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Sensorimotor agency
Abstract
An enactive sensorimotor approach to perception places the agent at the center of the engagements that constitute a perceptual act. The notion of agency required, however, cannot be based solely on an organism’s biological well-being. Interests beyond mere survival guide many activities that animals with rich sensorimotor lives engage in. It is proposed that the processes that individuate a sensorimotor agent are the very acts that it performs, and that a network of precarious but mutually stabilizing sensorimotor schemes can satisfy the conditions of agency. Compatibility is demonstrated with dynamical approaches to behavioral development, as well as with psychological theories that support the view of a networked behavioral organization. The interdependence of agency at the organismic, sensorimotor, and social levels is discussed, as well as the relevance of sensorimotor agency, to understand the inherent meaningfulness of perception for the perceiver, as well as her subjectivity.
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In the citing paper
“Related enactive approaches view cognition as constituted by the dynamic coupling between organism and environment, rather than as computation occurring within the brain (Di Paolo et al. 2017; Thompson and Varela 2001).”
From The myth of the Bayesian brain (2025) · cites this paper as Di Paolo et al. 2017
In the citing paper
“These modulatory engagements are asymmetric (Di Paolo et al., 2017).”
From Toward an Enactive Conception of Productive Practices: Beyond Material Agency (2023) · cites this paper as Di Paolo et al., 2017
In the citing paper
“The minimal organization that a situated system must realize to be called an agent may be realized in different ways, and may involve extra-bodily processes (as in the case of incorporation in sensorimotor agency discussed in Sect. 7, Di Paolo et al., 2017); but not just any extra-bodily process.”
From Toward an Enactive Conception of Productive Practices: Beyond Material Agency (2023) · cites this paper as Di Paolo et al., 2017
In the citing paper
“Sensorimotor schemes are 'reusable, interlocking, organised sets of coordination patterns between body and environment' (Di Paolo et al., 2017, 81).”
From Toward an Enactive Conception of Productive Practices: Beyond Material Agency (2023) · cites this paper as Di Paolo et al., 2017
In the citing paper
“Incorporation can be articulated in operational terms (for instance in terms of co-dependent participation in sensorimotor networks, Di Paolo et al., 2017, 175; Di Paolo et al., 2018, 29, 192ff, 330) and is manifested by certain phenomenological markers, such as a sense of empowerment, dependence, or extension of the lived body.”
From Toward an Enactive Conception of Productive Practices: Beyond Material Agency (2023) · cites this paper as Di Paolo et al., 2017
In the citing paper
“This is particularly the case if we consider that the enactive concept of agency recognizes the plasticity of unfinished bodies and their boundaries, as well as the complexities of interventions involving the sense-making activities of multiple agents (Di Paolo et al., 2017, 2018).”
From Toward an Enactive Conception of Productive Practices: Beyond Material Agency (2023) · cites this paper as Di Paolo et al., 2017
In the citing paper
“Examining the idea of mastery in action and perception, Di Paolo and colleagues (2017) elaborate a formalization of Piaget's equilibration theory and describe an agent's sensorimotor repertoire in terms of precarious, operationally closed networks of sensorimotor schemes .”
From Toward an Enactive Conception of Productive Practices: Beyond Material Agency (2023) · cites this paper as Di Paolo et al., 2017
In the citing paper
“Enaction explicitly investigates the way agency is enabled, shaped, honed, and constrained by sociomaterial processes (Di Paolo et al. 2017, 2018).”
From Toward an Enactive Conception of Productive Practices: Beyond Material Agency (2023) · cites this paper as Di Paolo et al. 2017
Citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Malafouris, L. (2019) · Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences · doi:10.1007/s11097-018-9606-7 · Cited by 181
Material Engagement Theory and its philosophical ties to pragmatism
Iliopoulos, A. (2019) · Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences · doi:10.1007/s11097-018-9596-5 · Cited by 46
What is agency? A view from autonomy theory
Virenque, L., & Mossio, M. (2024) · Biological Theory · doi:10.1007/s13752-023-00441-5 · Cited by 35
Toward an Enactive Conception of Productive Practices: Beyond Material Agency
Di Paolo, E. A., Lawler, D., & Vaccari, A. P. (2023) · Philosophy & Technology · doi:10.1007/s13347-023-00632-9 · Cited by 17
Self-citationThe myth of the Bayesian brain
Mangalam, M. (2025) · European Journal of Applied Physiology · doi:10.1007/s00421-025-05855-6 · Cited by 14
Metadata
- Authors
- Di Paolo, E. A., Buhrmann, T., & Barandiaran, X. E.
- Venue
- Oxford Scholarship Online
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press
- Published
- 2017-06-22
- OpenAlex
- W4238196312
- Cited by
- 69
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 5 · 2025: 9 · 2024: 9 · 2023: 26 · 2022: 10 · 2021: 5 · 2020: 2 · 2019: 1 · 2018: 2
- FWCI
- 0.89
- Type
- book
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Oxford University Press eBooks (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Embodied and Extended Cognition
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › History and Philosophy of Science › Cybernetics and Technology in Society
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Action Observation and Synchronization
- Keywords
- enactive perception, agency, dynamical systems theory, behavioral development, social agency, subjectivity, animal behavior
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