On Turing's carnal error: some guidelines for a contextual inquiry into the embodied mind

Abstract Mainstream cognitive science has usually adopted a disembodied conception of the mind, according to which we have a faculty of reason separate from our faculties of perception and bodily movement. In this paper, I present Lakoff and Johnson's elaborated theory of embodiment and criticize it for ignoring the cultural aspects as well as the recursive nature of the human mind. Finally, I present some guidelines for a contextual inquiry into the embodied mind by leaning on ideas from cybernetics and socio‐cultural psychology. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.