Abstract: Motor representations live a kind of double life. Although they are paradigmatically involved in performing actions, they also occur in individuals who are not acting other than in observing others act and sometimes influence their thoughts about the goals of these actions. There is reason to suppose that these influences are content-respecting: what you think about an action sometimes depends in part on how that action is represented motorically in you. But the existence of such content-respecting influences is puzzling. After all, motor representations are inferentially isolated from thoughts. How could motor representations have content-respecting influences on thoughts despite their inferential isolation? The aim of the talk is to solve this puzzle . In so doing, I shall provide the basis for an account of how experience links the motoric with thought.
All welcome to attend.