Embodied mind

Abstract After taking note of the somatic turn, especially as it bears upon questions of iconicity, the author presents two apparently rival conceptions of mind. Both conceptions were put forth by C.S. Peirce and can be shown to be compatible. This allows the author to identify mind as an integrated network of myriad habits, rooted in the somatic constitution of a biological organism, but one of indefinite growth and open-ended reach. Mind so conceived is not imprisoned in its biological or cultural inheritance. What Winfried Nöth called “the iconic substratum of language” is interpreted here as one of the most important levels (or strata) of embodied mind. It helps to clarify the relationship between mind and consciousness. Our minds are not only symbolific (to use Susanne Langer’s word) but also iconific. Icons as signs of possibility play a central role in the dramatic self-transformations of embodied minds.