Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Enaction (philosophy)


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was No consensus. There seems to be disagreement here about deleting/redirecting the article, although everybody seems to accept that the subject is notable. Whether 1,2, 3, or more articles are necessary is not really a question for AfD. I suggest that the editors involved continue their discussion on the respective talk pages, whether or not this article should be redirected elsewhere can be discussed there. If necessary input from uninvolved other editors should be sought if a consensus cannot be obtained. Randykitty (talk) 14:24, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

Enaction (philosophy)

 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

A second new article Extended cognition has been created which covers the material by the same editor who also nominated this for deletion. Material is better handled either in Enaction or in the new article -- Snowded TALK 11:36, 10 April 2014 (UTC)


 * No.. The topic of 'enaction' of this article is a specialized sub topic of the understanding of 'mind". Philosophers have contributed a lot to the topic, but it includes other fields too, notably neuroscience and psychology, and cognitive science. So a better title might be possible, suggesting a move of this material if a better name can be agreed upon. Perhaps it could be renamed Enactive cognition? (Enactive, embedded, extended, embodied all are aspects of cognition, and embodied cognition and extended cognition already exist). It also has a lot in common with Situated cognition, although that article is more focused upon application to educational methodologies.
 * This proposal for deletion suggests extended cognition could absorb enaction. However, to date, there is no agreement about this, and the word 'extended' is less apt than 'enacted'.
 * Until greater clarity is reached, deletion is not a good idea. That dawning of the light probably is not going to happen soon, and deletion of this content will introduce a gap in coverage on WP if this content is lost. It would be more desirable than deletion to arrive at a better name for the topic. Brews ohare (talk) 15:35, 10 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Philosophy-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 16:08, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

I agree with Brews, that it would be a loss to readers if this article were deleted. Not sure that it should be renamed though, as Enactive cognition would cover more than philosophy, e.g. biology, psychology, etc. Maybe we need an article like that. However, I think there is enough material to consider the philosophical aspects of enaction in e.g. perception, anti-representationalism, and the various critiques of the enactive approach from established philosophers.

The page has suffered from premature reversions, and needs time to recover. I favour trying to improve what others have written, rather than dismissing their thoughts. Most posts have something useful to say.

TonyClarke (talk) 00:52, 11 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Comment/Question: I don't think this is intended as a referendum on the material itself. Brews created a new article but kept this one too... We want to avoid a WP:POVFORK so the question is: Does Enaction/Enactivism mean something different in philosophy than it does psychology?—Machine Elf 1735  14:52, 11 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Comment/Question: Machine Elf expresses it well. The content as it stands is fine, but it now appears in two possibly three places  Snowded  TALK 15:41, 11 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Comment: I think Extended cognition is a misnomer for its present content.  On the other hand, Enaction (philosophy) is a pretty good title for its present content. As Tony points out Enactive cognition would allow a wider treatment than just philosophy, but maybe such a change could be considered later when we find out how much of a straight-jacket the limitation to philosophy is. A peripheral issue is that the proper title for a broader article on 'mind and cognition' has yet to be identified. That article should provide an overview of the E′s, linking existing articles on each of them like Embodied cognition, but that article would not be entirely a philosophy article, but also would contain material related to neuropsychology, cultural psychology, and possibly even stuff about artificial intelligence (maybe Affective computing?), and situated cognition. However, for the purposes here of a deletion discussion of Enaction (philosophy), an article in flux, TonyClarke's position is sensible. Brews ohare (talk) 16:41, 11 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Redirect to Enaction Enactivism* per WP:POVFORK, but save the edit history for it's relevance to the numerous discussions.—Machine Elf 1735  17:07, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I'd happily agree a redirection, then if philosophical use expands we can look at an article again.  IN practice I think Philosophy is moving to the wider issue of distributed consciousness and enaction will be a small part of that but only time will tell  Snowded  TALK 09:54, 12 April 2014 (UTC)
 * No, on redirection to Enaction: At the moment, Enaction contains the subsection Enaction in the philosophy of Mind. Its first sentence does not define this subject, but instead is about psychology. Its second sentence is technical jargon not understandable to anyone but its author. Until this subsection is modified to provide an adequate definition and explanation, a redirect is worse than useless. Brews ohare (talk) 16:10, 12 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Question: Brews you've proded it twice yourself, so you agree in principle to a redirect?—Machine Elf 1735  18:21, 12 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Hi MachineElf: I suggested Enaction (philosophy) be replaced by Extended cognition because that is (as Tony pointed out) a topic larger than philosophy, and it's my opinion that treating the topic more broadly would be a better approach. However, the article Enaction is not suitable for a redirect as it stands, for reasons given, and Extended cognition doesn't appear to be what I thought it would become, so that won't work either. So my recommendation would be to write a stronger subsection Enaction in the philosophy of Mind in 'Enaction' and if that can be done (my uncertainties revolve around Snowded) then a redirect could be made. Brews ohare (talk) 20:49, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

