Juan Diego Bogotá Johnson

About me:

I am a PhD student working at the intersection between Philosophy and Cognitive Science. My research focuses on how the enactive approach to Cognitive Science and the so-called Free Energy Principle (and its related process theories, e.g., predictive processing) can be unified under a single approach to understanding cognition.

I did my BA in Philosophy at the National University of Colombia between 2011 and 2016, where I graduated writing a dissertation on how the Husserlian approach to intersubjectivity could inform discussions concerning social cognition. Then, I did my MA in Philosophy at the same university, where I had the opportunity to teach undergraduate modules on Philosophy of Mind, Phenomenology, and the Philosophy of Cognitive Science. I graduated from my MA programme with a dissertation on the role of affection and affectivity in cognition under the supervision of Juan José Botero. My thesis received a meritorious mention from its examiners. After a year and a half working at a university in Bogotá, Colombia, I started my PhD in Exeter.

My research interests are mainly Phenomenological Philosophy and the Philosophy of Cognitive Science (particularly, 4E cognition approaches).

My research revolves around how integrating the enactive approach and the so-called Free Energy Principle (and its related process theories such as active inference and predictive processing) could help us to understand some essential aspects of cognition. Namely, its intrinsic embodied, temporal, and affective aspects. Crucially, I understand cognition as a sense-making dynamic process that involves an organism's perspective over the world. That is the reason why I believe that our understanding of cognition must be phenomenologically grounded.

Overall, my research can be seen within the framework of proposals that try to naturalise phenomenology (i.e., the philosophical discipline founded by Edmund Husserl). However, I suggest that, in order to naturalise phenomenology, we must 'phenomenologise' our understanding of nature itself. This claim means that our conception of nature (from which the idea of 'naturalisation' derives) must be informed by phenomenology, mainly transcendental phenomenology.

In my thesis, I argue that, on the one hand, despite what some theorists argue, the Free Energy Principle does not say much about cognition by itself and, therefore, it must be complemented by a theory of what cognition is. Such a theory should do justice to the phenomenological aspects of cognition, meaning that any theory of cognition should take into account the perspective of cognitive agents. I argue that the enactive approach is the kind of theory of cognition that takes the phenomenology of cognition seriously, and therefore, it is the perfect complement for the Free Energy Principle. On the other hand, by interpreting the Free Energy Principle instrumentally (i.e., as nothing but a modeller's tool), I argue that it is suited for approaching an aspect that is essential to cognition that has been underdeveloped within the enactive literature, namely, its endogenous temporality. Therefore, enactivism should be complemented with the Free Energy Principle. Interestingly, such a temporality is both embodied and intrinsically related to affectivity.

Giovanna Colombetti and Sam Wilkinson.

In general, I am interested in the history of Phenomenology ever since its origins in the writings of Husserl and the possibility of applying it to different areas such as Cognitive Science, Anthropology, etc. I am particularly interested in how Phenomenology approaches embodiment, affectivity, and time-consciousness.

Within the Philosophy of Cognitive Science, I am mainly interested in 4E cognition approaches and how they invite us to rethink the concept of the mind apart from traditional metaphysical and epistemological assumptions.