Dances with dogs: interspecies play and a case for sympoietic enactivism

Abstract

I argue that an enactivist framework has more explanatory power than traditional philosophical theories of cognition when it comes to understanding the mechanisms underlying human-animal relationships. In both intraspecies and interspecies exchanges, what we often find are novel forms of cognition emerging from such transactions, but these "co-cognitive" processes cannot be understood apart from the interaction itself. I focus on a specific form of human-animal interaction-play, as it occurs between humans and domestic dogs-and argue that the best theory suited to the task of explaining how these two species create unique thought processes is a "sympoietic enactivism." Rather than the more common "autopoietic" arguments defended by many enactivists, I argue that what is more accurately occurring during bouts of human-dog play is sympoietic, or "collectively producing." Drawing on several different disciplines that converge on similar conclusions about creativity and collaboration, I show that human-dog play is a quintessential case of cognition that cannot be readily understood by appealing to the inner workings of either individual among the dyad. Thinking, on this view, is a form of play, and in playful interaction what gets created are wholly intersubjective modes of thought.

Keywords: Cognitive science; Dogs; Interspecies interactions; Philosophy; Play.