Embodied, enacted and experienced decision-making

Strle, Toma (author)

In this paper I will attempt to show that mainstream contemporary approaches to understanding and researching decision-making – endorsing the goals and core presuppositions of traditional cognitive science – provide a limited account of decision-making at best. Firstly, they falsely presuppose that decision-makers are mostly making some sort of calculation regarding objective states of a pregiven world, independent from decision-makers. Secondly, even though the majority of approaches admit subjectivity into the picture of decision-making, they mostly try to avoid it or objectify it. Thirdly, the interactive history of decision-makers with their environment and the role of the body are in large part left out of research designs and explanations of decision-making. Even though there has been a surge of proposals of embodying decision-making in recent years, they do not take the theses of embodied cognition far (or seriously) enough (at least from the perspective of the enactivist view of embodied cognition) – they, for instance, do not take the lived (experienced) body, experience of decision-makers, or sense-making as central to decision-making. Borrowing and extending the ideas from (neuro)phenomenology and enactivism, I will argue that decision-making is best understood from the perspective of what sense and meaning situations, decisions, and the process of decision-making have from and in the (experiential) perspective of decision-makers. As a consequence, I will further claim that decision-making science must begin researching the experience of decision-makers rigorously and systematically if it is to understand the phenomenon in a less limited and a more meaningful way.

• Language: English
• Keywords: decision-making, cognition, experience, phenomenology, neurophenomenology
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: PEF - Faculty of Education
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2016
• Number of pages: Str. 83-107
• Numbering: Letn. 25, št. 98/99
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-88360
• UDC: 165
• ISSN on article: 1318-3362
• COBISS.SI-ID: 513568386

Copyright

Podatek o licenci CC BY 4.0 je naveden na pristajalni strani članka (glej zgoraj izvorni URL). (Datum opombe: 20. 8. 2025)

Note

Izvlečka sta objavljena v isti številki revije na str. 247–248. (Datum opombe: 20. 8. 2025)

• Publication date in RUL: 31.08.2017

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Phainomena : revija za fenomenologijo in hermenevtiko
• Shortened title: Phainomena
• Publisher: Inštitut Nove revije – Zavod za humanistiko, Phainomena – Fenomenološko društvo v Ljubljani
• ISSN: 1318-3362
• COBISS.SI-ID: 29705216

Licences

• License: CC BY 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Description: This is the standard Creative Commons license that gives others maximum freedom to do what they want with the work as long as they credit the author.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian

Abstract

V članku bom poskusil pokazati, da prevladujoči sodobni pristopi k razumevanju in raziskovanju odločanja, sprejemajoč osnovne cilje in predpostavke klasične kognitivne znanosti, v najboljšem primeru podajajo omejen vpogled v preučevani fenomen. Prvič, napačno predpostavljajo, da odločanje poteka predvsem kot nekakšno preračunavanje z objektivnimi stanji zunanjega, od odločevalcev neodvisnega sveta. Drugič, čeprav v “podobo odločanja” pripuščajo subjektivnost, se ji večinoma poskušajo izogniti ali jo objektivirati. Tretjič, interaktivna zgodovina odločevalcev z lastnim okoljem in vloga telesa sta v sodobnih pristopih k raziskovanju odločanja v večji meri izpuščena iz raziskovalnih načrtov in razlag odločanja. Čeprav je v zadnjih letih opaziti porast predlogov, kako utelesiti odločanje, pa ti tez utelešene kognicije ne pripeljejo dovolj daleč oz. jih ne jemljejo dovolj resno (vsaj z vidika enaktivističnega pojmovanja utelešene kognicije): odločanja na primer ne koncipirajo kot dejavnosti opomenjanja, telesa ne pojmujejo kot tudi živete (izkustvene) strukture, ne preučujejo izkustva odločevalcev itd. Sledeč nekaterim idejam enaktivizma in (nevro)fenomenologije bom trdil, da je odločanje bolj smiselno razumeti z vidika smisla in pomena, ki ga imajo situacije, odločitve in proces odločanja iz in v (izkustveni) perspektivi odločevalcev. Posledično bom nadalje trdil, da mora znanost o odločanju, če želi preučevani fenomen razumeti na bolj smiseln in manj omejen način, začeti sistematično in temeljito raziskovati (tudi) izkustvo odločevalcev.

• Keywords: odločanje, kognicija, izkustvo, fenomenologija, nevrofenomenologija