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The preferred way in which we humans make sense of things is in binary terms. This also applies when it comes to understanding the mind and how cognitive agents relate to the world. Varela, Thompson and Rosch have illustrated this in terms of the proverbial chicken-egg dilemma: according to the “objectivist” chicken position, every property of the world is pre-given and objectively there and cognitive agents uncover these real properties through various forms of information processes, forming representations of the outside world (Varela et al., 1991). On the contrary, the “subjectivist” egg position holds that the agent does not grasp the world as it is, but rather according to her own idiosyncratic perspective on it. Varela and colleagues propose the nonbinary enactive alternative instead: there is an inextricable coupling between a cognitive agent and the world, in that what we perceive depends on our bodily action, and at the same time, qua our particular sensorimotor capacities,...

DOI: 10.1007/s11097-018-9574-y

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