There are serious theoretical problems with the free-energy principle model, which are shown in the current article. We discuss the proposed model's inability to account for culturally emergent normativities, and point out the foundational issues that we claim this inability stems from.

In conceptualizing social robotics it is tempting to view the social dimension as simply an additional layer, overlaid upon the motility and autonomy of individual robots. This paper problematizes such an approach, arguing instead for treating the process of interaction interaction as, in a sense, prior to both individuality individuality and sociality. sociality After analyzing the notion of priority at work in claims of the form, “individuality is prior to sociality,” we turn to lacunae in enactivist approaches to sociality exemplified by the work of De Jaegher and Di Paolo. These, we argue, can only be overcome by means of an interdisciplinary appreciation of the problem of alterity alterity .

Kuhnian philosophy of science has established the existence of a social dimension within epistemology, but neo-Kuhnian accounts remain limited by linguistically centered conceptions of rationality and normativity. As an alternative, I use an embodied epistemology to reframe two neo-Kuhnian concepts: Fred D’Agostino’s (2010) federal model of enquiry and William Rehg’s (2009) immanent cogency. Both concepts are concerned, in part, with how scientific communities balance conservative and innovative impulses. By treating interaction as a fundamental frame of analysis, embodied epistemology offers a more nuanced perspective on this “essential tension,” while also blunting realist re-interpretations of each concept.