The Question of Naturalizing Phenomenology (new version) (original) (raw)

The Question of Naturalizing Phenomenology

One of the most remarkable developments of the past decade has been the attempt to marry phenomenology to cognitive science. Perhaps nothing else has so revitalized phenomenology, making it a topic of interest in the wider philosophical and scientific communities. The reasoning behind this initiative is relatively straightforward. Cognitive science studies artificial and brain-based intelligence. But before we can speak of such, we must have some knowledge our own cognitive functioning. This, however, is precisely what phenomenology provides. It studies the cognitive acts through which we apprehend the world. Its results, which have been accumulating since the beginning of the last century, thus, offer cognitive science a trove of information for its projects. As obvious as this conclusion appears, it is not immune to some fundamental objections. The chief of these is that phenomenology does not concern itself with the real, psychological subject, but rather with the noncausally determined “transcendental” subject. If this is true, then the attempt to marry phenomenology with cognitive science is bound to come to grief on the opposition of different accounts of consciousness: the non-causal, transcendental paradigm put forward by phenomenology and the causal paradigm assumed by cognitive science. In what follows, I shall analyze this objection in terms of the conception of subjectivity the objection presupposes. By employing a different conception, I will then show how it can be met. My aim will be to explain how we can use the insights of phenomenology without denaturing the consciousness it studies.

Applied Phenomenology within the Cognitive Sciences

This review covers the metaphysical and methodological problems associated with a study of consciousness while adequately distinguishing between the two. We explicated the primary tool required for an articulate and genuine description of experience. It has also shown how contemporary specialists have attempted to deal with both the metaphysical and methodological problems. Lastly, we properly situated the classical theorists in relation to the current practitioners in order to specify the role of phenomenology within the realm of cognitive science.

Phenomenological Approaches to Consciousness

Velmans/The Blackwell, 2007

In contrast to naturalistic approaches to consciousness which investigate how consciousness is grounded in physical states, classic phenomenological approaches of the sort explicated by Husserl ( /1982 take consciousness itself to be the necessary (a priori or transcendental) ground that enables us to conceive of physical states in the first place. That is, transcendental phenomenology emphasizes the fact that any knowledge we have of the world, including the knowledge of physical states in natural science, can be had only on the basis of consciousness itself. We do science only when we are conscious; and consciousness provides the sine qua non access we have to studying the physical world. A third-person statement to the effect that consciousness depends on physical or functional states presupposes the first-person consciousness of the subject making the statement. On this transcendental approach, then, the first investigation (in the order of knowledge rather than time) ought to be about the nature of the first-person experience that gives us the access and the wherewithal to understand the world and its physical states. Phenomenologists thus begin by pushing aside precisely the kinds of questions that naturalistic approaches are most interested in; for example, questions about how the brain causally relates to consciousness. Indeed, this is the first step into phenomenology and the first step of the phenomenological method. It is referred to as the phenomenological epoché.

Book Review Cognitive Phenomenology

Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 2013

Cognitive phenomenology', the title of this volume, is an expression that is likely to sound unfamiliar, to say the least, to a number of significant philosophers who have been working in mainstream philosophy of mind since the second half of the twentieth century. In general terms, with regard to their relation to phenomenal character or what--it--is--likeness (Nagel 1974), cognitive states and sensory states have been two separate realms. While sensory experiences are widely recognized as phenomenally conscious mental states, cognitive ones do not seem to bear any direct interesting relation to phenomenal consciousness. In addition, it used to be the orthodoxy in the field to divide mental states into those that are intentional and those that are qualitative (Block 1978): Intentional mental states were paradigmatically exemplified by cognitive states, and qualitative states by sensations or "raw feels", such as pains, tickles, and moods. Since then, this orthodoxy has been challenged from many angles, for instance by philosophers who defended that qualitative states are also intentional, paradigmatically, perceptual states (Tye 1995).

Consciousness and Cognition. The Cognitive Phenomenology Debate

Phenomenology and Mind, 2016

According to a position which has dominated the theoretical landscape in the philosophy of mind until recently, only sensory states exhibit a characteristic phenomenal dimension, whereas cognitive states either utterly lack it, or inherit it from some of their accompanying sensory states. This position has recently been challenged by several scholars who have stressed the irreducibility of cognitive phenomenology to a merely sensory one. The aim of this introductory paper is to provide a general overview of the debate on cognitive phenomenology in order to give the reader a flavor of the richness of the themes that surround this area of investigation centered on the relationship between consciousness and cognition.

CONSCIOUSNESS AND COGNITION. THE COGNITIVE PHENOMENOLOGY DEBATE (on line

2016

abstract According to a position which has dominated the theoretical landscape in the philosophy of mind until recently, only sensory states exhibit a characteristic phenomenal dimension, whereas cognitive states either utterly lack it, or inherit it from some of their accompanying sensory states. This position has recently been challenged by several scholars who have stressed the irreducibility of cognitive phenomenology to a merely sensory one. The aim of this introductory paper is to provide a general overview of the debate on cognitive phenomenology in order to give the reader a flavor of the richness of the themes that surround this area of investigation centered on the relationship between consciousness and cognition.

Two Conceptions of Phenomenology

Philosophers' Imprint, 2019

The phenomenal particularity thesis says that if a mind-independent particular is consciously perceived in a given perception, that particular is among the constituents of the perception's phenomenology. Martin (2002; 2002), Campbell (2002), Gomes et al. (2016) and others defend this thesis. Against them are Mehta (2014), Montague (2016, chp. 6), Schellenberg (2010) and others, who have produced strong arguments that the phenomenal particularity thesis is false. Unfortunately, neither side has persuaded the other, and it seems that the debate between them is now at an impasse. This paper aims to break through this impasse. It argues that we have reached the impasse because two distinct conceptions of phenomenology---a “narrow” conception and a “broad” conception---are compatible with our what-it-is-like characterizations of phenomenology. It also suggests that each of these two conceptions has its own theoretical value and use. Therefore, the paper recommends a pluralistic position, on which we acknowledge that there are two kinds of phenomenology: phenomenology-narrow (an entity conceived according to the narrow conception) and phenomenology-broad (an entity conceived according to the broad conception). The phenomenal particularity thesis is true only with respect to the latter.