Consciousness, 4E cognition and Aristotle: a few conceptual and historical aspects. — TEI-tagged view

Diana StanciupersName (2023date). “Consciousness, 4E cognition and Aristotle: a few conceptual and historical aspects..” Frontiers in Computational Neurosciencetitle·j.

Object of study — conceptual and historical continuities between 4E cognitionterm, Aristotelian psychology, and explanations of consciousnessterm

Research question — whether 4E accounts of mindterm, bodyterm, environment, and consciousnessterm revive Aristotelian ideas and help reframe the mind-body problemterm

Contribution — argues that 4E cognitionterm synthesizes older ideas and that Aristotelian causation and psychology can broaden interdisciplinary interpretation of consciousnessterm research

Full text — tagged

Consciousnessterm, 4E cognitionterm and Aristotleterm: a few conceptual and historical aspects.

Abstract The new approach in cognitive science largely known as “4E cognitionterm” (embodied/embedded/enactive/extended cognition), which sheds new light on the complex dynamics of human consciousnessterm, seems to revive some of Aristotleterm's views. For instance, the concept of “natureterm” ( phusis ) and the discussion on “active intellectterm” ( nous poiêtikos ) may be particularly relevant in this respect. Out of the various definitions of “natureterm” in Aristotleterm's Physics, On the Parts of Animals and Second Analytics , I will concentrate on natureterm defined as an inner impulse to movement, neither entirely “corporeal,” nor entirely “incorporeal,” and neither entirely “substantial,” nor entirely “accidental.” Related to that, I will consider the distinction in On the Soulterm between the “active” and the “passive” intellect, which Aristotleterm asserted as generally present in “natureterm” itself. By offering a conceptual and historical analysis of these views, I intend to show how the mind–body problemterm, which is essential for the explanation of consciousnessterm, could be somewhat either eluded or transcended by both ancients and contemporaries on the basis of a subtle account of causation. While not attempting to diminish the impact of the Cartesian paradigm, which led to the so-called “hard problem of consciousnessterm,” I suggest that the most recent neuroscience discoveries on the neurophysiological phenomena related to human consciousnessterm could be better explained and understood if interpreted within a 4E cognitionterm paradigm, inspired by some Aristotelian views.

Keywords: consciousnessterm, the mind-body problemterm, neurophysiological phenomena related to consciousnessterm, brain networks dynamics, 4E cognitionterm, Aristotleterm, active intellectterm, causality Introduction This is a conceptual and historical analysis suggesting that new scientific studies on the neurophysiological phenomena and the neural network dynamics related to consciousnessterm can be better explained and understood within an interdisciplinary context inspired by the new 4E cognitionterm (embodied/embedded/enactive/extended) views. These scientific and cognitive/philosophical approaches are deeply related and can support each other in the study of consciousnessterm. But, in fact, the 4E cognitionterm does not offer a completely new view on human cognition. Instead, it actually synthesizes various ancient, modern, and contemporary ideas that were in tune with the developments of science in those times and are very much in tune with the new developments in neuroscience nowadays as well.

For instance, the early modern empiricist philosophers brought much innovation in the theories of human cognition and that was related to the new development of experimental sciences at that time. This development inspired the empiricists to challenge the rationalist Cartesian paradigm and emphasize the importance of experience in cognition. They actually considered all knowledge to derive from sensorial data, a view that had several antecedents in antiquity—especially among the Empiricists, Stoics, and Pyrrhonists and also among the Greek medical schools.

While acknowledging all this development, but not concentrating on it, this article will only try to emphasize the inspiration contemporary 4E cognitionterm proponents, as well as the early modern empiricists, found in ancient theories of cognition. Moreover, here I will concentrate on Aristotleterm, who provided a synthetic and still innovative conception of the human “soulterm”—especially regarding its empirical substratum, emotions, consciousnessterm, and agency. Aristotleterm's views on phusis (natureterm), phantasiai (phenomena/experience of the way things appear to us/information received from sense experienceterm), and phantasmata (perception or the act of sensing) as important and related to the thinkingterm processes developed by the active intellectterm ( nous poiêtikos ) in cognition will receive a somewhat detailed analysis that may also be revealing for the 4E cognitionterm views on human consciousnessterm and its relationship to the world around 1 .

The article will also try to demonstrate that some of Aristotleterm's ancient views are still relevant for scientific research nowadays—especially for those specialists trying to establish the principles and modalities of our thought, consciousnessterm, and agency functioning in relation to better and better researched and understood neurophysiological phenomena underlying them. I am trying to generally suggest that it is only through an interdisciplinary approach, in which various views and developments cross-fertilize, that we can more comprehensively understand the mind–body problemterm in the years to come.

Very important in this respect are, in my view, Aristotleterm's explanations of causation. They offer a subtle view in which causes are deemed to be not only material and formal but also efficient and final. Moreover, even if this does not solve the Cartesian mind–body problemterm, it does place it in a wider and more comprehensive context. Beyond the question of whether the bodyterm causes the mindterm as its material cause or the mindterm causes the bodyterm as its formal cause and beyond the idea of efficient causation supposed to bridge the mindterm–bodyterm gap and explain the interaction of two ontologically different substances, there is also final causation, in which mindterm and bodyterm concur toward the accomplishment of human natureterm ( phusis ). In other words, beyond the “functioning” of natureterm, there is also a teleological approach tightly related to it that expands our views on causation and also our views on mindterm and consciousnessterm and their relationship to the bodyterm. The 4E cognitionterm, with its embodied/embedded/enactive/extended views on the human mindterm, goes in the same direction. Moreover, even if we do not manage here to completely escape the “explanatory gap” (Levine, 1983 )—for instance, by adopting a non-physicalist metaphysical framework such as the process theory (Prentner, 2018 )—we can still offer a more comprehensive view of physicalism, which would support scientific research, instead of denying its cognitive and philosophical value and impact.

All this is clearly related to Aristotleterm's definition of the soulterm as the form of the bodyterm, which pervades not only his biological treatises, but also his entire work, and is very close to the embodied/embedded/enactive/extended mindterm postulated by the supporters of the 4E cognitionterm. Moreover, even if this account of the human soulterm or mindterm does not offer a complete account of phenomenal consciousnessterm, it is still useful to better understand some forms of cognition and some aspects of phenomenal consciousnessterm, as will be explained in the following sections of the article.

