Grounding 4E Cognition in Mexico: introduction to special issue on spotlight on 4E Cognition research in Mexico

Over the past 25 years, embodied, embedded, extended, and enactive (4EC) perspectives on cognition have gained scientific legitimacy worldwide, including in Mexico, which offers a fertile environment for their development. This editorial introduction argues that concerns about incoherence among these perspectives are misplaced; instead, 4EC should be viewed as an emerging pluralistic research tradition with shared commitments. The tradition has grown in Mexico due to the country's distinctive historical, scientific, and philosophical development. The papers in this special issue demonstrate the promising potential of heterogeneous explanations within this tradition.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Embodied, embedded, extended and enactive (4EC) perspectives on cognition have gained epistemic legitimacy during the last 25 years in the international arena. They have encouraged new ways to understand the mind. Mexico has not been an exception; rather, it has the potential to provide a fertile ground for the development of 4EC perspectives, as shown by the variety of contributions in this special issue. In this editorial introduction, we discuss recent concerns about a lack of coherence in the inter-relations between these perspectives, and we propose that it is more appropriate to view 4EC as an emerging pluralistic research tradition that shares crucial commitments. Furthermore, we show that this pluralistic tradition has been gaining ground in the specific research context of Mexico, because of the country’s distinctive historical, scientific and philosophical development. We finish by describing the promising research potential of the current heterogeneous explanations as evidenced by the papers in this issue.