Caló, Susana. Dynamics and stability: the historical unfolding of cognition (Orientadora: Sofia Miguens)

Abstract

There is a growing tendency in theoretical cognitive science to conceptualise natural cognition as emergent from the dynamic interplay between the agent’s internal dynamics, body and outer world. This approach can be traced back to early cybernetics, self-organisation theories, conexionism, robotics and dynamical systems theory. Although dynamics, interaction and embodiment have progressively been entitled with explanatory status in the field of discussion, the remaining question concerns the shape of the unfolding interplay of agent and world – a cartography of developmental-historical relations. I will praise the dynamical approach, and then turn to argue that a historical-developmental account on cognition remains unexplored, and what I term historical dynamics - the unfolding of dynamics between agent and world - has been lacking attention. I therefore propose to explore a framework on cognition that accounts for construction, change and constancy in the historical developmental process of becoming. I will do so by drawing upon recent findings in contemporary social cognitive neuroscience on top-down and bottom-up control of action processes. Accordingly, I will explore key dynamical concepts such as attractor, bifurcation, trajectory and phase state. Keywords: cognition; embodiment; dynamical systems theory (DST); interactivity; Continuous Reciprocal Causation (CRC); historical dynamics; social cognitive neuroscience; top-down and bottom-up processes.