I would still need to clarify from the very outset though that I am not focusing here on an “Aristotleterm vs. Descartes” account of consciousnessterm. That would not be of much use in the given context. Moreover, their different concepts of soulterm, mindterm, substance, etc., and their different methodologies have already been thoroughly explained by numerous and revered scholars throughout the years. I am trying to just propose a 4E cognitionterm cognitive and philosophical context for those neuroscientists studying neurophysiological phenomena underlying consciousnessterm and willing to work together with cognitivists and philosophers of mindterm in an interdisciplinary manner. Moreover, I am trying to show that this 4E cognitionterm context may be inspired by both ancient philosophical views such as those of Aristotleterm and contemporary scientific work, which makes it quite a wide and flexible context indeed. By doing so, I am in no way trying to present the 4E cognitionterm as the ultimate cognitive/philosophical context for the study of consciousnessterm or to minimize other outstanding attempts at explaining consciousnessterm as related to experience or at analyzing the pitfalls philosophers and neuroscientists may confront during their common interdisciplinary work (cf. Dennett, 2005 ; Massimini and Tononi, 2018 ). I am just trying to add a new piece to the conceptual puzzle developed around the scientific study of consciousnessterm (many thanks to one of the anonymous reviewers for suggesting these clarifications).

4E cognitionterm, Aristotleterm, and neurophysiological phenomena related to (visual) consciousnessterm The paradigm of the so-called 4E cognitionterm (embodied/embedded/enactive/extended) argues for the causal role of both the bodyterm and its natural, social, and cultural environmentsterm in human cognition (Clark and Chalmers, 1998 ; Chemero, 2009 ; Robbins and Aydede, 2009 ; Menary, 2010 ; Shapiro, 2011 ). By that, it challenges the view of cognition based on mental representations, considered to be just symbolic structures channeling contents (Fodor and Pylyshyn, 1988 ; Hutchins, 1995 ). In contrast to the mental representations approachterm, 4E cognitionterm claims that internal representations cannot be independent of bodily (non-neural) actions and their functional details and that propositional knowledge cannot be independent of motor programmes. In this respect, 4E cognitionterm has developed alongside research programmes in reactive or behavior-based robotics—those programmes that trained artificial intelligence within a dynamic interaction with the world in the 1980s and 1990s and started from the assumption that robots should not be devised only as “walking encyclopedias” as mindsterm were not only used “for thinkingterm” but also “for doing” (Clark, 1997 ).

There are also various everyday life phenomena that have determined specialists in cognitive science to go in the direction of 4E cognitionterm. For instance, human beings sometimes gesture during conversations and that helps them better communicate—that is, better process both language and information (McNeill, 1992 ). Moreover, when trying to remember something or to perform other cognitive tasks, human beings may use part of their bodies or their environment in order to simplify information processing (Donald, 1991 )—for instance, fingers when counting.

Then, at the turn of the century, there was a new discovery in neuroscience that encouraged the development of 4E cognitionterm even more: the so-called “mirror neurons,” which activate not only when humans perform specific actions but also when they see others perform these actions or simply when they think of these actions (Gallese, 2003 ; Rizzolatti and Craighero, 2004 ; Iacoboni, 2011 ). That has developed into a specific branch of research throughout the years and was related to yet another discovery: on the one hand, vision guides action and, on the other hand, the feedback generated by bodily movement is important for visual processing and visual consciousnessterm (O'Regan and Noë, 2001 ).

The study of visual consciousnessterm actually became one of the empirical research domains that substantially enhanced 4E cognitionterm and was in turn supported by it (Gibbs, 2006 offers a list of many other applications of 4E cognitionterm, but, for the sake of clarity and due to the limited space ascribed to this article, I will only concentrate on the example of visual consciousnessterm). Formerly, visual consciousnessterm was analyzed as a process within the brain (Crick and Koch, 1990 ; Crick, 1996 ; Chalmers, 2000 ; Metzinger, 2000 ; Koch, 2004 ). However, the relationship between conscious visual experience and the neurophysiological phenomena related to it has always been both empirically and philosophically puzzling. Throughout time, the matching-content thesis (the perfect match between a specific conscious experience and the neurophysiological phenomena related to it) and the minimal substrate thesis (the so-called neural correlates of consciousnessterm—NCCs), in both the same person at various times and various persons at the same time, have become more and more challenged by the 4E cognitionterm supporters (O'Regan and Noë, 2001 ; Thompson and Varela, 2001 ; Noë, 2004 ; Noë and Thompson, 2004 ).

While not considering the 4E cognitionterm proponents' views as instances of absolute truth and while acknowledging that many of their views have already been suggested by previous philosophers and cognitivists, I think it is still worth noting how they argued on the basis of two specific cases in which the subjects of an experiment can overlook even obvious changes in a visual scene: change-blindness (Levin and Simons, 1997 ) and inattentional blindness (Mack and Rock, 1998 ). The traditional view of the brain reconstructing detailed internal models of the visual field was seriously challenged by these experiments and the view that our visual consciousnessterm also depends on sensorimotor contingencies was enhanced, a matter on which the 4E cognitionterm proponents concentrated extensively (Hickerson, 2007 ; Noë, 2010 ; Shapiro, 2010 ; O'Regan, 2011 ; Loughlin, 2014 ). They joined the trend that ceased to interpret visual consciousnessterm as a brain process that creates mental models and started viewing it more as a skill that is related to the movements of the agent. Visual processing also came to be considered as an activity that is extended and partially controlled by the agent—that means that agents have to “do” something in order to become visually conscious of some specific object (Gibson, 1979 ).

Moreover, they have to take the external environmentterm into account as well, an idea possibly inspired by Aristotleterm's On the Soulterm 3.2 (425b12-18), which makes an interesting point on the issue of visual consciousnessterm 2 . To the question: “How are we conscious that we see?” Aristotleterm responds that sight is perceiving itself—namely that the same sense must perceive both sight and color, the object of sight. Otherwise, if one supposes a special sense to apprehend what one sees, one must suppose another to apprehend this, and so on—the process would continue ad infinitum . In other words, according to Aristotleterm, either when it perceives the external objects or when it perceives itself while perceiving the external objects, the human mindterm has to consider both itself and the external environmentterm.

