We, human beings, live together in a common, shared world. We continually interact with this world and with each other. Precisely because we live together in this shared world, we are able to make sense of and give shape to each other, the world and ourselves.
But how does this work exactly? How are we able to make sense of each other and the world? How does intersubjectivity arise? What is the role of interaction therein? What does interaction mean: how does it work, and why are we able to interact? Is it because of the natural and social world in which we find ourselves situated with others that we are always already able to interact and relate to other human beings? Or do we create, shape and make sense of our world because we interact? Or is it possible that it is a combination of these two, or something else entirely?
A highly interesting answer can be found in the work of the French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908-1961). He famously put the body back into philosophy. His notion of the body-subject (corps-sujet) is a truly innovative one. It substantially revises traditional distinctions between consciousness and body, mind and world, as well as the notions itself. Moreover, Merleau-Ponty’s notion of body-subject provides a whole new account of intersubjectivity. Our embodied existence in the world implies an active existence: we are because we inter-act upon and with the world. Our bodies open the world for us. Our embodiment is the very condition of possibility of intersubjectivity. By virtue of our body, we constantly inter-actwith other embodied, active beings-in-the-world like ourselves and the world. Therefore, intersubjectivity becomes interaction.
From a different point of view, but influenced by Merleau-Ponty’s insights, cognitive science and philosophy of mind have taken up the notion of embodied embedded cognition (EEC) in recent years. This approach to cognition emphasizes our embodied existence in the world and provides possibilities for a new account of intersubjectivity. This EEC approach is at least partly a reaction on the classical cognitivist positions in the debate on social cognition.
During the conference Intersubjectivity as Interaction – In the footsteps of Merleau-Ponty, we want to combine these lines of research. We aim to:
- Investigate to what extent and in what sense Merleau-Ponty’s insights and reconceptualizations of crucial notions like body, world, consciousness and action, help us to deal with the phenomenon of intersubjectivity;
- investigate how debates in cognitive science and philosophy of mind on the topic of embodied embedded cognition provide a new account of intersubjectivity;
- discuss what contemporary lines of research in cognitive science and philosophy of mind do or can take from Merleau-Ponty, and how new scientific and philosophical discoveries and insights can improve our understanding of Merleau-Ponty;
- in order to arrive at a better understanding of the phenomenon of human intersubjectivity as interaction.