Codes of Praxis: How recursivity constitutes human social practices

The paper addresses a criticism raised by Kull (2020) against Code Biology. Kull’s critique targets key ontological and epistemological assumptions within Code Biology and, if valid, could effectively subordinate it to Peircean Biosemiotics. After examining the core of Kull’s argument, the paper counters a significant aspect of his claim: that cognition necessarily involves interpretation-driven decision-making, wherein an agent is always faced with at least two alternatives when acting upon the world. Drawing from radical cognitive science and general Code Biology, the paper argues that basic cognitive processes are devoid of mental content and, therefore, should not be described in mentalist terms such as ‘decision-making’ or ‘interpretation.’ In this connection, insights from phenomenological accounts of skill acquisition demonstrate that even sophisticated forms of human cognition can occur without explicit reasoning about alternatives. In such cases, the environment itself elicits skillful responses. Building on this, the paper introduces the concept of praxeological codes—codified relations characteristic of human socio-practical activity—which can be used to explain what Maturana identifies as the ‘recursivity’ of practical doings. In this connection, the paper provides an account of core aspects of human socio-practical behavior.