Setting the bar for cognitive agency: Or, how minimally autonomous can an autonomous agent be?

Embodied cognition comes in many variants. Yet, in most if not all of these variants the notion of agency, or more precisely autonomous agency, occupies center stage. However, whereas in its original context of application autonomy applies strictly to the human sphere, cognitive theory must needs generalize this concept so as to render it applicable to a much wider range of entities and processes. Theorists of embodied cognition must therefore strive to articulate a valid sense of minimal autonomy applicable to animals and, arguably, to artificial agents as well. In this paper I discuss two major attempts to articulate a conception of minimal autonomy which I describe, respectively, as the adaptive-behavior approach (ABA) and the systemic-constructivist approach (SCA). The differences between these two leading views on minimal autonomy reveal fundamental disagreements not only with respect to the nature of autonomous agency but also with respect to embodiment and the relevance of biological life to the making of mental life.