Making Sense of the 4E Cognition Turn in Mental Health Research

Abstract

Over the last years, 4E Cognition approaches have emerged in an attempt to overcome the limitations of neuro-reductionism about mental disorders, that is, the view that mental disorders can be fully explained as brain disorders. Instead, 4E approaches emphasize in varying degrees the situated, embodied, embedded, and enactive features of psychopathological conditions. Despite its growing popularity, the development of this alternative framework is not characterized by a distinguishable conceptual unity. This paper examines and classifies the main current 4E approaches to mental health, outlining their core commitments, differences, and implications. Two main strands are distinguished: strongly situated or extended views, comprising applications of the classical and social versions of the extended mind hypothesis, and strongly embodied and enactive views, involving applications of the so-called autopoietic enactivism. We examine the main claims of such approaches regarding two conceptual issues: i) the location problem, that is, whether mental disorders are predicable of individuals, social contexts, or the relation between them, and ii) the boundary problem, that is, how to distinguish psychopathology from non-pathological diversity such as cases of mere social deviance and the like. In the final section, we offer an overview of some of the main practical implications of the 4E turn in mental health research.