Abstract
This chapter offers a systematic introduction to empirically informed philosophical research on embodied, embedded, extended, and enactive (4E) cognition. It discusses the core concepts, key assumptions, methodologies, and the descriptive and explanatory scope of this emerging research programme. While reviewing and discussing the variability and diversity of 4E cognition, this chapter highlights two widely shared assumptions. First, orthodox internalistic accounts, which describe cognitive phenomena as computational and representational procedures implemented in the brain, are inappropriate for understanding cognitive phenomena. Second, a wide range of cognitive phenomena are best understood as causally influenced or co-constituted by the organism’s embodied interaction with material and social resources in the local environment. In the concluding section of this chapter, it will be shown that philosophical research on 4E cognition, which elaborates these assumptions in considerable detail, has important implications for scholarly practices in cognitive literary studies.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | The Routledge companion to literature and cognitive studies |
| Editors | Jan Alber, Ralf Schneider |
| Place of Publication | New York ; London |
| Publisher | Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group |
| Chapter | 20 |
| Pages | 303-315 |
| Number of pages | 13 |
| ISBN (Electronic) | 9781003387473 |
| ISBN (Print) | 9781032470504, 9781032481173 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2026 |