Table of Contents

Introduction

1. Reflections on Ecological Psychology: An interview with Harry Heft

2. The social constitution of ecological psychology in the Netherlands

3. Contrary imaginations: Radical Empiricism or Pragmatism?

4. Perception and problem solving

5. Conceiving the environment from a developmental perspective: Revisiting Roger G. Barker’s comparison of Bobby Bryant and Raymond Birch

6. Agency in behavior settings: A mindshaping perspective on ecological psychology

7. Behavior settings, enabling constraints, and the naturalization of social norms

8. Values, affordances, and agency: Giving Heft to ecological accounts

9. Young people’s responses to the Earth’s affordances of regeneration

10. Humanizing Ecological Psychology: Heft’s incorporation of the sociohistorical into perceiving and acting

11. Understanding the child’s environment

12. Towards a psychological ecology

About the Author

Miguel Segundo-Ortin is Ramón y Cajal Research Fellow at University of Murcia, Spain. His research interests include philosophy of mind and cognitive science, philosophy of action, comparative cognition, embodied cognition and ecological psychology.

Manuel Heras-Escribano is Juan de la Cierva-Incorporación Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Granada, Spain. His research interests include philosophy of cognitive science, philosophy of biology, philosophy of mind, and affordances.

Vicente Raja is Research Fellow at the University of Murcia, Spain, and External Faculty Member of the Rotman Institute of Philosophy at Western University, Canada. His interests include the analysis of behavior and brain activity, including their relationship, using the different tools provided by dynamic systems theory and complexity science.

Reviews

Finally: Harry Heft is getting the recognition he deserves. His careful work has quietly inspired generations of researchers interested in the history and philosophy of psychology, especially pragmatism and the ecological approach. Many of us, myself included, found reading Heft’s 2001 masterpiece Ecological Psychology in Context to be a transformative experience. That work made the ideas of James Gibson and Roger Barker seem less strange and foreign by providing historical precedent in the late work of William James. This book collects brand new essays by some of those who were inspired by Heft’s philosophical and historical analyses, along with a delightful interview with Heft and his response to the collected essays. The interview alone is worth the price of admission and the rest of the collection is a crucial record of the mark Heft has left. Highly recommended. - Prof. Anthony Chemero, University of Cincinnati, USA