Empirical and Phenomenological Studies of Embodied Cognition

David Morris, Department of Philosophy, Concordia University, davimorr@[Link]

Final draft of an chapter published in The Handbook of Phenomenology and Cognitive Science, eds. Shaun
Gallagher and Daniel Schmicking (Springer Verlag: 2010), pp 235-252.

The first grand wave of twentieth century Phenomenology is well positioned for
cognitive science and philosophy of mind this complementary role. If philosophy in
sought and still seeks to show how, contra general is in the business of creating or
Cartesian dualism, cognition is materialized analyzing the concepts we deploy in our
in the brain. A new wave is rising from this, everyday and scientific labours,
though, one that studies cognition not phenomenology’s distinctive task is to have
merely as “embrained” (Damasio 2000, 118; rigorous description of the phenomena drive
Collins 2000) but as embodied in a much philosophy’s conceptual endeavour. And
stronger sense, as inseparable from and whereas science normally fits empirical data
shaped by the concrete extra-cerebral into existing conceptual frameworks,
structures and dynamics of the body, and the shifting paradigms only in moments of
body’s embeddedness in the natural and crisis, phenomenology begins with a
social world. This wave is gathering principled conceptual crisis—the
momentum. Whereas a decade ago reduction—that puts our most basic
researchers needed to protest that cognition concepts into question. The reduction is
is in fact strongly embodied, one can now never left behind and it radically shifts
find studies that leap right to the problem of paradigms all the way down. But it shifts
how and in what sense it is so. This is a paradigms by holding itself responsible to
telltale sign of a nascent paradigm shift. Yet, what empirically presents itself. So, as
in studying this new wave one finds that Russon (2006, 308) notes, phenomenology
philosophy and science are still—for reasons is a form of empiricism in which we “let our
recently remarked (see Dreyfus 2007; (rigorously enacted) observations specify the
Gallagher 2007) and soon discussed—at sea terms and parameters of our theories, rather
for lack of conceptual frameworks to bring than holding description answerable to
embodied cognition back to firm land. theory.” Phenomenological and empirical
Brooks, whose robotics research is part of studies of embodied cognition can therefore
the new wave, puts it succinctly: “perhaps at mutually constrain or enlighten one another
this point we simply do not get it, and there in ways that let phenomenologically inspired
is some fundamental change necessary in researchers contribute to new wave research.
our thinking.” (1991; cited in Dreyfus 2007, (See, e.g., Varela 1996; 1999; Gallagher
251) 1997, 2005; Thompson 2007; also see
Since the study of embodied cognition Schmicking in this volume Petit 2003;
surges with deeply conceptual problems and Borrett, Kelly, and Kwan 2000). But, given
is in the midst of a sea change, this chapter the nature of the conceptual problem that is
cannot simply summarize fully worked out outlined below, instead of pursuing this
results. It is inevitably synthetic. Given the strategy of mutual constraint, I lean more
handbook’s overarching goal, my aim is to heavily on phenomenology’s basic
show how an older wave of philosophy—the conceptual results, whilst keeping
phenomenological tradition initiated by phenomenology in conversation with
Husserl—can, on the conceptual level, empirical studies.
complement new wave empirical results in The next section develops the
cognitive science. conceptual problem by introducing and

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explaining the strong thesis that cognition is evolution, rather than central neural
embodied and outlining the controllers (Full and Farley 2000). Robots
phenomenological view of it. that control walking through central
processors cannot handle shifting terrain and
Empirical Studies of Embodied require far more energy and actuator
Cognition and the Spectres of precision than are found in humans. These
Crypto-Cartesianism problems can be tempered by leveraging the
dynamic morphology of leg joints, and of
What could it mean to challenge the body as linking legs together, for
traditionally neurocentric views by making control. (Brooks 1991; Collins et al. 2005)
the strong claim that cognition is ‘embodied Simulations show that body symmetry (vs.
over and above being embrained’, by asymmetry) facilitates control of locomotion
claiming, for example, that the hands have and increases locomotory efficiency
some role in cognition? And why would one (Bongard and Paul 2000).
ever say such a thing? One reason is to While traditional accounts
exorcise hidden, crypto-Cartesian 1 conceptualize limb control as a problem
conceptual prejudices about body and mind solved by the brain, the empirical studies
that do not fit the empirical evidence and show that the dynamic body is itself integral
consequently hobble traditional approaches. to control. Where traditional accounts thinly
As shown below, empirical studies pressure conceive the brain as a computational device
science into discarding traditional concepts (whether serial, parallel, or
of the body as inadequate in accounting even neural/distributed), the new wave thickens
for walking, an obviously embodied activity. this by showing how the body itself is
So we should be all the more suspicious of integral to the brain’s controlling
deploying such concepts in trying to unify ‘computations’. The mind not only extends
body and mind. But we will see that even as into notepads, etc., that do cognitive work
we try to escape these problematic concepts (as Clark and Chalmers (1998) argue), it
our tradition tangles us in further crypto- extends into limbs that do work in their own
Cartesian prejudices—which is why we control. The traditional, thin concept of the
should turn to phenomenology as deriving body as a dumb machine is thereby also
results on a different conceptual level. thickened, because the body itself, in virtue
Empirical studies give evidence that of its dynamic morphology, has a kind of
human walking is controlled not by ‘know how’ or “cleverness” (Csepregi
neurology alone but is shaped by leg- 2006).
environment dynamics (Thelen 1984, 1995; Embodiment thus matters over and
Thelen and Smith 1994) and even social above embrainment—embodiment does
factors (cf. Zelazo 1983, 1984; Fogel 1993). cognitive work. To put it more sharply: The
Further, there is evidence that muscular body is not a passive puppet moved by the
synergies crucial to limb control are not brain as sole controlling agency. The body
specified by fixed anatomical structures but (with its brain) is a controlling agency.
by “soft assembled,” dynamic, Were we to extend this thesis to
environmentally modulated functions cognition in general we would say: the body
(Turvey 2007). Studies of biped, quadruped, is a cognizing agency. In this case the
and hexapod animals show that their gait infamous “brain in a vat” (conjured to show,
pattern is best explained in terms of contra Cartesianism, how cognition can be
structured leg dynamics inherited through embodied by way of being embrained)