Another important issue that Aristotleterm discusses in On the Soulterm 3.2 (425b22-26) and may be relevant for the 4E cognitionterm proponents' views on (visual) consciousnessterm is that of sense experienceterm ( phantasia ) as a bridge between bodyterm and soulterm, on the one hand, and between perception and thinkingterm, on the other hand. Aristotleterm asserts that “to perceive” means to form an opinion corresponding exactly to a direct sense experienceterm. In On the Soulterm 3.3 (427b29-429a9) and 3.7 (431a1-20), this is described as a movement produced by a sensationterm actively operating. Aristotleterm insists that, while sense experienceterm is distinct from both sensationterm and intellect, it forms the link between them by prolonging and recording the former and thus making memory and recollection possible by supplying it with illustrations. Moreover, as in On the Soulterm 3.2 (425b22-26), it is also a prerequisite for appetite as each sense organ is receptive to the perceived object even without its matter; that is, even when the objects of perception are gone, sensationsterm ( aisthêseis ) and information from the senses ( phantasiai ) are still present in the sense organ.

Similarly, when referring, in On the Soulterm 3.7 (431a1-20), to the practical intellect and especially to practical wisdom ( phronêsis ), which deliberates on ethical issues, Aristotleterm explains that the soulterm never thinks without recollected information from the senses because this takes the place of direct experience for the thinkingterm soulterm. Then, in On Memory and Recollection 1 (449b31-450a1, 450a23-24), he insists once more that it is impossible to think ( noein ) without perceptions ( phantasma ) and that memory itself is related to that. Moreover, in On Memory and Recollection 2 (453a15-23), recollection induces bodily reactions as it searches for mental pictures in the physical sphere. Aristotleterm gives here an example of the annoyance some may show when they cannot remember something. In such a case, he suggests, they set in motion a bodily part in which the “affection” resides. Moreover, these are again views that seem to have inspired some of the 4E cognitionterm conceptions mentioned above.

To offer more details, I would note here that, in tune with Aristotleterm's views, for the 4E cognitionterm proponents, bodily movements seem to be important in the creation of concepts. Moreover, such an idea is also in tune with those put forward by neuroscientists asserting that thinkingterm about objects implies multimodal activations of previous experiences and neurophysiological phenomena related to perception and action regarding the conceptualized objects. This challenges once more the mere representation of concepts through abstract symbols and the definition of cognition only in terms of mental representations. Indeed, humans seem to construct concepts through different modalities in various contexts (Solomon and Barsalou, 2001 ; Gallese and Lakoff, 2005 ; Beauchamp and Martin, 2007 ). Emotions also seem to be represented by concepts that are embedded in bodily feelings and behavior re-enactivations. Moreover, these could be simple facial expressions or gestures or more complex movements (Niedenthal et al., 2014 ; Oosterwijk and Barrett, 2014 ).

The 4E cognitionterm proponents generally conclude that two people with the same neurophysiological phenomena related to visual consciousnessterm, but placed in different environments, would have different conscious experiences. “A brain in a vat” (BIV), without any bodily input, as the homonymous thought experiment postulates it to be (Block, 2005 ), would not have any visual experience due to the fact that it would not be able to interact with the environment. Sensory processing and the ability to control one's bodily movements, the so-called “sensorimotor coupling with the environmentterm,” are thus mandatory for visual conscious experience (Farrer and Frith, 2002 ; Farrer et al., 2003 ; Haggard, 2005 ; Tsakiris et al., 2007 ). Moreover, that perfectly fits the neuroscientists' demonstration that consciousnessterm and action seem to sometimes recruit the same neural networks used in the interaction with the environment (Frith et al., 2000 ; Leube et al., 2003 ). Sensorimotor circuits are thus used not only for controlling one's bodyterm but also for the formation of concepts related to visual consciousnessterm. This overlap challenges the traditional hypothesis of the localization of cognitive functions (Anderson, 2010 ).

Another network recruitment that challenges the localization of cognitive functions and strengthens the above argument referring to visual consciousnessterm can be found in the relationship between consciousnessterm and pathology—for instance, epilepsy. The dynamics of conscious states with respect to epileptic activity is an interaction between two functional networks: one physiological—the default mode network (DMN)—and one pathological—the epileptome (Donos et al., 2016 ; Maliia et al., 2016 ). Two competing theories seem to be at work here: “the network inhibition” hypothesis argues that there is an indirect inhibition of the DMN via the profound diencephalic structures (thalamus) (Blumenfeld et al., 2004 ; Blumenfeld, 2015 ), while the “diminished workspace” hypothesis suggests that during the epileptic seizure, more and more critical hubs of the DMN connectome are recruited by the epileptome (Fahoum et al., 2013 ). However, different from the motor and conceptual network recruitment contributing to the visual consciousnessterm of the healthy brain, the one in the pathological brain seems to happen in a temporal sequence, not at the same time. It is important to note though, in relation to the idea of non-localized cognitive functions in the pathologic brain, that the interictal connectivity analysis used to describe the functional networks behind this complex dynamics demonstrates that the seizure onset zone (SOZ) in epilepsy is not a localized, but a dynamic one, engaging in a variety of network configurations that can be accurately described only in a personalized manner (Donos et al., 2016 ; Maliia et al., 2016 ).

For that reason, a Riemannian manifold, in which the brain network dynamics are figured out by clustering methods, and a temporal segmentation process sometimes applied to refine the segments for SOZ localization seem to represent a good method to interpret multiple-channel iEEG signals, in which the ictal process involves continuous changes of information propagation (Qi et al., 2019 ). A similarly subtle and flexible methodology is applied at the Complex Mindterm Lab of the University of Jaén (Spain), in which the Departments of Psychology and Experimental Biology are involved. For data modeling and analysis of brain activity, the specialists of the Complex Mindterm Lab use non-linear analyses of the EEG signal when working with patients displaying various other alterations of consciousnessterm (Ibáñez-Molina and Iglesias-Parro, 2014 , Esteban et al., 2018 ; Ruiz de Miras et al., 2019 ; Soler-Toscano et al., 2022 ; Iglesias-Parro et al., 2023 ).

