The sentience-sapience problem

Julian Kiverstein (University of Amsterdam)

The Mind, Language and Action Group (MLAG), a research unit of the Institute of Philosophy at the University of Porto, invites you to the fourth of the new MLAG Seminar Series featuring talks by international researchers on topics of interest to the group. The talk, given by Julian Kiverstein (University of Amsterdam) and entitled "The sentience-sapience problem", will take place on January 22, 13:00-14:30 Western European Time (WET). The meeting is online. MS TEAMS details: Meeting ID: 333 525 999 219 0; Passcode: DG7tU3tX.

The seminar is jointly organized by Sofia Miguens (MLAG-IF), Dan Zeman (MLAG-IF), James Grayot (MLAG-IF), Rafael Antunes Padilha (MLAG-IF|IFCH-UNICAMP), Samuel Lima (FLUP) and João Carlos Rocha Lima (FLUP). Information about MLAG can be found here: https://ifilosofia.up.pt/research-groups/mlag. To contact the organisers, please send an email to [email protected].

All welcome!

ABSTRACT:

Radical enactivists like Dan Hutto and Erik Myin have argued that contentful forms of intentional thinking have their origins in cultural and linguistic practices. They allow that humans share in common with non-human animals non-representational forms of intentionality, which they characterise using the concept of "ur-intentionality". They therefore disagree with philosophers like McDowell who have questioned the existence of non-conceptual states that are common between humans and other animals. However, they also agree with McDowell in making a distinction between the sapience of humans that is characterised by conceptual and linguistic forms of intentionality that originate in cultural practices, and the sentience we share with other animals that could be analysed in non-conceptual terms. Sentience is a capacity we share with other animals to respond perceptually and skillfully to the solicitations of motivationally salient situations. Sapience consists in the human ability to make assertions and other normatively governed speech acts and to engage in thoughts with inferentially articulated propositional contents. How did rational minds grow out of the nonconceptual and nonlinguistic coping we share with animals? I will label this the sentience-sapience problem.  My aim in this talk is to introduce the sentience-sapience problem as it arises for radical enactivism and to argue for a continuity of sentience and sapience as a response to this problem. Sapience I will argue consists of culturally developed techniques and skills for engaging with an environment structured by linguistic activities.