The Philosophy of Situated Cognition (PSC) is concerned with the so-called 4E theories. These theories are also known as extended mind, enactivism, embedded mind and embodiment theory. These approaches have been developed in an interdisciplinary way with significant participation of philosophy to investigate cognitive phenomena (such as motor control or spatial navigation). The main task of the PSC is the systematic collection and the scientific-philosophical evaluation of the methods and explanations used in the 4E theories. The aim of the project is to design a comprehensive methodology of the 4E theories. It will be analyzed on which philosophical foundations, in which methodological context and with which methodical means research on the topic of "situated cognition" can best be realized and interdisciplinary coordinated. The PSC contains descriptive parts describing what researchers are doing de facto on the topic of 4E, as well as normative parts describing what these researchers change or should do to improve their research.

The PSK is thematically associated with "integrative biophilosophy" (Institute of Philosophy, Prof. Köchy). Biophilosophy is dedicated, among other things, to the analysis of biological behavioral research from a scientific-theoretical perspective. The PSK aims at such an analysis for 4E research. For this purpose, it is partly oriented towards biophilosophical preliminary work for two reasons. (i) The integrative biophilosophy has developed a scientific-philosophical concept, with which the "methodological signature of research programs" is examined. This concept can be systematically extended to cognitive science topics within the framework of the PSC. (ii) The analysis of biological behavioral research offered by biophilosophy can be used to find out whether parts of biological behavioral research can be applied to cognitive science issues. While (i) helps to realize the descriptive part of PSCs, (ii) can be partly used to develop the normative part of PSCs.