In short, such important discoveries in neuroscience during the last decades, referring to both healthy and pathological human brain, were paralleled by substantial changes in philosophy and cognitive science. The 4E cognitionterm proponents represent a significant part of this wave of change in the philosophical methodology for the study of the mindterm, which has thus become more integrated into the broader interdisciplinary field of cognitive science (Kahane et al., 2012 ; Knobe, 2015 ).

Within this context, beyond the important part played by sensorimotor activity and environment in cognitive processing, 4E cognitionterm specialists also offered new insights on consciousnessterm as related to prosociality and empathy—especially to the folk psychology debates regarding humans' mindreading capacities, that is, the capacities of predicting and explaining the actions and emotions of other humans (Stüber, 2006 , 2012 ). This is also connected to the distinction between two types of empathy: “basic and reenactive,” on the one hand, and “mirroring and reconstructive,” on the other hand (Goldman, 2006 , 2011 ). While the first refers to the “mirror neurons” (Gallese, 2003 ; Rizzolatti and Craighero, 2004 ; Rizzolatti and Sinigaglia, 2008 ; Iacoboni, 2011 ), the second refers to a kind of “mindreading,” in which we understand one another's behavior and emotions in complex social contexts, while complex neurophysiological phenomena and neuronal areas such as the medial prefrontal cortex, temporoparietal cortex, and the cingulate cortex get involved (Frith and Frith, 2003 ; Kain and Perner, 2003 ).

But this also goes much further and beyond 4E cognitionterm and its possible inspiration in some of Aristotleterm's views, on the one hand, and in the latest discoveries on (visual) consciousnessterm in neuroscience, on the other hand. For instance, the idea that a better understanding of the bodyterm underlines conscious experience and intersubjectivity appeared already in Husserl's phenomenology (Gallagher, 2005 , 2009 , 2012 ; Gallagher and Zahavi, 2008 ). Moreover, it was under the influence of Merleau-Ponty's phenomenological views that cognitivists started emphasizing the importance of the structural brain–bodyterm–world coupling against the traditional computationalist views (Varela et al., 1991 ). This was related to the notion of autopoiesisterm in biology. Moreover, by describing living systems as active, adaptive, self-maintaining, and self-individuating, the idea of autopoiesisterm inspired enactivist views in cognitive science in turn (Maturana and Varela, 1998 ; Di Paolo and Thompson, 2014 ). The latter themselves are important for the explanation of consciousnessterm and of various human processes and behaviors (Noë, 2004 ; O'Regan, 2011 ).

In fact, a few more clarifications are necessary here in relation to the 4E cognitionterm proponents: while the embodied cognition approach developed primarily in relation to biology, that of extended cognition was more philosophically informed—especially via discussions on functionalism and individualism (Clark and Chalmers, 1998 ). However, despite some differences ensuing from that, they do inform and support each other, as in the case of Clark's view that the active embodiment of cognition is an argument for the extended mindterm thesis (Clark, 2008 ). There are indeed critics of this coupling of embodied and extended cognition and they argue that it results from confusion or from ignoring the differences between the “causes” and the “constituents” of cognition (Aizawa, 2007 ; Adams and Aizawa, 2008 ; Adams, 2010 ). Lately, cognitivists managed nevertheless to reach a consensus regarding the association of embodied and extended cognition views. Action-guiding visual processes were again, as above, at the center of explaining 4E cognitionterm as follows: visual processes guide actions via visual information, but only when this is naturally coupled and functionally integrated with bodily activities and these actively embodied visual processes are also extended (Wilson, 2004 ), a view that is again in tune with Aristotleterm's views mentioned above in this section of the article.

4E cognitionterm and the “mind–body problemterm”: some more considerations In fact, this article started from the assumption that cognitive science and the philosophy of mindterm can and should help overcome such differences and make the research processes fluently ensue from one another and cross-fertilize one another, beyond various differences of focus or methodology. Moreover, it also started from the assumption that the philosophical conceptual analysisterm·mth should also be supported by a historical analysis in this respect. One can better understand and transcend all differences when noticing the historical fact that many of the problems in our research on brain networks and consciousnessterm nowadays go back to Descartes's dualism—that is, to the concepts of unextended mindterm ( res cogitans ) and extended matter ( res extensa ). The perpetuation and interpretation of this dualism in both philosophy and science until nowadays sometimes played their part in impeding empirical research—at least at a subliminal level if not also at a rational and methodological one as well.

And, as it is often the case, placing ideas in their proper historical and hermeneutical context may considerably help solve the matter. For instance, looking at the ancient Aristotelian views on the “soulterm” (its empirical substratum, emotions, consciousnessterm, and agency) may somewhat help us widen our perspective and place the Cartesian model in its proper context. We may thus understand that Descartes' views were just a moment in the history of science and cognition and that it was not only that various modern and contemporary philosophers criticized Descartes for his mindterm/bodyterm dualism, but also numerous other philosophers before Descartes, including important ancient ones, had completely different views on the human brain, mindterm, and consciousnessterm. Moreover, one should not overlook Descartes' own theory of individuation, which seriously undermines any reductionist interpretation of Descartes' consciousnessterm as the defining characteristic of his unextended mindterm and totally opposed to extended matter, to which it is purportedly superior and does not benefit much from interacting with it (Wilkes, 1992 ; Magee, 2003 ).

In my view, in order to transcend “Descartes' error” (in António Damásio's words—cf. Damásio, 1994 ) of ignoring the physiology of rational thought or decision and the emotions as conveyors of information and guidance coming from the bodyterm to the rational thought, we should have a brief look again at Aristotleterm's views on the relationships between mindterm and bodyterm in cognition. These views had a lasting aftermath—they are indeed still discussed in comparison to those of Descartes nowadays (Kahn, 2005 ; Charles, 2008 )—but I think a few more details should be added on their possible relationship to the 4E cognitionterm approach. For instance, an important idea to mention here would be that Aristotleterm's “passions of the soulterm,” including emotions and desire, were often considered psycho-physical and represented an alternative to Cartesian and post-Cartesian views throughout the recent history of philosophy (cf. Charles, 2008 discussing Aristotleterm's On the Soulterm ).