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would be a misguided, vatic abstraction. conceptually and/or empirically misguided.
More, it would in fact be disembodied, for it As Gallagher (2005, 136) insists,
lacks the right kind of body to do thinking, “[p]erceptual experience is generally
namely the moving body so vital to kinetic accepted to be fundamental to other modes
coping and evolution. (See Sheets-Johnstone of cognition and action.”
1999, 1990) But can we extend this thesis to This point is amply confirmed by
cognition, which is after all, our topic? An empirical evidence that action, perception,
objector will surely say that the above data, and embodiment mix in shaping ‘higher’
while convincing in showing embodiment’s cognition. Just some of this evidence will
importance to actions such as walking, has now be mentioned. For example,
no bearing on cognition proper. psychologists show that walking is integral
In reply, we must first of all emphasize to the infant’s cognitive development
that walking is not merely limb movement, (Kermoian and Campos 1988; Fogel 1993;
but intelligent interaction with the Thelen 2000). Tactile cognition is shaped by
environment. So points about walking are movements, skills and habits of touching
already points about a discerning, judging, (Katz 1989; Lederman and Klatzky 1987).
cognitive activity. But such activity has its Similarly, visual cognition is shaped by
roots in the body. For example, the complex looking (Merleau-Ponty 1962; Churchland,
locomotory response of cockroaches blasted Ramachandran, and Sejnowski 1994;
with compressed air is too quick to be O'Regan and Noë 2001; Thompson 2007).
explained by nerves and is instead rooted in Rhythms of the moving body influence our
viscoelastic musculoskeletal structures hearing metrically ambiguous six beat
(Dickinson et al. 2000, 103). The structure musical rhythms as being either in three
of the cricket body and ear, over and above groups of two beats, or two groups of three
neurology, is integral to its orienting to the beats. (Philips-Silver and Trainor 2007)
chirps of other crickets. (Clark 2001, 127-8) On the level of language and thinking,
Sheet-Johnstone (1999; 2003) shows in studies show that sentence formation is not
detail how bodily, animate movement wholly governed by abstract syntax but is
already is intelligence. The body itself is a influenced by bodily speech rhythms alien to
mindful responder. Perhaps neurology vatic embrainment (Lee and Gibbons 2007)
merely complicates the already supple and that body language is integral to thought
adaptive richness of bodily responses (see and language, rather than being a merely
Wheeler 2005, 134, 195-211). external accompaniment (McNeill 1992).
Besides, the objection is premised on Gesture also facilitates human learning.
sharply dividing action, perceptual cognition Specifically, in learning, bodily gestures that
and ‘higher order’ cognition from one are initially topologically isomorphic to a
another, so as to rule out drawing learning domain are metonymically
conclusions from one domain into the shortened in ways that give rise to more
others. But thinkers as diverse as Dewey abstract typological symbols that facilitate
(1972), Merleau-Ponty (1962), Varela the learning of abstract concepts. (E.g.,
(1991; 1993), Hurley (1998), Berthoz gestures mimicking atomic attraction
(2000), O’Regan and Noë (O'Regan and contract into shorthand symbols for atomic
Noë 2001, 2001; Noë 2004), Wheeler bonds.) (Roth and Lawless 2002)
(2005), Thompson (2007), and Turvey Chimpanzee manipulation of what Clark
(2007, 663) argue that the traditional action- (2006, 294) calls “material symbols”
perception-cognition distinction is suggests that such symbols can facilitate

