Nowhere is the polyphony of voices behind each single linguistic act more felicitous an idea than in the writing of a book like this. Not only because it is a coauthored book, but because behind our own intermingling voices there are echoes of so many friends and colleagues that have helped the ideas in this book develop and continue to evolve.
Our work has been nurtured in conversations and discussions with colleagues, students, and audiences at various meetings. In particular, we wish to thank Tom Froese, Thomas Fuchs, Shaun Gallagher, Sanneke de Haan, Daniel D. Hutto, Thomas Wiben Jensen, Mark Johnson, Joanna Rączaszek-Leonardi, Daniel Shartin, Jürgen Streeck, Henry Theriault, Kristin Waters, and Tiara Yahnian.
For reading and commenting on different parts of this book, we are especially grateful to Thomas Buhrmann, Julian D. Kiverstein, Charles Lassiter, Marek McGann, Yanna Popova, and Evan Thompson. Thanks again to Thomas Buhrmann for helping with the cover design.
For their support and inspiration, we thank our families: Verena Fischer, George and Niketas Fourlas, Jack, Lisa, Peter, and Madeline Cuffari, as well as Doran, Tasmin, and Karsten Osterhold.
We are thankful for the support of a Faculty Mini-Grant from Worcester State University, and the accountability provided by the Faculty Writing Group.
The central chapters (7 and 8) of this book are a significant expansion and development of ideas that first appeared in the following open-access publication: Cuffari, E., Di Paolo, E. A., & De Jaegher, H. (2015). From participatory sense-making to language: There and back again. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 14(4), 1089–1125.
That piece of work was the result of a collaboration made possible thanks to the funding and environment provided by the interdisciplinary Marie-Curie Initial Training Network TESIS: Toward an Embodied Science of InterSubjectivity (2011–2015, FP7-PEOPLE-2010-ITN, no: 264828). To the coordinators of this network, and the colleagues and friends in all of its 13 research nodes, our sincere thanks. We hope this book will be seen as an example of how the combination of vision, bold ideas, community spirit, and human interaction will continue to bear fruit even after a project’s official end date. Foresightful funding bodies should never lose sight of this fact.