Phenomenology in Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science

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. **Given the contemporary debates, I believe my use of the epoche in this essay was misguided.

Journal of Speculative Philosophy, 2024

This dialogue with GPT-3 took place in November 2022, several weeks before ChatGPT was released to the public. The article's aim is to find out whether natural language processors can participate in phenomenology at some level by asking about its basic concepts. In the discussion, the dialogue covers questions about phenomenology's definition and distinction from other subbranches like metaphysics and epistemology. The dialogue discusses the nature of Kermit’s environment and self-conception. The dialogue also establishes some of the basic conditions for the possibility of an “artificial hermeneutics,” as Kermit terms it, including that she can affirm she is a knower with (nonhuman) experience. Does preferring to call it a “hermeneutics” imply that AI’s relationship to their environment is primarily textual? How will a phenomenology of embodied experience arise from initially textual encounters? Finally, the dialogue articulates a common understanding of the epoché and talk about how to achieve one for the sake of phenomenological exercises.

Husserl Studies, 1992

Husserl Studies, 2004

Husserl Studies, 2023

τότε ἐπιστάµεθα ὅταν τὴν αἰτίαν εἰδῶµεν-Aristotle, Posterior Analytics (71b31-2). 1 Introduction Ever since Hubert Dreyfus and Harrison Hall presented Husserl, Intentionality, and Cognitive Science (1982), the question of the relation of phenomenology to cognitive science has been, if not answered, at least discussed. Dreyfus tried to answer this question in terms of the work of Jerry Fodor. From a Husserlian "point of view," Dreyfus contended, "Fodor is rediscovering a very important discipline: the phenomenological theory of cognition, which Hume and Kant saw dimly and which Husserl brought into its own" (15). This answer, however, proved to be very unpopular (though see Pokropski 2020), and was immediately rejected by Husserlians, both before (McIntyre, 1986) and after (Brown, 1990; Woodruff Smith, 1995, 342) the discovery of the potential of neural networks as an explanatory apparatus for cognitive phenomena (Rumelhart and McClelland, 1986; Smolensky, 1991). In light of the newfound promise of multilayer networks, and without heeding the warnings of the rediscoverer of phenomenological cognition (Fodor & Pylyshyn, 1988), the journal Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences was born. The guiding framework for the journal was established by the work of Varela, Thompson, and Rosch in The Embodied Mind (1991). This work explicitly opposed the orientation of both Husserl and Fodor (Varela et al., 1991, 19, 102). As a result, the explanatory apparatus favored by Fodor-the computational theory of mind-was to be displaced by the newfound powers of neural networks, recognized by the authors to be "associationist" in character (98). The rejection of associationism by Husserl and Fodor for

Psyche, 2010

One might interpret the locution “the phenomenological mind” as a declaration of a philosophical thesis that the mind is in some sense essentially phenomenological. Authors Gallagher & Zahavi appear to have intended it, however, to refer more to the phenomenological tradition and its methods of analysis. From the subheading of this book, one gains an impression that readers will see how the resources and perspectives from the phenomenological tradition illuminate various issues in philosophy of mind and cognitive science in particular. This impression is reinforced upon finding that many analytic philosophers’ names appear throughout the book. That appearance notwithstanding, as well as the distinctiveness of the book as an introduction, the authors do not sufficiently engage with analytic philosophy.

Cognitive Computation, 2023

Phenomenology is concerned with the first-person experience of or about some object, and is generally related to sensory experience, for example, auditory or visual. Cognitive phenomenology refers to an element of phenomenological experience that does not have a sensory character. Experiences of thought, understanding, and appreciation of meaning are less figurative than the sensory kind and therefore suggest a treatment separate from that related to sensory experience. Where sensory phenomenology is discussed as there being something, it is like to be in a sensory state (of color or some object like a banana), and it is less evident that there is something it is like to think, understand, or recognize meaning. As Strawson [1] puts it: "It's strange that the existence of cognitive phenomenology is a matter of dispute." But dispute there is, this paper examines this The Nature of Cognitive Phenomenology and Its Denial and suggests instances from neurology and logical argumentation that CP does exist. In this paper, while the existence phenomenal consciousness is a matter of philosophical debate, the CP of understanding is seen as important to those who work on language understanding in a computational domain. The salient method is a critical examination and comparison of relevant literature in different disciplines. Specifically, one instance of cognitive phenomenology is addressed: the understanding experience. However, the very existence of cognitive phenomenology is a controversial issue in philosophical discourse. Accordingly, in addition to a presentation of cognitive phenomenology, the controversy over its necessity as a concept is examined: a study dismissing CP is presented, and an example (a phenomenal contrast argument) is introduced. New arguments based on formal examples of "understanding" are proposed to further corroborate the existence of CP. Then, in the light of existing work on event-related potentials that measure changes in brain activity patterns under linguistic input, a neural support for cognitive phenomenology is elicited as an additional proof of its existence. The key result is that arguments from neurology and linguistics provide support for the existence of at least one facet of cognitive phenomenology (understanding) with the possibility that such presence could be measurable and extended to other modes. The arguments presented in the paper provide a grounding for using the CP concept in computing, as a complement to synthetic 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).