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high order cognition, for example, they Over and above the brain, the
facilitate chimpanzee judgement that the morphology, dynamics and temporality of
relations of difference and sameness are the body, and our evolved, moving attitude
different relations. Together these points to the environment, shape and lurk in our
might suggest that the gestural body itself is acting, perceiving, speaking, learning,
a material symbol whose flexibility is remembering, and conceptualizing. This link
integral to cognition—that we learn not by between the body and cognition is supported
abstract symbol manipulation but by way of in recent neurological literature, which
generating new symbols through our body’s shows that ‘higher’ cognitive processes
manipulation of things. This is a point well (involving activation of ‘higher’ brain
anticipated by Merleau-Ponty (1962) in his structures) in fact also activate and are
studies of expression and helpful in activated by ‘lower’ brain structures known
addressing the notorious symbol grounding to be active in emotional affect, in
problem (see, e.g., Thompson 1997). proprioreceptive and visceral processes, and
It also resonates with Lakoff and in body control. As Tucker puts it, it “may
Johnson’s analyses of how our thinking and be that there are no brain parts for cognition,
imaging is organized by schemata rooted in at least not separate from the brain
bodily ways of doing things. For example, mechanisms pertaining to bodily functions.”
the schema of something moving from a (Tucker 2007, 14; also see Damasio 1999;
source, along a path, to a goal—a schema 2000; 2003; Freeman 1999; Gallagher 2005;
initially grasped on a bodily level— Berthoz 2006; Thompson 2007) All of this,
underlies metaphors in multiple cognitive plus the observation that—as William James
domains (e.g., “I am trying to reach the end (1950, 138; cf. Sheets-Johnstone 1999, ch.
of this chapter”). (Lakoff and Johnson 1999; 10) notes—the brain evolved as an organ of
Johnson 1987, 2007; also see Gibbs and action at one with the body, make it
Berg 2000) Similar phenomena suggest that empirically implausible to think that there
the roots of thinking (Sheets-Johnstone would be anything like human thinking in a
1990) and even mathematics (Lakoff and vat other than our body, or that thinking in
Núñez 2000) are in the moving body. Data general is a purely embrained matter. Tragic
on mental imagery tasks (such as watching a evidence for these points is given by the
moving object and reporting its final closest thing we have to empirical studies of
position from memory) further suggest that brains in vats, namely notorious studies at
imaging involves a kind of internal gesture McGill university by Ewen Cameron and
or material symbol manipulation rooted in Donald Hebb (see Kubzansky 1961) of
our bodily relation to things (versus an people deprived of sensory stimulation and
abstract symbol transformation). (Gibbs self-movement. On the Cartesian or
2006; Gibbs and Berg 2000; Amorim and embrainment view, an immobilized mind
Isableu 2006) Researchers have also would simply have nothing much to think
demonstrated what should probably be about. But people who are deprived of
called the Proust effect: recall of ‘embodiment over embrainment’ lose their
biographical episodes is faster when body minds—their thinking is severely disturbed,
position during recall is congruent (vs. implying that the mind is deeply mobile and
incongruent) with body position during the bodily.
original episode. (Djikstra, Kaschak, and To review the above, by way of
Zwaan 2007; cf. Casey 2000; Sheets- condensing and elaborating Wilson’s (2002,
Johnstone 2003) 626) identification of six views of embodied

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cognition: 1) Cognition is situated in a real- Dreyfus (1992; 2002; 1998; 2007; Wrathall
world environment and inherently mixes and Malpas 2000) approaches this issue by
perception and action. 2) Cognition is emphasizing that bodily, skillful coping is
responsive to real-time demands and no mere accompaniment to cognition but is
operates through the real-time dynamics and itself cognition. In Thompson’s (2007, 256)
rhythms of the body (vs. being a words, “[s]ensory stimulation does not cause
rate-independent computational process). 3) experience in us, which in turn causes our
The environment and the body do cognitive behaviour,” rather (citing O’Regan and Noë)
work, and 4) are part of cognition. 5) “‘skillful activity…is the experience.’” Noë
Cognition is for action. 6) Even ‘off-line’ (2004) details how bodily action is internal
activities such as remembering, imagining to perception and shapes consciousness,
and abstract thinking have bodily roots. concluding that a plausible account of
Cognition, in other words, is physically consciousness “must be an account of [it] as
grounded (see Anderson 2007), in the sense a natural phenomenon” (vs. an abstract
that the physical specificities, rhythms, computational phenomenon) and this “will
dynamics and shape of the moving body, be a tale, not about the brain, but about our
and its embeddedness in the world and active lives.” (231) Thompson (2007, 128)
social settings, matter to cognition in a strikes a deeper conceptual chord by arguing
full-fledged way (versus it being the case for an underlying “deep continuity of life
that only basic physics matters to cognition, and mind,” such that “life and mind share a
in realizing a wetware computer or basic set of organizational properties, and
connectionist pattern recognizer). organizational properties distinctive of mind
New wave researchers endorse the are an enriched version of those fundamental
above claims in various mixtures. The to life.” In other words, the phenomena
strong version of embodied cognition drive these thinkers to conceive mind as a
pursued here would endorse all of them. To process rooted in evolution and development
briefly voice such claims through the work (both individual and social). Mind leverages
of important phenomenologically influenced what already belongs to life and to skillfully
researchers, Sheets-Johnstone (1999) argues moving, organized bodies. As Johnson
that taking evolution and the phenomena (2007, 279) writes:
seriously means realizing that: The human mind is not contained in
At their most fundamental level, the body, but emerges from and co-
subjective experiences are tactile- evolves with the body….A human
kinesthetic experiences. They are being is a body-mind, that is, an
experiences of one’s own body and organic, continually developing
body movement; they are process of events.
experiences of animate form. These Why are these claims so new-wave,
experiences are the bedrock of controversial or hard to grasp? Conceptual
thinking. (435) issues are unavoidable here, for noticing the
As Gallagher (2005) puts it, the “body empirical phenomena catalogued above is
actively organizes its sense experience and not yet the same as having these phenomena
its movement in relation to pragmatic count as evidence for strong (or even weak)
concerns” (142)—the body is no mere versions of the embodied cognition thesis.
passive receptor—and “a full picture of One can easily conceptualize the phenomena
human cognition can be drawn only by so as to stick with old-wave embrained
exposing the details” of this (133). views. For example, evidence shows that

