Abstract
One of the main issues in the philosophy of cognitive science is to understand how natural systems represent and manipulate informational content. This chapter focuses on the representational formats that are involved in action cognition, that is, the structures that informational contents can take to guide our actions. Contrary to a common view, I argue that there are different formats by which information can take part in cognition and that this difference in the structure of contents allows relevant cognitive abilities, such as the planning and execution of practical skills, to be accounted for.
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Notes
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It should be noted that the thesis according to which practical knowledge is a case of propositional knowledge, also known as “intellectualism” (Stanley and Williamson 2001), is a consequence of the more general view according to which all intentional states are propositional states, also known as “propositionalism” (Davidson 1970).
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This view allows for conceiving actions as special types of morphisms, that is, transformations of bodily states in different bodily states. Once it is realized that action concepts cannot be merely interpreted as predicates, and that the constructive constituents of intentions are bodily grounded, the related representational structure is strictly linked to the categorical analysis of logic (see Peruzzi 2000).
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There is evidence of the fact that long training in executing a skilled action changes the cortical organization of the motor cortex. For example, Monda et al. (2017) have recently shown significant differences in the motor cortex excitability between trained athletes and non-athletes, supporting the hypothesis that training determines a specific organization of the motor cortex. Further evidence of the existence of differences in the functional organization of the motor cortex between trained and non-trained agents can be revealed by experiments on “motor imagery” (e.g., Lacourse et al. 2005; Wei and Luo 2010).
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Zipoli Caiani, S. (2020). The Basic Structures of Motor Cognition. In: Peruzzi, A., Zipoli Caiani, S. (eds) Structures Mères: Semantics, Mathematics, and Cognitive Science. Studies in Applied Philosophy, Epistemology and Rational Ethics, vol 57. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-51821-9_6
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