understood is what Colombetti describes in her genealogy of phenomenology (Chapter 2) as “primordial affectivity”. Thus an engaged phenomenology premised on shared life-worlds, in particular in their affective complexity, can rely on autopoietic criteria to ensure their phenomenology is of the living.     Biography: Matthew Menchaca is a 4th year Ph.d student in philosophy at City University of New York (CUNY). A pipeline mentor and himself of minority descent (Mexican and Native American), he most recently presented at Dubrovnik Conference on Cognitive Science (DUCOG) 2021 Linguistic and Cognitive Foundations of Meaning, applying Devitt and Kripke’s causal theory of reference to the acquisition of “standard” arithmetic. Currently at the prospectus stage, he is looking forward to writing a dissertation at the intersection of phenomenology and cognitive science   Further Information:   This recording is taken from our Annual UK Conference 2022: Engaged Phenomenology II: Explorations of Embodiment, Emotions, and Sociality (Exeter, UK / Hybrid) with the University of Exeter. Sponsored by the Wellcome Centre, Egenis, and the Shame and Medicine project. For the conference our speakers either presented in person at Exeter or remotely to people online and in-room, and the podcast episodes are recorded from the live broadcast feeds.   The British Society for Phenomenology is a not-for-profit organisation set up with the intention of promoting research and awareness in the field of Phenomenology and other cognate arms of philosophical thought. Currently, the society accomplishes these aims through its journal, events, and podcast.   About our events: https://www.thebsp.org.uk/events/   About the BSP: https://www.thebsp.org.uk/about/