5
emotional affect is integral to our ability to Most are converse to the claims of embodied
make cognitive judgements (e.g., to decide cognition treated above, but it is worth
which of two projects to pursue). This is noting the prejudices of explaining cognition
what leads Damasio (1999; 2000; 2003) to in terms of (1) subject-object dualisms, (2)
urge ‘embodiment over embrainment’. But representations (that repair the subject-
as Gallagher (2005, 135) points out, in object dualism) and their transformations,
actual detail Damasio deflates the body to its (3) temporally austere terms (such that, e.g.,
representation in the brain (or inflates it to physically grounded real-time rhythms
ideas of the body). For Damasio, the body is muddle into rate-independent relations
important—but only as embrained. Data of between representations); (4) and explaining
embodiment is muddled into data of intelligence as the outcome of general
embrainment without even noticing it. purpose reasoning (vs. reasoning specific to
Likely we can always (whether deliberately a creature’s evolution).
or unthinkingly) muddle the data this way. To pursue the embodied cognition
For example, physically grounded body thesis we must shed these crypto-Cartesian
rhythms can be muddled into relations conceptual habits and see the phenomena
between neural time-stamps registering anew. But here a deeply subtle point comes
bodily events. What tells us to stick with the into play. Old-wave research conceptualizes
strong embodiment thesis and what helps us embodiment as a solution to the problem of
pursue it without muddling cannot be mere how mind fits with matter. Conceptually, the
data but conceptual frameworks and problem is how the phenomenon of mind,
desiderata. which can be coherently described in terms
But our navigation of this conceptual independent of the body, is materialized. It is
level is swamped by crypto-Cartesian answered by appeal to properties of the
prejudices that run so deep as to distort our body, which likewise can be coherently
account of the body, never mind mind— described as independent of mind. Old-wave
which is why I began with studies of philosophy and science accept this framing
walking. These prejudices keep rising from of the problem but endeavour to resolve it
the crypts of our tradition, like conceptual by showing how the descriptive differences
vampires that suck the life from cognition. can be bridged. Crucially, this formulation
Even as we nail Cartesian substance dualism of the problem remains essentially Cartesian
into the coffin of dead ideas, it shape-shifts and dualist in character. It is no wonder that
into a new dualism of brain and body. Even efforts to resolve it lapse into crypto-
as we exorcise the Cartesian concept of Cartesian prejudices or retain residual
mind, we retain an essentially Cartesian dualisms. (The embrainment thesis in effect
concept of the body as dumb machine (see acknowledges that if body and mind are
Merleau-Ponty 1962, 1965; Burwood, descriptively dualised, then the solution
Gilbert, and Lennon 1999), and thence a requires a special body part (the brain as,
dualism between the body as living agency e.g., symbol processor) capable of doing
and the body as passive machine (see something most unbodylike.)
Thompson 2007, 230-237; Leder 1992)—all Phenomenology radically reframes the
of which betray bodily phenomena. Indeed, problem, indeed it shows that the old
Wheeler (2005, ch. 2-3) catalogues eight problem is badly put. To anticipate,
crypto-Cartesian prejudices, tracing their phenomenological description shows that
cross-linked origins in Cartesianism and the mind is an inherently temporal process,
their persistence in philosophy and science. that cognitive contents are not given all at