And even more important, in this context, is to note that Clark and Chalmers ( 1998 ), in The Extended Mindterm , consider the separation between mindterm, bodyterm, and environment an unprincipled distinction and propose a kind of “coupled system,” in which the environment should be functioning as a part of the mindterm. The main criterion mentioned by Clark and Chalmers in support of such an extended cognitive system is thus the “functioning” of the external objects with the same “purpose” as the internal processes. By that, Clark and Chalmers actually use the same main criteria Aristotleterm himself used when discussing the relationship between mindterm, bodyterm, and natureterm. The importance of “functioning” and “purpose” in the 4E cognitionterm approach thus justifies once more the focus on Aristotleterm's own concept of cognition in the present article.

Actually, the connection between “functioning” and “purpose” has already been discussed by several scholars in relation to Aristotleterm's teleology in the biological works and especially in his Parts of Animals . Two types of teleology (from the Gr. telos , which can be translated as “purpose”) are considered to be involved here: a primary kind referring to the realization of an internal, pre-existing potential for form and a secondary one referring to the emergence of “functions” as the result of both formal and material causation (Gotthelf, 1976–77 , 1987 ; Leunissen, 2010a , b ). Moreover, this type of interpretation is clearly in tune with 4E cognitionterm. Studying a few forms of 4E cognitionterm in relation to a few Aristotelian concepts and their aftermath in the history of philosophy/cognitive science may thus clarify some details in the evolution of the 4E cognitionterm and its interest in the neurophysiological phenomena underlying consciousnessterm.

For instance, the specific concept of mindterm Aristotleterm may have actually envisaged is still debated, but it is clear though that it does not fit a rationalist cognitive model based on mental representations. In fact, Aristotleterm seems to have initiated some of the non-reductive materialist views later developed by Putnam and Nussbaum ( 1995 ), Charles ( 1984 ), p. 197–250; and Charles ( 2008 ), p. 1–2 and fn. 1–2, in which the functional and teleological aspects noted above were emphasized. Moreover, while doing that, Aristotleterm asked the same question Descartes would ask much later: How are psychological activities or their descriptions related to physical processes? Aristotleterm's answers to these questions clearly seem to be quite in tune with the contemporary 4E cognitionterm ones—especially when Aristotleterm discusses psychological properties as possibly supervening on or emerging from physical ones (Charles, 2008 , p. 2–3, especially footnotes 3–4 and, for more details, Sorabji, 1974 , 2001 ; Everson, 1997 ; Caston, 2005 , p. 267–268).

While Descartes' views on mindterm and bodyterm have often been quoted as a source for the idea of the would-be “explanatory gap” (Levine, 1983 , p. 354–361) regarding consciousnessterm—the fact that conscious subjective experience accompanies specific functions of the brain and the neural/computational mechanisms behind them without being completely explained in terms of these functions/mechanisms—we can try to discuss Aristotleterm's views as possible precursors of some 4E cognitionterm views. The mind–body problemterm can be thus studied from completely different angles within an Aristotelian frame of reference and that would help us avoid the property dualism deemed the “hard” problem of consciousnessterm in cognitive science—that is, the autonomy of consciousnessterm from the physical properties upon which it supervenes (Chalmers, 2010 ). As noted in the introduction, an Aristotelian context for the mind–body problemterm would also be a subtler and more encompassing paradigm than the Cartesian one. Moreover, here I will concentrate on two conceptions that pervaded Aristotleterm's work and puzzled interpreters over the years, but can particularly shed some light on the so-called “mind–body problemterm”: (1) causality in natureterm ( phusis ), on the one hand, and (2) the active intellectterm ( nous poiêtikos ), on the other hand.

Aristotleterm's causality in natureterm Regarding causality in natureterm ( phusis ), although Aristotleterm talks everywhere of a natureterm that (in tune with his teleological approach) acts regularly, methodically, and in a manner that art also does, with the best result as its final goal, he never definitively states whether this natureterm is corporeal or incorporeal, substantial or accidental (Zekl, 1987 ). For instance, in his Physics , natureterm is either an inner impulse to movement, or some unshaped material, or form, or even a transcendental principle. Sometimes, natureterm as the form of a thing is actually the purpose ( telos ) toward which it develops. Other times, natureterm as matter is the means to the end (Ross, 1923 , p. 67–71). For an additional explanation of this rather ambiguous concept of natureterm, one should look at Aristotleterm's three different approaches to discussing causes (the semantic approach in Physics 2.3, the physical-metaphysical one in Parts of Animals 1.1, and the logical-epistemic one in Posterior Analytics 1.2) (Duhot, 1989 , p. 21–24). The type of knowledge that the human mindterm can acquire in the context of such an ambiguously defined concept of natureterm can be thus somewhat explained by Aristotleterm's views on causality in natureterm although all this still remains rather difficult to define. One can clearly notice, nevertheless, the hints to a type of cognition that is embodied, embedded, enactive, and extended (the 4E cognitionterm nowadays).

Some clarification may be provided by Physics 2.3 (194b16-195b30 and in particular 195a21-27), where Aristotleterm presents the four causes while suggesting two pairs of oppositions: that between the material and formal causes and that between the efficient and final causes, all related to the same two ideas of “functioning” and “purpose” mentioned above as related to 4E cognitionterm. The first opposition represents a static ontological point of view and the second a dynamic one. Then, in Parts of Animals 1.1 (639b11), only two causes are considered for the explanation of natureterm and of the way the phenomena are produced: the final and the efficient, only the dynamic aspect being here at stake.

Within this context, while movement from within may represent the distinction between natural and manufactured objects in Aristotleterm, reason may actually represent the link between them. Moreover, that happens because art or manufacture ( technê ), as an imitation of natureterm ( phusis ), requires knowledge of both form and matter as it studies both the end and the means (Ross, 1923 , p. 66–70). The procedure of natureterm is, in this respect, assimilated to that of art, and the study of natureterm is included among the constructive or manufacturing sciences rather than the theoretical ones in Parts of Animals 1.1 (639b16-21). Moreover, the mindterm dealing with all these is indeed extended in order to grasp both matter and form and re-produce them in the “craft.” It is thus extended especially because it is related to “purpose” and searching for the “functions” of the parts—the same idea mentioned above and related to 4E cognitionterm.

