The Body and Psychosis

A new movement within Cognitive Psychology, known as 4E Cognition, views thought and behavior as embodied, embedded, enactive & extended. Each of these four strands has a rich (and ongoing) philosophical history. Merleau-Ponty, Heidegger, Bahktin, Vygotsky and others have drawn attention to the role of action and interaction in (in)forming our experience.  What do our bodies contribute to qualia, to the phenomenology that seems to mark consciousness for us? How does our embeddedness in a social world with others impact our sense of reality? And what role is played by our constant manipulation of things and interaction with others in anchoring us, not simply the way gravity keeps our feet on the ground, but as a woven fabric creates a world we can inhabit and experience together?

Psychosis provides a test case for theories proposed by advocates of 4E Cognition. But, of course, it does as well for other neuroscientists, psychologists, philosophers and AI researchers. How is that sense of a shared world disrupted in individuals diagnosed with this condition? How disrupted must it be and in what ways, for a diagnosis to be apposite? Meanwhile, how “shared” is the world, and what does a more or less shared world mean for the ideas, and their expression, that may be found in it?

These questions and the many intriguing themes they touch on will be explored in this roundtable.