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once, but take time. But the mind does not argues that Descartes muddles his beginning
supply or regulate this time. The mind is by prejudging what the “I think” is. So
rather its exposure to a time that exceeds it. Husserl sets out to rigorously describe the
Husserl finds that this exposure has the form phenomenon of thinking. He ultimately
of kinaestheses, felt bodily movements.2 finds that the “I think” is already a
This is why Thompson can insist that kinaesthetic “I can.” In other words,
skillful activity is not the cause of phenomena of mind, rigorously described in
experience, but “is the experience”: the their own terms, must already be
‘stuff’ of experience is time—and time is conceptualized as bodily phenomena.
felt in movement. Along these lines, the How does Husserl arrive at this point
strategy of the next section is to show that and what does it mean? One of Husserl’s
mind is body by showing that the time of fundamental insights is that cognitive
thinking is the time of bodily moving. The phenomena always have a horizonal
section after that conversely suggests that character (see esp. CM §19).
body is mind by showing that the time of Phenomenological description shows that in
bodily moving is not the time of a perceptual experience cognitive objects
clockwork machine, but of cognizing. We (noemata) are not given all at once. To
typically fail to grasp these points and find perceive a die is not to have it presented or
the strong embodied cognition thesis represented as an entirety in a cognitive
controversial because (as the next section instant. Each actually appearing die-face has
suggests) we prejudicially remove body and its sense as a real die-face only through its
mind from time, reducing them to things relation to other actually appearing faces and
completely present and given, e.g., to through their portending of hidden faces, it
Cartesian substances or computational or has its sense in the way that one die face
bio-mechanical systems. And we also leads to another. Hidden faces are only
prejudicially tend to reduce time itself to an potentially apparent, but in turning the die
already given dimension. By drawing on the they can become actually apparent. The
theme of time, the following sections are sense of the real die as a whole is thus not
meant to give an example of the sorts of something entirely present, but an invariant
arguments, conceptual frameworks and pattern of an (in principle) unending
resources that phenomenology can offer to unfolding of actual and potential perceptual
complement recent empirical results on profiles of the die. The structure of
embodiment. They also give an example of ““predelineated” potentialities” through
phenomenology’s strategy and approach to which such a thing unfolds is what Husserl
mind and body. calls a horizon. (CM 82) Horizons are
dynamic (the die’s predelineated
Mind is Body: Movement, Time potentialities change as one turns it) and
and the Prejudice of Presence complexly nested (the sense of the die’s
six-face lies in its dots as horizonally
I develop a phenomenological argument that portending each other).
mind is body by linking Husserl’s Cartesian The above point is about noematic
Meditations (CM, 1991) with his lesser horizons—the horizons of objects of
known emphasis on kinaesthesis.3 CM cognition. But Husserl shows that each act
begins by endorsing Descartes’s argument of cognition (noesis) also has an horizon—a
that philosophy, for methodological reasons, noetic horizon. The cognitive act of
must begin with the “I think.” But Husserl perceiving this-here real die has its sense in

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further acts that ongoingly fulfill the initial move.” The fifth meditation of CM
act’s sense (the sense “die” is in the act of emphasizes that this in virtue of what
seeing the six-face turning into the act of Husserl conceptualizes as Leib, the lived
seeing the two-face). So a cognitive act “is body (also translated as “animate
never present to actual consciousness as a organism”). The Leib is the body felt and
finished datum; it becomes “clarified” only lived in the “I can move,” a body that is
through explication of the given horizon and inalienably my own. Leib contrasts with
the new horizons continuously awakened.” Körper, a term designating the body as an
(CM 82-83) Both noetic acts and noematic object studied, say, by the doctor.4 The “I
objects take time. think” is in and of itself already bodily, for
Already the above means that thinking is determinate only by way of
perceptual cognition is of itself bodily. First, temporally opening to further possibilities
as Thompson (2007, 248) observes, that exceed presence—and this is by way of
following Husserl and Merleau-Ponty (1962; the moving Leib. (See also Husserl 1989,
1964), the fact that perceptual consciousness §§59-60; Sheets-Johnstone 1999, 1999,
always unfolds in correlation with unfolding 1999, 131-140; Zahavi 1994, 2003, 98-109;
object profiles means that objects and cf. Gallagher 1986)
cognitive acts themselves mark perception as It is worth reflecting here on the root
endogenously spatial and perspectival— of Husserl’s divergence from Descartes. In
which “requires that we be embodied,” have the second meditation Descartes notoriously
a bodily place from which we perceive. argues that I see the wax not with my eyes
Second, as Landgrebe (1973) emphasizes, but with my mind. Extraordinarily,
according to Husserl, each experience, as Descartes’s argument, which concludes by
having its sense in a horizonal “indication of splitting the “I think” from the bodily “I
possibilities,” has the form of: ““I can can,” is driven by the very same horizonal
continue and will presumably gain this or phenomena that drive Husserl to the
that new impression from the thing.”” (10) opposite conclusion. For Descartes, the wax
That is, experience is not just perspectival: it is so excessively horizonal that not even the
involves spatial perspectives changing over imagination could exhaustively determine its
time. Moreover, horizonal possibilities of identity. This requires an “idea,” which
change are not represented in some sort of alone can determinately comprehend all
completed roster, rather I am aware “of them variations of the wax for all time. Seeing the
as that which is not yet actual but that can wax is therefore an act of judgement that
take place precisely because I can bring it subsumes phenomena (that are in principle
about.” (10, my emphasis) But according to indeterminate) to an idea (that is in principle
Husserl, the “I can” here is bodily: the fully determinate). The body could never
protentive promises of the die’s faces, in pull off such an act because its very time of
which rests the very sense “die,” is being is an opening to always excessive
confirmed or disconfirmed in kinaestheses, indeterminacies—bodily time inherently
movements initiated and felt in experiencing invites doubt. So if a Cartesian idea is to
the die. (8) So “[p]erception is impossible escape indeterminacy and doubt, it must
without the experience we gain in clinch its object via a representational
kinaesthetic movement.” (11) The relation. This representational relation is
phenomenological evidence shows that the highly problematic. By virtue of the very
Cartesian “I think,” as taking time, must problem an idea is meant to solve, an idea
already be preceded by an “I can” and an “I must have a fully determinate content that

