Beyond free will: The embodied emergence of conscious agency
Article by Michael Mascolo and Eeva Kallio in Philosophical Psychology (2019). The abstract:
“Is it possible to reconcile the concept of conscious agency with the view that humans are biological creatures subject to material causality? The problem of conscious agency is complicated by the tendency to attribute autonomous powers of control to conscious processes. In this paper, we offer an embodied process model of conscious agency. We begin with the concept of embodied emergence – the idea that psychological processes are higher-order biological processes, albeit ones that exhibit emergent properties. Although consciousness, experience, and representation are emergent properties of higher-order biological organisms, the capacity for hierarchical regulation is a property of all living systems. Thus, while the capacity for consciousness transforms the process of hierarchical regulation, consciousness is not an autonomous center of control. Instead, consciousness functions as a system for coordinating novel representations of the most pressing demands placed on the organism at any given time. While it does not regulate action directly, consciousness orients and activates preconscious control systems that mediate the construction of genuinely novel action. Far from being an epiphenomenon, consciousness plays a central albeit non-autonomous role in psychological functioning.”
It depends on what he means by the word ‘autonomous’ for consciousness. In this paper Mascolo shows that previously that word was defined in the context of a dualistic conception that opposed subjectivity with objectivity.But his approach sees that relationship within the embodied and extended paradigm. From the abstract: “Psychology has long operated as a fragmented discipline. Different researchers focus on different local problems using a variety of theoretical perspectives. Psychology has adopted a largely analytic approach in which different psychological processes (e.g., perception, cognition, emotion) are studied in relative isolation from each other. As a result, it is often… Read more »
I also have a more recent (2020) paper of his called “The phenomenology of between.” There is no link to it yet but if you want a copy I can email it to you. The abstract: “We outline the concept of intersubjective corroboration as an epistemology for psychological science. Psychological knowledge arises neither from subjectivity nor objectivity, but from intersubjective processes that occur between people. Intersubjective corroboration holds that psychological inquiry is optimally organized around three mutually-constituting activities: Conceptual coordination involves clarifying a priori theoretical concepts by subjecting them to rigorous philosophical analysis. Intersubjective engagement is the research process itself… Read more »
From the last reference: “We invoke the phrase experience of the world to eliminate the dualism between experience and world: Psychologically, there is not subjective inner experience and then an objective external world. We simultaneously reject both the idea that there is no physical world outside of our experience and the idea that it is possible for humans to step outside of experience to record the world ‘as it is.’ Ultimately, all we have is shared experience, however mediated by the tools we use to represent, measure, and communicate that experience (e.g., language, quantitative measures, Likert scales, coding schemes, cortisol… Read more »