Philosophy of Mind and Neuroscience. The Case of the Default Mode Network
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.4396/2025SFL13Keywords:
default mode network, embodied cognition, embodied semantic, embodied abstractionAbstract
This paper addresses contemporary discussions in philosophy of mind and neuroscience concerning the Embodied Cognition (EC) framework, particularly examining the role of bodily and embodied cognitive processes in shaping linguistic knowledge. It outlines three primary positions regarding semantic embodiment: 1) the Classical Embodied Semantics (ES), which posits that concepts are fully grounded in sensory and motor representations; 2) the Embodied Abstraction (EA), supported by neuroscientific evidence (e.g., fMRI studies), indicating motor-area activations even during metaphor comprehension, thereby suggesting specialized functional networks capable of context-dependent abstraction; 3) Radical Enactivism (the Linguistic Bodies Thesis), asserting linguistic embodiment as a socially and personally navigated process, independent of specific biological or neural mechanisms. This position explicitly rejects cerebral embodiment, placing it in direct conflict with classical EC perspectives, neuroscience, and cognitive science. The discussion highlights theoretical contrasts and implications of these positions in the broader interdisciplinary dialogue. On the contrary, both embodied semantics and embodied abstraction have co-evolved with clearly identifiable neural structures: the former in mirror neurons and the latter in the Default Mode Network (DMN). The functional roles of this latter structure will be discussed extensively in §.3. The argument here is that these two approaches are fully complementary, and their unified interpretation is essential for contemporary philosophy of language.
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