Furthermore, in Physics 2.5 (196b17-25), Aristotleterm explains that, besides things that exist out of necessity, there are also others defined by finality and the latter may display finality by either thought or natureterm. This double causality remains ambiguous, nevertheless. For instance, when Aristotleterm describes the structure of animals as the result of purpose in On Heavens 1.7 (271a 33), the question that may appear is: Whose purpose? Natureterm is generally described as acting for a purpose, but natureterm is not a conscious agent; it is only the vital force present in all living things. This vital force is indeed connected to the psuchê , to the soulterm as the vital force of the bodyterm, but here as elsewhere, Aristotleterm seems to have been content (as many thinkers later inspired by him have also been) with a notion of a purpose that is not the purpose of any particular mindterm. His teleology does not necessarily imply intentionality (Kullmann, 1979 , p. 2). However, whenever the human mindterm decides to deal with such teleology (even without intentionality in natureterm), it does need to proceed intentionally nevertheless and also in an extended manner in order to grasp the “vital force” of natureterm through the specific functions of the parts and the specific purpose of each of them—again in a 4E cognitionterm type of explanation.

Finally, Aristotleterm's idea of a “configurating” power of natureterm discussed in De partibus animalium 1.1 is strengthened in his Physics 2.5 (199b26-33), where the purpose is considered present in natureterm even if no specific deliberation ( bouleusis ) is present. This can also be compared with Aristotleterm's idea of the vegetative soulterm presented in On the Soulterm 2.4 (415a23-25) as that which deals with nutrition ( trophê ) and generation ( genesis ). However, again, in order to grasp this vegetative function of the soulterm, the higher deliberative function needs to be extended, to be connected to the bodyterm and its causal role in cognition. In natural sciences, Aristotleterm's purpose is thus rather the perpetuation of the type, the preservation of the species (Ross, 1923 , p. 125–126, 135–136), but one should also connect this view with the one Aristotleterm displays in his ethics, where the purpose is happiness ( eudaimonia ), which has a normative significance and requires awareness and knowledge in pursuit of the good. Moreover, neither awareness nor knowledge can be obtained without filling the gap between the “vital force” of natureterm and its “configurating” power, or between the material and the formal causes—in an interplay with efficient and final causes (mentioned above) that, again, may have inspired the 4E cognitionterm proponents. However, as noted above, all this complex account of causality would not help explain the mind–body problemterm by itself, without yet one more of the puzzling notions in Aristotleterm—the active intellectterm.

Aristotleterm's active intellectterm In order to explain how the notion of active intellectterm ( nous poiêtikos ) fits in our discussion here, a few more details on Aristotleterm's account of the human soulterm need clarification in the following paragraphs. On the Soulterm , alongside the Parva Naturalia (especially On Sense and Sensible Objectsterm, On Memory and Recollection, On Sleep and Waking, On Dreams, On Respiration ) and On Breath treat various topics on the relationship between bodyterm and mindterm that are also related to the active intellectterm. In the Parva naturalia Aristotleterm is particularly interested in sense and its impact on consciousnessterm and his views in these short treatises are complementary to those in On the Soulterm , where Aristotleterm tries to outline a systematic and general theory by applying the actuality/potentiality relationship to study the interaction between bodyterm and soulterm or sense/sensible and mindterm/intelligible. In fact, Aristotleterm himself was a biologist and the son of a doctor. He believed in experiment and dissection as a means of collecting evidence and his views on the soulterm were definitely influenced by his knowledge of physiology.

For instance, in On the Soulterm 1.1, Aristotleterm maintains that his intention is to account for the essence ( ousia ) of the soulterm as the principle ( archê ) of animal life (402a7-10), which is essential for the study of natureterm ( phusis ; 402a4-6), the concept already discussed above as a possible source of inspiration for the 4E cognitionterm proponents. Aristotleterm is especially interested in understanding to which class of entities the soulterm belongs, what it is—a particular thing (namely, a substance), or a quality, or quantity, or another of the established categories—and whether it has only potential or fully actual existence (402a22-27). He insists that, generally, none of the emotions (or, as he calls them, “affections of the soulterm”) can exist apart from the bodyterm although thinkingterm could exceptionally do that sometimes. However, he also insists that even thinkingterm, when it is dependent on phantasia (phenomena or sense experienceterm that facilitate the perception of things as they appear to us, which can be partially assimilated to our contemporary concept of sense experienceterm associated with visual consciousnessterm) cannot exist apart from the bodyterm either.

When discussing the “affections of the soulterm” (i.e., emotions), Aristotleterm thus defines them as associated with the bodyterm (either by being caused by bodily states or by affecting the bodyterm) and he illustrates his view by referring to gentleness, fear, pity, courage, and joy, as well as love and hate (403a3-11-403a16-19). Moreover, cognition in Aristotleterm seems to be embodied as long as he thinks that there is almost no dianoia (thinkingterm) without phantasia (sense experienceterm), which proves that even thinkingterm ( dianoia ) is somewhat associated with the bodyterm (more on emotions and thinkingterm in Aristotleterm in this respect in Van der Eijk, 2002 ; Charles, 2008 ; Mingucci, 2015 ).

Moreover, one may see as two different interpretations of reality is actually just a methodological distinction. For instance, Aristotleterm presents two definitions of anger: according to a natural philosopher ( phusikos ), on the one hand, and according to a logician or philosopher trained in discursive argument ( dialektikos ), on the other hand—the first describes the matter (a surging of the blood and heat around the heart) while the second describes the form (craving for retaliation; 403a26-403b3). There are two types of discourse presented here favoring a methodological distinction that doctors and psychologists nowadays still inherit.

Aristotleterm's account of the soulterm as summarized in On the Soulterm 2.4 (415a14-416b32) and 2.12 (424a17-424a34) finally suggests that, just like the different discourses on the same reality, the faculties of the soulterm cannot be considered as separate “parts,” but only as logically separable aspects of vitality, corresponding to different degrees of existence or to different activities in the same degree (nutritive, appetitive, locomotive, sensitive, and intellective). This suggests that, in the last instance, even if they either fall under the sensitive faculty or are shared by it with the intellective faculty, they all resist strict taxonomies and can rather be understood in terms of what we call 4E cognitionterm nowadays.

