关键词: 具身认知, 身心关系, 心理学, 认知科学

Abstract:

Abstract Until recently, psychology’ knowledge about mind-body relationship has been restricted by dualism which regards mind and body as two separable entities. In the history of human thought, however, a lots of thoughtful scholars such as Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty has criticized dualism and put forward that the mind and body are in effect an integrated whole. Recently, Theories of embodied cognition are beginning to spread considerably in psychology and other cognitive sciences. Embodied cognition programme (ECP) take into account situational conditions, bodily states and sensory–motor simulation in the formation of cognitive processes. This brand-new viewpoints of embodied cognition hold that cognitive processes are deeply rooted in the body's interactions with the world. Cognition takes place not only in central system, but in the perceptual and motor systems and extended into environment. The categories we use to describe and explain the objective world have their origins in spatial and physical experience. Therefore, we should understand cognition in its direct interaction with the environment. The view that cognition is embodied means: (a) cognition is shaped by the physical attribute of our body. The abstract thought and complex emotional experiences are based on bodily and neuro-structure. Cognition is constrained by the specific kind of body we possess, and (b) there is a strong causal relationship between the nature of our sensory organs and motor functions , and our cognitive functioning. Our concepts are processed in close interaction with sensory-motor systems, and the cognitive representations are fundamentally grounded in brain’s modality-specific systems. (c) the cognition is grounded in brain, the brain in body, and body in environment. The mind extends beyond the boundaries of skull and skin into the world beyond. ECP has provided systematic evidences which have demonstrated the impossibility of the mind-body dualism, theoretically and experimentally. ECP emphasizes mind’s dependences on body and puts forward a holism of mind-body relationship. It shows that there will be no mental activity if there are no bodily structure and functioning. Human mind such as memory, thinking, emotion and personality can not be separated from the physical state of body and sensory-motor mechanism. ECP is rapidly gaining prominence in the world of cognitive science. At first, the discussion of embodied cognition was only a metaphysical thinking in phi

Key words: embodied cognition, mind-body relationship, psychology, dualism