I don't think this page should be deleted, renamed or redirected. There has been continued conflicts between the two main contributors, conflicts which are replicas of other conflicts between these two contributors on other entries. But that doesn't mean the page is invalid. I have done some foundational work, and was planning to further develop it. It is a valid subject in itself, so it should be kept. This uncertainty is caused by personal differences which need to be reconciled, or avoided, rather than deleting a page because of it. Get real, guys. TonyClarke (talk) 22:22, 12 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Tony if you are prepared to make a real article of it fine, but if its just another coatrack (which it was when created) that is a different matter. And opposing OR is not a personal difference, get real please  Snowded  TALK 22:53, 12 April 2014 (UTC)


 * I also support your effort to take this page somewhere. Let's can this deletion proposal for now. Brews ohare (talk) 05:13, 13 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Move to new title: It appears form the sources cited that Enaction (philosophy) while of interest to philosophers contains a lot of material more appropriate to psychology, including neuropsychology and cultural psychology. For example, various theories of perception are described that belong in a lab, not a philosophy armchair. To give adequate scope to this material it should be moved to a more general topic name, perhaps Enactive cognition, a parallel to Embodied cognition. Brews ohare (talk) 18:52, 16 April 2014 (UTC)


 * I agree it needs to be moved but (i) the divisions between psychology and philosophy of mind are very blurred in particular how to interpret lab results. We also have people such as Freeman who happily occupy both worlds and there are others.   The various Es are significant in modern philosophy and need treatment.   Proposals to create a summary of article on that seem to be falling on deaf ears.  We have an article on enaction, created one on inactive cognition would be a coat rack.   What this discussion is showing is the need for a general agreement on the overall structure of how we treat this in philosophy and you charging around creating new articles with loose assemblies of quotations is not helping that.   Snowded  TALK 11:11, 17 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Your view of my "charging around" is your excuse for not engaging. You have turned your nose up at every suggestion, always proposing some distant day when you will descend from the mountain with your tablets. Brews ohare (talk) 16:13, 17 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Does your suggestion address my WP:POVFORK concern? There are cases were we want separate articles, Zombie and Zombie (Philosophical), for example, but this isn't one of them.—Machine Elf 1735  18:37, 17 April 2014 (UTC)
 * MachineElf: It looks like the article involved in a fork is Enactivism, which also refers to Varela et al. Could you look at that and comment? Brews ohare (talk) 00:05, 18 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Agreed, redirecting there would be good.—Machine Elf 1735  00:24, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

The lede of Enactivism refers to interaction wiht the environment, as does Enaction (philosophy). It had its last major addition a year ago. This paper by Rowlands describes enactivism in a way that doesn't seem different from enaction to me. This anthology appears to use the two terms interchangeably. However, the WP article does not cover all the material under consideration for Enaction (philosophy). Should a rewrite of Enactivism be discussed here and now, before making a redirect? Brews ohare (talk) 02:04, 18 April 2014 (UTC)


 * You'd need to keep arguing about the material under consideration on Talk:Enactivism but I don't think an AfD can wait that long... Be WP:BOLD.—Machine Elf 1735  03:07, 18 April 2014 (UTC)
 * What I mean to say is go ahead and try a merger which should suffice to carry on the lively discussion there...—Machine Elf 1735  03:25, 18 April 2014 (UTC)


 * MachineElf: Although your plan is one way to go, I don't think I am the right one to do it, as it would be taken as a hostile act. I think I will suggest some changes to Enactivism first, and see how they are received. That may make a redirect a more obvious choice. What do you think of that? Brews ohare (talk) 03:46, 18 April 2014 (UTC)


