ABSTRACT
Embodied cognition is often presented as an alternative or challenger or “next step in the evolution of” standard cognitive science. The aim of this book, broadly, is to introduce and develop the central themes of embodied cognition. A secondary goal is to build on this discussion so as to assess more accurately the relationship between embodied cognition and standard cognitive science.1 Those not familiar with standard cognitive science are unlikely to appreciate the significance of this goal, but significant it is. At stake in the debate between proponents of embodied cognition and standard cognitive science are nothing less than profound and entrenched ideas about what we are – about what it means to be a thinking thing. Simply put, whether minds are as standard cognitive science describes them, or are instead embodied in ways yet to be explicated, matters to our understanding of who and what we are.
