Mind in Nature, Nature in Mind: a Reply to Ule

This article is a response to Ule’s ideas on the (im)possibility of naturalizing the mind. After providing a brief overview of some of the main inconsistencies in Ule’s account, I argue that a naturalistic explanation of the key feature of the mind as construed by Ule (“experiential perspectivity”) is, in fact, feasible, but only if it is complemented by an equally important shift in our conception of nature. The central part of the article consists of two steps. First, following the line of thought developed (predominantly) by Jonas and Varela, the article attempts to outline a route to the naturalization of “perspectivity” along the lines of the so-called autopoietic theory and the corresponding double dialectic of identity and sense making. Secondly, I emphasize that this is merely the first half of the story, and that the second element in Ule’s construal of the mind, “experientiality”, cannot be explained within the metaphysical framework of modern naturalism, but calls for a radical restructuring of our field of inquiry in terms of the fundamental circularity between lived experience and scientific endeavour. Thus, the process of the naturalization of life and mind needs to be reciprocated by the process of the phenomenologization of nature and reconceptualization of naturalism.