8
subsumes or intends something Husserl puts it, “The [horizonal]
indeterminate. So an idea must subsume predelineation itself, to be sure, is at all
something entirely unlike an idea. Dualism times imperfect; yet, with its
is thus foreshadowed in the very notion of indeterminateness, it has a determinate
an idea. structure.” (CM 83)) Indeed, if phenomena
What is going on here? Faced with the were wholly present and determinate, then
phenomenon of horizons as threatening the truth and verification would have no sense.
foundations of determinate knowledge, As Merleau-Ponty (1962, 204) would note,
Descartes reaches to ideas as something that the six faces of a real die cannot all be
would be fully determinate in face of present to us in the same way at once; the
indeterminacy. But the phenomena give no reality of die lies in the way it keeps on
evidence of fully determinate entities. temporally turning up new faces and hiding
Objects are certainly not given to us as fully other ones from us.
determinate. If they were, there would be no In other words, on its deepest register,
doubt and no need for philosophy. And the all the crypto-Cartesian prejudices discussed
phenomena show Husserl that cognitive acts above in turn presume the prejudice of
are also not wholly determinate but presence: the prejudice that being and
horizonal. Likely, Descartes bypasses the beings, whether thingly or cognitive, are,
indeterminacy of the phenomena because of ontologically speaking, given all at once as
a prejudice that runs deep in all our fully there. To undo this prejudice we must,
philosophy and thinking: the prejudice of like Brooks and others discussed above,
presence, which motivates his appeal to a conceive cognitive processes as assembling
cognitive content—an idea—that would be themselves in real-time by way of being
entirely present, given and determinate all at bodily processes movingly embedded in
once, that would subsume the indeterminacy worlds and times that exceed them. But this
of changing time to the timeless determinacy conceptual move is easy to muddle, and we
of unchanging essences. can now say why: to stick with it we have to
For Husserl, Descartes’s problem is overcome the prejudice of presence and our
the solution: the very indeterminateness of related tendency to think that explanation is
the horizon, which yet has “a determinate satisfactory only if it comes to a stop with
structure” (CM 83) that cannot, however, be something that is all there at once (which
reduced to presence, is what carries the also means that we tend to explain temporal
sense that Cartesian ideas would determine processes by making time into something
as all present. Brooks (1991) insightfully that is all there).
moots the problem that robots run into when For example, Lloyd (2004; cf. Varela
we engineer them to navigate by fully 1999), who is inspired by Husserl’s
representing the determinacies of an emphasis on cognition’s inherent
environment that is in fact inexhaustible and temporality, notes our tendency to render
ever changing: he suggests that the cognitive states as being entirely present in
environment be used as is its own the brain areas that ‘light up’ in fMRI
‘representation’. Husserl similarly moots the imagery. He also notes that we forget that
Cartesian problem that the phenomena are fMRI averages brain activity over time such
inherently indeterminate and thence exceed that it blurs changes on the rapid time scale
us: he notes that the phenomena in their very of thinking. In reducing cognition to fully
temporal indeterminacy are the very determinate activations we prejudicially
determinacy needed for knowledge. (As neglect the way cognition might actually be

9
a matter of rapid micro-temporal rhythms of kinaesthetic engagement with images and
change, kin to horizons of neural activity apparatus (see Galison 1997), and the
enacted in concert with bodily horizons. In process of writing things up and conversing
this context the objection that kinaestheses about them.
and Leib can (for the brain in the vat) be Our earlier point that noetic activity is
simulated mistakenly reduces these to horizonal indicates a deeper
presence by abstracting them from the real- phenomeno-logic behind these last points. If
time demands that drive our brainy-body my thought “triangle” did not or could not
evolution, in the way that real rhythm is actually temporally lead through its horizon
ruined by reducing it to ratios. But our to the thought that its angles sum to 180
technology and conceptual frameworks and so on (and to noematic objects verifying
likewise tend to mistakenly envat the real these), then I would either doubt that I am
brain in a frozen present. Notably, the really thinking “triangle,” or think that I am
embodied cognition thesis can always be changing its ideal sense (by thinking, say, of
refuted by way of reducing its terms to spherical triangles). The sense of even ideal
presence. Ultimately the only thing that objects lies in the fulfilment of their horizon
testifies against this reduction is the being of potentials. But for me as human, not divine,
the phenomenon itself in its own time. But fulfilling these horizons takes bodily doing
that is precisely what the prejudice of and time. If you put me into a sensory
presence freezes out of the picture. deprivation tank or a 1984-like polity that
Here we must address another perverts all recording and communication,
objection. The above may convincingly then I shall go mad, for I shall lose track of
show that perceptual cognition, perhaps the sense of my own thinking. As Husserl
even imagining and dreaming, are already argues in his later Crisis of the European
bodily. Surely, though, this analysis does not Sciences (1970) and “The Origin of
go through with abstract cognition! But let Geometry” (available in Merleau-Ponty
us look at a doctor. As her patient walks 2002), community, history, “writing down,”
through the door, her head cocks to listen for and moving one’s Leib in a shared
shuffling feet that betray neurological life-world are crucial to abstract ideas and
problems, her nostrils sniff for breath odours thinking, a point amplified in the cogito
symptomatic of metabolic problems; later chapter of Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology
she taps tympanically on the patient’s torso, of Perception (1962; also see Merleau-Ponty
listening for inner organ problems. The 2002). From this perspective, the Cartesian
doctor experiences her diagnostic reasoning “evil genius,” who could even make us
unfolding in these kinaestheses. If medical doubt that 2+2=4, is not an all powerful
reasoning could be abstracted from bodily mind but… disembodiment itself. To put the
kinaestheses, then likely it would not be brain in any ‘vat’ other than the body is to
fraught with the stupendous errors and subject thinking to such ineradicable doubt
prejudices that Groopman (2007) that it is driven mad or mistakes itself for an
catalogues. Later, when writing up her all knowing divine. In contrast, the mind
report, she feels her reasoning operating in conceptualized as Leib is itself open to
the hesitation of her pen and body, which endless temporal horizons that at once
hesitation is her way of thinking that: “But account for doubt (without which we could
maybe this logical option is not the case.” not be philosophers) and for its resolution
(See Johnson 2007, ch. 3) Scientific via kinaesthetic, intersubjective explorations
reasoning, too, proceeds through