Aristotleterm was indeed swaying between the old Homeric tradition, the Ionian physicists or physiologists (as he called them), and the Platonic philosophy (Cairns, 2014 ). For that reason, his views on the soulterm and its cognitive capacities (sensory, affective, and intellectual) sometimes developed in the direction of what we now call 4E cognitionterm, in which the bodyterm does determine specific forms of knowledge. Moreover, this is one of the reasons for which On the Soulterm received various contradictory interpretations, some more radical than others, even if many of them agree that Aristotleterm's theory of the soulterm is an embodied one (Shields, 1988 , p. 103–137; Sorabji, 1991 , p. 227; Bos, 2003 , p. 8; Shields, 2016 , p. xvii–xliii).

This was certainly largely understood within natural science or physics, especially in terms of the distinction between motion ( kinêsis ) and activity (energeia) in On the Soulterm 3.7 (431a4-7), where perception is considered an activity rather than a motion (Polansky, 2007 , xii, referring to Burnyeat, 1995 ). Other interpretations, also important here, concentrate on the hylomorphic (matter + form) unity of soulterm and bodyterm and the relationship between the soulterm as actualization ( entelecheia ) of the natural bodyterm ( sôma physikon )—the bodyterm being also interpreted as “instrumental” or “tool-like” or “equipped with tool-like parts” (that is, with organs; organikon ) beyond being potentiality ( dunamis ) (Bos, 2003 , p. 6; cf. King, 2007 , p. 322-23).

According to such interpretations, in the case of sensationterm, senses are mere potentialities that are actualized by sensible objectsterm acting upon them. According to On the Soulterm 2.5 (416b32-418a6) and 2.11 (423b27-424a16), the sensitivity of the subject and the sensibility of the object become identified and this actualization is sensationterm. However, in Aristotleterm's view, this requires a medium (air, flesh, etc.), which is activated by the sense object and transmits a stimulus to the sense organ, thereby assimilating it with the sense object. Before stimulation, the sense organ must be in a neutral state as any determinate quality would interfere with its receptivity. Every sense is thus a sort of a mean or balance between contraries.

Furthermore, as in On the Soulterm 3.2 (425b27-31), the activity ( energeia ) of the sensible objectterm and of the sensationterm is one and the same (as it should also be in any description of 4E cognitionterm), even though their essence is not the same. Additional explanations on this appear in the Parva naturalia 1 (436b6-8), where Aristotleterm explains that sensationterm is produced in the soulterm through the medium of the bodyterm, and as the exercise of sense perception does not belong exclusively either to the soulterm or to the bodyterm (a potentiality and its actuality reside in the same subject and what we call sensationterm as actuality is a movement of the soulterm through the agency of the bodyterm), it is clear that anything that affects us (for instance, sleep) is peculiar neither to the soulterm without a bodyterm, nor to the bodyterm without soulterm, which is actually not capable of sensationterm (an idea that appears also in On Sleep and Waking 1 (454a7-12).

Now, while also considering Aristotleterm's general account of change, one can also note that, in On the Soulterm 3.4 (429a13-18), he explains that, as perception involves the reception of a sensible form by a specific sensory faculty, so thinkingterm involves the reception of an intelligible form by a specific intellectual faculty (cf. Sorabji, 1974 ; Caston, 1996 , 2005 , 2006 , 2008 ; Everson, 1997 ; Johansen, 1998 ; Charles, 2008 ; Marmodoro, 2014 ; Shields, 2016 ). What should be noted though is that, in both cases, there is change by the acquisition of a form by something capable of receiving it—“the perceptive faculty is in potentiality such as the object of perception already is in actuality” and the same happens in the case of thinkingterm.

This hylomorphic analysis of thinkingterm is obviously an extension of the general model of hylomorphic change used by Aristotleterm in numerous other contexts, but it is important to emphasize here that Aristotleterm's account of thinkingterm parallels his analysis of perception. Thought is thus a process that is analogous to sensationterm as it is receptive of form in the same manner that sense is and there are two factors involved in both cases: a passive, material, and indeterminate one and an active and formative one. The intellect is partly passive and partly active as perception itself is. Moreover, that favors again, in my view, the idea that the 4E cognitionterm proponents may have been inspired by Aristotleterm's account of the soulterm and its perceptive/thinkingterm faculties [see also Aristotleterm, On the Soulterm 3.4 (429a13–18) for comparison], with reason, sense, motion, and emotion clearly interrelated in as much as sense is not mere local motion generated from one bodyterm to another, or simple resistance of one bodyterm to the motion of another, but a cognitive act—either a recognition or an active perception and awareness of these motions of the bodyterm.

However, the active intellectterm, as in On the Soulterm 3.4 (429a10) and 3.5 (430a25) and also in Metaphysics 1072b23ff, is separable from the bodyterm, impassive, unmixed, and divine in the manner Descartes' res cogitans also is while sense can never exist apart from the bodyterm. The relationship between the active and the passive intellectterm or the higher and active part ( to noêtikon ) and the lower, passive, or sympathetic part ( to aisthêtikon ) of the soulterm, or between the rational and the sensory functions, may still remain somewhat unclear in this respect. Moreover, in On the Soulterm 3.5, Aristotleterm's account of the active intellectterm seems to introduce a slightly different account of the intellect ( nous ) in general, as a faculty or power ( dunamis ) of the soulterm ( psuchê ). This new account is also somewhat different from Aristotleterm's insistence in On the Soulterm 2.1 (413a3-5) (cf. Shields, 2016 ) that the soulterm as a whole was not separable from the bodyterm.

Thus, the active intellectterm as described particularly in On the Soulterm 3.5 (430a17–18) as “separate, unaffected and unmixed” and then also as “everlasting” (430a23) may actually contradict my idea that the 4E cognitionterm proponents were much inspired by Aristotleterm's cognitive theories. A few questions should be still raised though in this respect: How could the active intellectterm be separable if it is a capacity of the soulterm and the soulterm is not separable? In what sense is the active intellectterm separable: conceptually or ontologically? And then, from what is the active intellectterm separable: the bodyterm, the other faculties of the soulterm, some other unspecified category? And, in fact, what exactly is the active intellectterm ( nous poiêtikos ) and how is it related to the simply unqualified notion of the intellect ( nous ) discussed in other chapters of Aristotleterm's On the Soulterm ? Such questions have raised an entire commentary tradition from antiquity to the present day. Moreover, when addressing them, Aristotleterm's interpreters present quite diverging answers.

