Entangled Agencies: The Enactive Approach and Eco-Evo-Devo in the Scientific Study of Sympoiesis as a Dialectics of Life

Understanding the organization of complex living systems such as holobionts requires a complementary, pluralistic framework in which the individual-centred perspective of the Enactive Approach (EA), the collective, relational focus of Sympoiesis, and the biological evidence provided by Eco-Evo-Devo can collaborate fruitfully. This paper argues that the individual-centred agency of the EA and the collective focus of Sympoiesis are complementary. The EA provides a robust model of individual agency but overlooks broader ecological networks. Sympoiesis effectively describes distributed, multi-species systems, such as holobionts, but lacks an account of individual agency. We propose a synthetic and dialectical framework – Entangled Agencies – that integrates both perspectives through a tripartite structure: individual agency (S1), collective sympoietic dynamics (S2), and the constitutive ‘in-between’ of their interactive dialectics (S3). Grounded in evidence from Eco-Evo-Devo and enactive operational models, we describe life and cognition as emerging from the ongoing tension between individual autonomy and collective interdependence. This dialectical synthesis moves beyond a mere sum of parts, providing a richer, multiscale understanding of agency and the organization of life and cognition.