 * I'll support a redirect, but exercise caution in changes to Enactivism Snowded  TALK 04:21, 18 April 2014 (UTC)


 * I don't know about "hostile" but I'm sure WP:CITEVAR will be prosecuted with extreme prejudice.—<span style="text-shadow:#00FADE 0.05em 0.05em 0.07em;white-space: nowrap;font-family: Fraktur, Mathematica6, Georgia, sans-serif">Machine Elf <sup style="font-size:75%;font-family: Georgia, sans-serif">1735  04:37, 18 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Yeah, and we better look to personal hygiene too, eh? Let's focus on the important stuff. Brews ohare (talk) 04:54, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

Enaction is a broad, interdisciplinary and emerging paradigm. It applies in biology, psychology, cognitive studies, robotics and many other areas. Given the traditional and strong interests of philosophy in cognition (e.g. perception, reasoning, logic, ethics, illusions v reality etc.) then I think it is important that we spell out the important role of enaction as seen in philosophy. It is developing as a huge and important field, and we don't want to bury away our work in some side alley of another article. We need to put redirects to this article, not from it. My humble opinion. TonyClarke (talk) 12:57, 18 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Tony: As you note, "Enaction is a broad, interdisciplinary and emerging paradigm. It applies in biology, psychology, cognitive studies, robotics and many other areas." The article Enactivism appears broad enough to include all these aspects. The philosophical aspects of Enaction (philosophy) are a subset of Enactivism, and quite possibly warrant a separate article. However, at this juncture Snowded has not participated in contributing material about post-Cartesian thought, he has deleted reference to Husserl, made inaccurate statements about Kant, and taken other steps to marginalize this article. If it is to be retained, the philosophical developments need to find their way into the article, and the aspects belonging to "biology, psychology, cognitive studies, robotics and many other areas" should be referred to where they provide examples for the philosophical developments, but otherwise be downplayed and left to Enactivism. Brews ohare (talk) 13:52, 18 April 2014 (UTC)
 * In this connection, the philosophical aspects in Enactivism could be brought to a focus and summarized in a subsection listing Enaction (philosophy) as the Main article. Brews ohare (talk) 13:58, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

<hr style="width:55%;" />

That sounds a good way forward Brews. I've never worked on an article where the conflicts between editors are so pronounced, personal and dominating the real business, which is to have useful information available to readers. I am exasperated at the apparent lack of agreement or even compromise between editors here, which appears to have become personal, and works against the principles of Wikipedia. TonyClarke (talk) 17:23, 18 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Tony: If you haven't seen this kind of thing before on WP, you've had a charmed life. Glad you see this proposal of two articles as a way forward. You will have to do the heavy lifting at Enaction (philosophy), but I'll try to help out. Brews ohare (talk) 20:08, 18 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.


 * Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Randykitty (talk) 14:07, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

