Dewey on the Reflex Arc and the Dawn of the Dynamical Approach to the Study of Cognition

Abstract

I assess the relevance of John Dewey's well-known article, The reflex arc concept in psychology, for a historical revision of the emergence of the recent embodied approach in the cognitive sciences. In particular, I try to identify its specific contribution in the shift from Dewey?s conceptual analysis to the way in which during the last years certain research programs have developed their methodological profile and put it down to work in the experimental and modeling practices. My hypothesis is that, under a certain interpretation, Dewey's article plays the role of the main intellectual precursor in the development of embodied cognitive science and, specifically, the related dynamical approach.