The most generally accepted interpretation (Ross, 1923 ; Hicks, 1965 ; Wedin, 1988 ; Caston, 1999 , p. 199; Shields, 2016 ) is that, as, according to Aristotleterm, in all natureterm, everything is in both potentiality (like matter) and actuality (like a craft, giving a specific form to the matter), such differentiation should be present in his account of the soulterm as well. To exemplify the difference between intellect as it comes to be all things and intellect as an active craft ( poiêtikon ) imposing a specific form to the matter, Aristotleterm uses its comparison with light, which makes colors actually exist while without light they would just potentially exist. By that, while again highlighting the isomorphism and tight relationship between sensationterm and thinkingterm, Aristotleterm also highlights the active capacities of the perceiver and contrasts them with the merely passive capacities of lifeless matter. Thus, the active and creative (like a craft) intellect is not necessarily so far removed from 4E cognitionterm, as one may be tempted to think at first sight, but this still remains an issue to be further discussed—for reasons of limited space available—in a different article.

Discussion As noted above, 4E cognitionterm developed in cognitive science and the philosophy of mindterm alongside research programmes in reactive or behavior-based robotics and started from the assumption that mindsterm were not only used “for thinkingterm,” but also “for doing” (Clark, 1997 ). By that, from the very beginning, 4E cognitionterm was in tune with science in general and with the scientific research on the brain in particular. Neuroscientists can benefit from this cognitive and philosophical approach, which offers them a broad and flexible philosophical and cognitive research context that could inspire them in their own general accounts and interpretations of multiple empirical data they operate with.

Beyond the technical information and the algorithms they use or develop for better interpreting the data they obtain in their research, neuroscientists also need such interdisciplinary hypotheses or explanations of the human mindterm and cognition in order to make sense of their findings at the highest and most general level possible. As I have seen at the Complex Mindterm Lab of the University of Jaén, neuroscientists work intensively in order to find algorithms that can provide a more subtle and enriching explanation and interpretation of their data. They realize that, as an EEG signal, for instance, needs proper, subtle, and multimodal frames of reference and new methodologies for interpretation, so do many of their questions and explanations of the empirical data, which are sometimes in need of philosophical and cognitive suggestions on the so-called “mind–body problemterm” and on many other similar issues. That happens especially when neuroscientists study human consciousnessterm and the complex brain network dynamics possibly enabling and supporting it. Interdisciplinarity is thus an important requirement for a valuable account of the possible interplay between the neurophysiological phenomena related to consciousnessterm or conscious agency—especially when complex brain network dynamics are involved.

This interdisciplinarity can develop in various directions. Biology, physics, and chemistry are mandatory fields of research when discussing the human mindterm and consciousnessterm alongside their neurophysiological substratum. However, cognitive science and philosophy cannot be ignored either. Moreover, while being rather blocked by the Cartesian dualism, such research is highly favored by the new 4E cognitionterm paradigm. Besides being in tune with science from its inception, it also offers a wide and flexible approach that is in tune with former valuable accounts of the human mindterm that influenced both scholarship and scientific research for centuries. Aristotleterm's account of human cognitive and perceptive faculties in his On the Soulterm is one of these.

In fact, even when taking into account the short discussion at the end of this article on the active intellectterm, one could hardly think that Aristotleterm's theory of cognition could favor any abstract rationalism based on mental representations, which would block scientific research on the physiology underlying it. On the contrary, Aristotleterm was in favor of creating an analogy and connection between sense experienceterm and perception on the one hand and thought on the other hand. In that and many other directions, his explanations resemble those offered by the contemporary 4E cognitionterm, which, in my view, were much inspired by his work or by various later commentaries on it.

For instance, when describing both causality in natureterm and the actualization of potentiality in the human soulterm, Aristotleterm was clearly in favor of an extended type of cognition and a continuous relationship between mindterm and bodyterm. Even when insisting, in On the Soulterm 3.5, on the idea of an active intellectterm, defined as imperishable, unchangeable, and separable from the bodyterm, Aristotleterm was not so much interested in denying extension, but rather in asserting a creative, craft-like part of the intellect, which actively moulds cognition, by contrast to the passive part of the intellect, which only receives the intellectual forms imprinted on it. Moreover, in the end, Aristotleterm made it clear that even for the active intellectterm sensationsterm and perceptions played a direct constitutional, if not always causal, part.

Despite all these, not many scholars were interested in the inspiration the proponents of 4E cognitionterm may have found in Aristotleterm's or in his commentators' accounts of the human mindterm. A few significant exceptions have already been pointed out in the notes and the bibliography of this conceptual and historical analysis. But more research needs to be done and this short article is just an attempt to stimulate new interdisciplinary research in this respect. More attention needs to be paid to Aristotleterm's commentary tradition and to many other aspects of his physiological works as well. They were influential over the years and, even if they may not be relevant from a scientific point of view anymore, they are still relevant for the way we collect and interpret scientific data and even for our own possible biases caused by philosophy or cognitive approaches (such as the Cartesian dualism) in collecting and interpreting such data.

By studying conceptual and historical issues related to the way consciousnessterm and its relationship with its neurophysiological substratum were interpreted over time, we may gain new insights into the way our mindsterm and own views were formatted by university education (where we once studied such matters), by our own readings and interests or by the views of colleagues from other fields of study. This, alongside clear empirical data and scientific theories, may help us become aware of biases that may slow down our research interpretations and may open new paths of interpretation and new ways of calibrating our own research and interpretation algorithms. Moreover, while such interdisciplinary research may have its own limitations because we still need to work out a common language and a common conceptual basis on which to operate, the 4E cognitionterm, which has already developed alongside the latest scientific discoveries on cognition and its neurophysiological substratum and also seems to have been inspired by ancient philosophical traditions, may be a perfect candidate for a philosophical and cognitive context in which to study consciousnessterm in a more comprehensive manner. It is also broad and flexible enough to be able to account for the complexity of human consciousnessterm and of the brain networks supporting it to a quite large extent.

Author contributions The author confirms being the sole contributor of this work and has approved it for publication.

Footnotes Conflict of interest The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

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References