10
and recordings (without which we could not Dreyfus 2002; Leder 1992, 1990)
be scientists). Heidegger’s Being and Time (1962) expands
As Husserl compactly puts it, in one of Husserl’s treatment of the moving body by
the most pungent sentences of CM: “Objects showing, in effect, that the sphere of the
exist for me, and are for me what they are, moving Leib is in fact the complete sphere
only as objects of actual and possible of interpretation that is our intersubjective
consciousness.” (99) But, as Husserl world: the prenoetic body is in fact prenoetic
immediately insists, we need to give a human reality. (Cf. Dreyfus 1992, 1991;
concrete account of this possibility and Dreyfus and Hall 1982; Olafson 1987) And
actuality. In doing so we find that the Being and Time further shows how the
kinaestheses of the Leib, as the kernel site of proper conception of human reality entails
actuality and possibility, are indispensable to overturning the prejudice of presence and
all objects—including abstract ones—such temporally austerity. It requires thinking of
that, as Gallagher (2005, 1-5, 133-8) might being as time—and not reducing time to a
put it, prenoetic bodily processes are prelude present dimension.
and postlude to each noesis. The mind is not The conceptual points articulated here
so much given in the head, yet subsequently by way of phenomenology complement the
extended into things, as Clark and Chalmers ones articulated earlier via empirical study.
(1998) have it. The mind is its extension in But phenomenology presents a strategic and
living moving bodies, its opening in time. methodological advantage in drawing its
Aside from his discovery of horizons, point directly from the phenomenon of
one of Husserl’s other great discoveries is thinking and flagging deep conceptual
intentionality: that all consciousness is prejudices that we will have to undo if we
consciousness of something, that are not to muddle our study of embodied
consciousness is of itself a relation to a cognition.
content. For the tradition we are criticizing,
the phenomenon of intentionality is a great Body is Mind: Bringing the
problem that repeats the Cartesian problem Zombie to Leib
of ideas: how can a subjective representation
be intentionally related to an outside object Above we saw that the phenomenon of
wholly unlike it? What we are in effect mind, when rigorously described, is not
learning is that intentionality is in fact the something wholly present to itself but is an
solution to the Cartesian problem—once we open temporal transcendence that exceeds
understand that intentionality is bodily and itself. This is to say that mind is body, for
inherently temporal, rather than being the the term “body” simply designates and
presence of a (fully present) cognitive state describes the phenomenon in which this
to an external object. temporally open self-transcendence is
On this analysis, the phenomenological figured and takes place. (Cf. Russon 2006)
labours of Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty are And so we can better grasp the claim that
(merely) crucial inflections of Husserl. mind is body by better grasping how the
Merleau-Ponty (1962) deepens the point that body, as this temporally open self-
intentionality is inherently bodily, through transcendence, is thus already mind. I do
his well known discussion of the intentional this by briefly indicating three
arc, Leib and bodily habits and movement. phenomenological arguments.
(See Barbaras 1992, 2003; Gallagher 1995, First, I pursue a point on the cusp of
1986, 1986; Gallagher and Marcel 1999; our intertwined claims that mind is body and

