The Institute for Interactivist Studies

Mark H. Bickhard, Director

Lehigh University 

Bethlehem, PA

Interactivism is a metaphysical and theoretical approach to understanding phenomena of biology, mind, persons, and social reality. At the metaphysical level, it emphasizes a strict naturalism and a process metaphysics as essential to the understanding of emergence. Biological issues that have been addressed include the evolution of the biosphere and the nature and emergence of biological function. The term interactivism derives from the model of representation as emergent in interactive systems. This is a version of a pragmatist model, with kinship to Peirce and Piaget. Multiple phenomena of the mind and persons are addressed, including motivation, memory, learning, rationality, emotions, consciousness, sociality, language, ethics, and the emergence of social realities. These models have strong relevance for studies of central nervous system functioning and for the creation of artificial agents: cognitive robots.

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ISI 2017; Ohrid, Macedonia:

Interactivist Summer Institute 2017.

 

Join the Interactivism Forum, an email discussion group for people who are interested in the interactive model.

For a discussion of the broad nature of the Interactive Model, taken from the Interactivism Forum, click here.

Affiliates of the Institute.

Contact the Institute: interact at lehigh dot edu


http://www.lehigh.edu/~interact/index.html


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