Anthony Chemero

Anthony Chemero is Professor of Philosophy and Connected Computing at Vanderbilt University. Before this, he was Distinguished Research Professor of Philosophy and Psychology at the University of Cincinnati. He also served as a primary member of the Center for Cognition, Action, and Perception (CAP) and the Strange Tools Research Lab (STRL).

Chemero's research is both philosophical and empirical, with a focus on nonlinear dynamical modeling, ecological psychology, complex systems, phenomenology, and social cognition. He is the author of more than 100 articles and the books Intertwined Creatures: The Embodied Cognitive Science of Self and Other (2026, Columbia University Press), Radical Embodied Cognitive Science (2009, MIT Press), and Phenomenology: An introduction (2015/2023, Polity; with Stephan Käufer ). His first book was a finalist for the Lakatos Prize for Philosophy of Science.

He has recently received the Richard M. Shiffrin Distinguished Alumni Award from Indiana University (2026), The Graduate Student Mentor Award from Student Success at the University of Cincinnati (2026), the Rieveschl Award for Creative/Scholarly Activity (2022), and the University Distinguished Research Award, the Latino Faculty Association Excellence in Research Award (2019).

Chemero received his Ph.D. in philosophy and cognitive science from Indiana University in 1999. From then until 2012, he taught at Franklin & Marshall College (F&M), where he was Professor of Psychology. He then taught as Distinguished Research Professor of Philosophy and Psychology at the University of Cincinnati. In the Fall of 2026, Chemero became Professor of Philosophy and Connected Computing at Vanderbilt University.

Publications

Books Chemero, A. (2026). Intertwined Creatures: The Embodied Cognitive Science of Self and Other. Columbia University Press Kaufer, Stephan and A. Chemero. (2015) Phenomenology: An Introduction 2nd ed., Wiley Chemero, A. (2009). Radical embodied cognitive science. MIT Press. M. Heras Escribano and A. Chemero, (eds.) (2026). Selected Writings of Edward S. Reed, Routledge. Di Paolo, E. A., Chemero, A., Heras-Escribano, M., McGann, M., (eds.) (2021). Enaction and Ecological Psychology: Convergences and Complementarities. Frontiers Media SA.

Articles E. Baggs, G. Sanches de Oliviera, M. Segundo-Ortin, P. Silva, V. Raja and A. Chemero, “Affordances are for life (and not just for maximizing reproductive fitness)”, 2026, Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

T. Wilkinson* and A. Chemero, “Direct perception, phenomenology, and the myth of the given”, Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 2025.

