On the nature and origins of cognition as a form of motivated activity

Abstract

A fundamental challenge for enactive theory and other radical varieties of non-representational “E cognition” is to reconceive the end-directed character of cognitive activity in naturally emergent but also experientially adequate terms. In short, it is necessary to show how cognitive activity is motivated. In this article, I present a preliminary analysis of the nature of motivation and the challenge that it presents to cognitive science. I make the case that a theory of motivation is a critical desideratum for dynamical theories of cognition, especially insofar as they understand cognition as a self-organized and “soft assembled” process. Finally, I propose that a branch of ecological psychology that conceives of cognition as a special variety of “dissipative adaptation” offers a promising framework for confronting this challenge.