Affective Cognition: from Pragmatism to Somaesthetics

This article explores classical pragmatism's resources for contemporary cognitive science by focusing on the arguments that Peirce, James, and Dewey bring to show the diverse affective and aesthetic factors that crucially shape cognition. Making the case that affect further provides the motor for action (including the action involved in perception), we see that the 4E pragmatist picture of cognition as embodied, enactive, embedded, and extended should be enhanced to recognize cognition's essential affective and aesthetic dimensions. The article concludes by suggesting how the field of somaesthetics, which emerged from pragmatism and develops (in theory and practice) these six dimension of cognition, can contribute to contemporary cognitive research.