M. Gastelum, A. Chemero, and V. Raja, “Places for reasoning”, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 2024. A. Chemero, “LLMs differ from human cognition because they are not embodied”, Nature Human Behavior, 2023, https://rdcu.be/drzoz. A. Chemero, “Abduction and Deduction in Dynamical Cognitive Science”, Topics in Cognitive Science, 2023. R. Benevides*, E. Feiten*, and A. Chemero, “Life after “Life after Kant””, Journal of Consciousness Studies, Special Issue on Francisco Varela, 2023 E. Feiten*, Z. Peck*, K. Holland, and A. Chemero, “Constructive constraints: On the role of chance and complexity in artistic creativity”, Possibility Studies and Society, 2023. V. Raja, E. Baggs, A. Chemero, and M. Anderson, “The free-energy principle: Trick or treat?”, Physics of Life Reviews, 44, 153-159. S. Musca and A. Chemero, “Word frequency effects found in free recall are explained by Bayesian surprisal”, Frontiers in Psychology, August 2022. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.940950/full V. Raja, E. Baggs, A. Chemero, & M. Anderson, “The emperor has no blanket!”, Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 2022. A. Buccella* and A. Chemero, “Reconsidering perceptual constancy”, Philosophical Psychology, 2022. J. McKinney*, S. Steffensen, and A. Chemero, “Practice, enactivism, and ecological psychology”, Adaptive Behavior, 2022 E. Feiten*, K. Holland, and A. Chemero, “Scalar symmetries and strange tools: Learning analytics and embodied design as techno-cultural confluence”, International Journal of Child-Computer Interaction, 31, 2022, 100452. L. Favela, M. Amon, L. Lobo, and A. Chemero, “Empirical Evidence for Extended Cognitive Systems”, Cognitive Science,45, 2021, https://doi.org/10.1111/cogs.13060 V. Raja, D. Villuri, E. Baggs, A. Chemero, and M. Anderson, The Markov blanket trick: On the scope of the free energy principle and active inference”, target article with commentary, Physics of Life Reviews, 2021. L. Cecutti*, A. Chemero, and S. Lee, “Technology may change cognition without necessarily harming it, Nature Human Behavior, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-021-01162-0 J. Sung*, O. Harris*, N. Hensley*, A. Chemero, N. Morehouse, “Beyond cognitive templates”, Integrative and Comparative Biology, 2021. T. Feiten*, K.Holland, and A.Chemero, “Doing Philosophy with a Water-Lance: Art and the Future of Embodied Cognition”, Adaptive Behavior, 2021.   P. Nalepka, P. Silva, R. Kallen, K. Shockley, A. Chemero, E. Saltzman, M. Richardson, “Task dynamics define the contextual emergence of human corralling behavior”, PLOSOne, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0260046, 2021. M. McGann, E. Di Paolo, M. Heras-Escribano, and A. Chemero, “Enaction and Ecological Psychology: Convergences and Complementarities”, Frontiers in Psychology, 11:617898. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.617898, 2020 P. Antoniadis and A. Chemero, “Playing without mental representations: embodied navigation and the GesTCom as a case study for radical embodied cognition in piano performance”, Journal of Interdisciplinary Music Studies, 2021. V.  Raja and A. Chemero, “In defense of impropriety” (Commentary on Heras-Escribano), Constructivist Foundations, 15, 213-2162, 2020 T. Feiten*, K. Holland and A. Chemero, “Worlds Apart? Reassessing von Uexküll's Umwelt in Embodied Cognition with Canguilhem, Merleau-Ponty, and Deleuze”, Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy, Special issue on enactivism and French philosophy, 20,1-27, 2020 E. Baggs and A. Chemero, “Thinking with other minds” (Commentary on Vessiere et al), Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 43, 24-25, 2020. G. Sanches de Oliveira*, V. Raja*, and A. Chemero, “Radical embodied cognitive science and ‘real thinking’, Synthese, 2019, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-019-02475-4   P. Nalepka*, M. Lamb, R. Kallen, K. Shockley, A. Chemero, E. Saltzman, and M. Richardson, “Employing human social-motor for robust human-machine interaction: A dyadic shepherding example”, Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences of the United States of America, 2019, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1813164116   A. Corris* and A. Chemero, “A second-order intervention,” Philosophical Studies, 176, 819-826, 2019. A. Corris* and A. Chemero, “The broad scope of enactivism,” Adaptive Behavior, 2019, https://doi.org/10.1177/1059712319843268. P. Nordbeck*, L. Soter*, E. Beckman*, J. Viklund*, R. Kallen, M. Richardson, and A. Chemero, “Effects of task constraints on action dynamics”, Cognitive Systems Research, 2019 doi: 10.1016/j.cogsys.2019.02.003. L. Lobo*, P. Nordbeck*, V. Raja*, A. Chemero, M. Riley, D. Jacobs, and D. Travieso, “Route selection and obstacle avoidance with a short-range haptic sensory substitution device”, International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhcs.2019.03.004 E. Baggs and A. Chemero, “Radical embodiment in two directions”, Synthese, 2018, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-018-02020-9. C. Riehm,* A. Chemero, P. Silva, and K. Shockley, “Virtual Auditory Aperture Passability”, Experimental Brain Research,https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-018-5407-z, 2018. C.  