11
body is mind. Once we abandon the according to kinaesthetic horizonal
prejudice of presence and turn to a structures, if mind is not some kind of
temporally rich phenomenology of mind, we presence over and above this, then a
find (as Husserl showed in detail) that zombie-body moving according to mindful
memory is crucial to mind, both as primary horizons and temporality is in its very
memory (which implicitly retains the movement already mindful. There is no
unfolding present so that, e.g., we can hear a further sort of thing for a mind to be, no
note as following the previous one) and as further ‘place’ in which to find mind—
secondary memory (which explicitly recalls although there are further developmental
episodes of the distant past). But as Casey layers to bodily mindfulness, and these
(2000), Sheets-Johnston (2003) and Russon would be crucial to differences between
(2003) observe, memory is not strictly mindfulness in the broad sense exhibited by
speaking ‘in the head’: it is in our body and animal bodies in general, and its elaboration,
the places we inhabit. The body in its through the incorporation of language, tools,
kinaesthetic engagement with places and and culture, in the phenomena we find, for
markers is a well of memory integral to example, in human minds. The above
mind—the body in the world is itself the suggests how movement of the Leib as
first “writing down.” Correlatively this whole is of itself mindful. This does not
suggests that one’s body already works as amount to behaviourism, for behaviourism
memorial mind. claims that mind is nothing other than
Second, the thought that the human behaviour conceptualized as something all
body is merely a dumb, mindless Cartesian present. What the above asks us to see is
machine is just the thought that the concept rather that we must not conceptualize
of a “zombie” is coherent. In philosophy of behaviour of the Leib as mere changes
mind a zombie is (the equally fictional and between states that are all present, but as
unempirical) counterpart of the brain-in-the- ontologically escaping presence, via the
vat: a body without a mind for a mind temporality of behaviour.
without a body, a creature who looks and Third, from Husserl onward,
acts just like you and me but is not in fact phenomenologists have long criticized the
thinking or experiencing. Thompson (2007, “theory theory of other minds” (TTM). TTM
232) subjects this concept to a devastating addresses the Cartesian problem of other
critique via Husserl. Basically, if perception minds. If there is nothing mindful about the
and perceptual behaviour have horizonal body itself, and we do not encounter other
structures—and they must, given the minds directly but only through the bodies
phenomenon of perception—they entail associated with them, how can we know that
experience of bodily kinaestheses, that is, others around us have minds and are not
awareness and anticipation of one’s bodily merely zombies? TTM’s answer is this: to
kinaestheses. So if zombies are explain the behaviour of other bodies, we
behaviourally indistinguishable from find we need a theory, one that invokes
humans perceiving things, they must be another mind as a theoretical-explanatory
experiencing, kinaesthetic bodies. So the term. We thus encounter other minds
zombie-body must be a Leib, not a Körper. through theoretical inferences. Husserl,
The zombie who behaviourally treats the die Merleau-Ponty (1962; 1964), and other
as real must have a feel for the die turning in phenomenologists argue that we do not have
hand. I might add that if mind is the data necessary for making this sort of
descriptively characterized as unfolding inference, and that in any case the

12
phenomena testify against TTM. One
encounters another not by way of theory, but 1
The degree to which Descartes himself
by a more fundamental, prenoetic “pairing” endorses the crypto-Cartesian and Cartesian
between one’s Leib and another Leib. (CM prejudices here discussed is controversial. I
§§49-54) This counter-claim gains empirical use these terms broadly, to refer to positions
support from developmental psychology and derived from or referred to Descartes,
neurology. For example, the discovery of whether rightly or wrongly.
mirror neurons (which activate either when
2
one makes a particular meaningful gesture, The deployment of kinaesthesis at this
say tearing, or sees another doing it) point raises the problem that the concept of
suggests that one relates to others as kinaesthesis might already depend on a
meaningfully moving bodies who are distinction or indistinction between mind
counterpart to oneself (see Gallagher 2004). and body, such that the overall
But this would mean that the other’s body argumentative strategy is troubled. (My
already appears as itself being a thanks to Daniel Schmicking for pointing
phenomenon of mind. And this would make out this problem.) We can venture a reply
a great deal of evolutionary sense. What we that, descriptively, mind and body appear as
moving animals most need to do is look out relative terms within the more primordial
for other moving animals as out to get or phenomenon of kinaesthesis. We do not find
help us. From an evolutionary and notes of a melody outside of a melody, and
phenomenological perspective, bodies that vice versa. Similarly, we do not find
move in organized ways already appear to coherent moments of kinaesthesis outside of
us as mindful. We Cartesians can doubt this, their overarching temporal organization, and
but we are sure not to when a zombie-body vice versa. The thought here is that the
starts hunting us down with exceptional different temporal moments through which a
stealth and cunning. kinaesthesis unfolds stand as the relative
body of this kinaesthesis, and the
Conclusion organizing, temporalizing flow internal to
and overarching these moments stands as the
Altogether, the phenomena and the relative mindfulness of the kinaesthesis. The
imperatives of life testify that cognition is moments and their temporalizing, the
embodied in the strong sense. But we bodilynesss and the mindfulness, are not two
continually do not notice this, or we deflect different things, although they are
telltale phenomena, by stepping outside the distinguishable. In this view, mindfulness is
flow of time and life onto a temporally exposure to time via the bodilyness of
austere platform through which we hope to movement, but mindfulness is this exposure
secure the fully present terms that would as a temporalizing that runs through the
satisfy certain prejudicial presumptions of moments. Pursuit of this point would,
explanation. Both empirical and though, take another paper.
phenomenological studies, however, suggest 3
On this topic and its neglect in the
that this step is misguided. We must bring reception of Husserl, see Sheets-Johnstone
mind back to life, conceive body and mind (1999), Zahavi (1994), Zahavi (2003).
as two aspects of the same continually 4
developing temporal process. On Leib vs. Körper see Leder (1992).

13
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