Abstract
This thesis offers positive reasons for thinking that, at its core, cognition is interactive in character. In making room for this possibility, it however challenges the widespread assumption that cognition is fundamentally theoretical in character. Analytic philosophers of cognition and cognitive scientists tend to model all forms of cognition on theorising of some kind or other: they assume Cognition is Essentially Theoretical, or CET. CET, as a thesis about cognition, is inspired by the idea that we always and everywhere take an intellectual, theoretical stance towards the things we deal with in the world, whatever they may be. Standard views inspire the picture of what adopting such a theorising stance involves in the philosophy of science. Scientific theorising is the basis of predictions and explanations, where this is typically assumed to involve making inferences, and forming and testing hypotheses about various subject matters. To assume that cognising is always some kind of theorising leaves open whether the theorising in question is always conceptually grounded and propositional or couched in some form of modelling that need not be intrinsically contentful. Yet whatever particular view one takes on the character of the theorising in question, those committed to CET assume that cognition always involves theorising of some kind or another.