Coey*, R.Kallen, A. Chemero, and M. Richardson, “Exploring complexity matching and asynchrony dynamics in synchronized and syncopated task performances, Human Movement Science, 62, 81104, 2018 D.  van der Schiff, A. Schiavio, A. Walton*, V. Velardo, and A. Chemero, “Musical creativity and the embodied mind: Exploring the possibilities of 4E cognition and dynamical systems theory”, Music and Science,https://doi.org/10.1177/2059204318792319, 2018. L. Favela*, M. Riley, K. Shockley & A. Chemero. “Perceptually Equivalent Judgments made Visually and via Haptic Sensory-Substitution Devices”, Ecological Psychology, DOI: 10.1080/10407413.2018.1473712, 2018. J. Bruineberg*, A. Chemero, E. Rietveld, “General ecological information supports engagement with affordances for ‘higher’ cognition”, Synthese, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-018-1716-9, 2018. A. Walton*, A. Washburn*, P. Langland-Hassan, A. Chemero, H. Kloos, and M. Richardson, “Creating time: Social collaboration in music improvisation”, Topics in Cognitive Science, 10, 95-119, 10.1111/tops.12306, 2018. C. Baber, A. Chemero, and J. Hall, “What the jeweller’s hand tells the jeweller’s brain: Tool use, creativity, and embodied cognition”, Philosophy and Technology, https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-0170292-0, 2018. V. Raja*, Z. Biener & A. Chemero, “From Kepler to Gibson”, Ecological Psychology, 29, 146-160, 2017. L. Favela* and A. Chemero, “An ecological account of visual illusions”, Florida Philosophical Review, 16, 6893, 2017. P. Nalepka*, R. Kallen, E. Saltzman. A. Chemero, and M. Richardson, “Emergent multiagent coordination and behavioral mode switching”, Psychological Science, 28, 630-650, 2017. D. Dotov, L. Nie*, K. Wojcik*, A. Jinks*, X. Yu*, and A. Chemero, “Cognitive and movement measures reflect the transition to presence-at-hand”, New Ideas in Psychology, 45, 1-10, 2017. A. Chemero, “Sensorimotor Empathy”, Journal of Consciousness Studies, 23, 5-6, 138-152, 2016. G. Sanches de Oliveira* and A. Chemero, “Against smallism and localism”, Special issue of Logic, Grammar, and Rhetoric on Thinking with Hands, Eyes, and Things, 41, 9-24, 2015. A. Chemero, “The world at the end of the cane”, The Philosophers’ Magazine, 68, 1, 84-87, 2015.   M. Silberstein and A. Chemero, “Extending neutral monism to the hard problem”, Journal of Consciousness Studies, 22, 181-194, 2015. M. Silberstein and A. Chemero, “Consciousness unbound: Going beyond the brain”, Journal of Consciousness Studies, 22, 6-15, 2015 A. Walton*, M. Richardson, P. Langland-Hassan, and A. Chemero, “Improvisation and the self-organization of multiple musical bodies”, Frontiers in Psychology, doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00313, 2015. A. Chemero, “Antyreprezentacjonizm i nastawienie dynamicizne”, Przegląd-filozoficzno-literacki, 2, 79107, 2014.  (Polish translation of “Anti-representationalism and the dynamical stance” for special issue on “Classic Papers on Representation”.  Translated by P. Gładziejewski.)   A. Walton*, M. Richardson, and A. Chemero, “Self-organization and Semiosis in Jazz Improvisation”, International Journal of Signs and Semiosis, 3, 12-25, 2014. M. Silberstein and A. Chemero, “Constraints on Localization and Decomposition as Explanatory Strategies in the Biological Sciences”, Philosophy of Science, 80, 958-970, 2013. J. Martin* and A. Chemero, “The Ghost and the Machine”, Intellectica, 60, 251-261, 2013. A. Chemero, “Radical embodied cognitive science”, for “Unifying Psychology”, special issue of Review of General Psychology, 17, 145-150, 2013. M. Lamb* and A. Chemero, “Interaction-Dominant Dynamics and Extended Embodiment”, Constructivist Foundations, 9, 88-89, 2013. M. Anderson and A. Chemero, “The problem with brain GUTS”, Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 36, 204-5, 2013. L.    Favela* and A. Chemero, “The value of affordances”, Religion, Brain, and Behavior, DOI: 10.1080/2153599X.2013.816343, 2013. M.  Anderson, M. Richardson, and A. Chemero, “Eroding the boundaries of cognition: Implications of embodiment”, Topics in Cognitive Science, 4, 717-730, 2012.