<hr style="width:55%;" />
 * No: Eventually it may turn out that Enaction (philosophy) is a good treatment of the philosophical issues related to Enactivism. At the moment, both articles are in flux, and it is impossible to arrive at a sensible decision on deletion right now. The deletion discussion should be terminated until things have developed further. Brews ohare (talk) 14:37, 18 April 2014 (UTC)
 * And by "No" you mean you've already started the merge.—<span style="text-shadow:#00FADE 0.05em 0.05em 0.07em;white-space: nowrap;font-family: Fraktur, Mathematica6, Georgia, sans-serif">Machine Elf <sup style="font-size:75%;font-family: Georgia, sans-serif">1735  15:11, 18 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Not at all: my position is that Enactivism will develop (future tense) into a general article that includes biology, psychology, neuroscience, cultural psychology, sociology, and so forth, while Enaction (philosophy) will develop (future tense) into an article on (among other things) post-Cartesian theories of mind. But right now deletion or redirection is beyond our capacity for judgment, requiring a crystal ball, and maybe even the cooperation of Snowded. Brews ohare (talk) 15:58, 18 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Move to draft it's in flux and if settles to something sane it can come back; if it doesn't settle to something sane it can die a natural death. Stuartyeates (talk) 05:11, 21 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Brews has nominated WP:Articles_for_deletion/Enaction for deletion.—<span style="text-shadow:#00FADE 0.05em 0.05em 0.07em;white-space: nowrap;font-family: Fraktur, Mathematica6, Georgia, sans-serif">Machine Elf <sup style="font-size:75%;font-family: Georgia, sans-serif">1735  20:10, 26 April 2014 (UTC)
 * The merge to Enactivism has been completed, please redirect there.—<span style="text-shadow:#00FADE 0.05em 0.05em 0.07em;white-space: nowrap;font-family: Fraktur, Mathematica6, Georgia, sans-serif">Machine Elf <sup style="font-size:75%;font-family: Georgia, sans-serif">1735  05:37, 27 April 2014 (UTC)
 * MachineElf has confused the two articles Enaction and Enaction (philosophy). The transfer of material from Enaction to Enactive interfaces and Enactivism is complete and Enaction has been nominated for deletion. The situation of Enaction (philosophy) is as yet undecided. Brews ohare (talk) 15:46, 27 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Don't lie.—<span style="text-shadow:#00FADE 0.05em 0.05em 0.07em;white-space: nowrap;font-family: Fraktur, Mathematica6, Georgia, sans-serif">Machine Elf <sup style="font-size:75%;font-family: Georgia, sans-serif">1735  16:30, 27 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Accusing me of lying is over the top, don't you think? Brews ohare (talk) 23:56, 27 April 2014 (UTC)
 * No, it's exactly what you've done.—<span style="text-shadow:#00FADE 0.05em 0.05em 0.07em;white-space: nowrap;font-family: Fraktur, Mathematica6, Georgia, sans-serif">Machine Elf <sup style="font-size:75%;font-family: Georgia, sans-serif">1735  00:19, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
 * You are trying to create a new WP:POVFORK with the completed merge target (Enactivism) by nominating Enaction for deletion while you insist on keeping your own new version of the article.—<span style="text-shadow:#00FADE 0.05em 0.05em 0.07em;white-space: nowrap;font-family: Fraktur, Mathematica6, Georgia, sans-serif">Machine Elf <sup style="font-size:75%;font-family: Georgia, sans-serif">1735  18:08, 27 April 2014 (UTC)—<span style="text-shadow:#00FADE 0.05em 0.05em 0.07em;white-space: nowrap;font-family: Fraktur, Mathematica6, Georgia, sans-serif">Machine Elf <sup style="font-size:75%;font-family: Georgia, sans-serif">1735   18:16, 27 April 2014 (UTC)
 * There is no POV fork involved here. The present article Enaction was moved to Enactive interfaces and when Enaction is deleted the only enaction article will be Enaction (philosophy), which is supposed to be all about philosophy. Brews ohare (talk) 23:56, 27 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Brews, you can't avoid the WP:POVFORK by nominating the original article for deletion. You're just creating your own versions of articles and trying to swap them out for the originals. You did not move Enaction to Enactive interfaces. You created a new article called Enactive interfaces and nominated Enaction for deletion.—<span style="text-shadow:#00FADE 0.05em 0.05em 0.07em;white-space: nowrap;font-family: Fraktur, Mathematica6, Georgia, sans-serif">Machine Elf <sup style="font-size:75%;font-family: Georgia, sans-serif">1735  00:19, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Distinction with no difference. The material from Enaction was copied to the new page Enactive interfaces and Enaction, now redundant, proposed for deletion. Because some of the material in Enaction belonged in Enactivism, a simple move to Enactive interfaces didn't accomplish the desired result, and some changes in organization were needed as well, that a simple move could not accomplish. I have no idea why you find it important as to how the end result was obtained.
 * Somehow you are trying to suggest some evil motive behind all this activity, which was simply the implementation (by your request to me) of a consensus between yourself, myself, Bob K, and Snowded. Brews ohare (talk) 16:02, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Melodramatic nonsense Brews. There's a button on the top of screen to move a page. It's very simple and you choose not to do that. You choose to delete Enaction instead because you want to keep your WP:POVFORK.—<span style="text-shadow:#00FADE 0.05em 0.05em 0.07em;white-space: nowrap;font-family: Fraktur, Mathematica6, Georgia, sans-serif">Machine Elf <sup style="font-size:75%;font-family: Georgia, sans-serif">1735  16:17, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.