The enactive elements of style

I reflect on Alva Noë’s appeal to the concept of style to describe how we access the world and how we become our own selves. Noë’s recent work has addressed the topic of style directly, but the strands of his perspective are woven throughout his Action in Perception book, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary with this special issue. Style is an expansive, flexible concept. It can be examined in enactive terms—indeed, it invites such examination. This leads to a relational understanding of style as communal processes of form-taking that develop, entwine, and differentiate historically. The social constitution of style does not conflict with the common use of the term to describe the cohesive activity of particular individuals, objects, or places. Rather, it clarifies it.