Handbook of Phenomenology and Cognitive Science

Methode. Analytic Perspectives, 2013

The flourishing of the embodied/embedded approach in contemporary cognitive science goes hand in hand with the reappraisal of the phenomenological notion of lived body, on the ground of the criticism raised against both the representationalist attitude and the method-ological solipsism of standard cognitive science. From this point of view the interest for the phenomenological philosophy of body was initially guided by Merleau-Ponty, whose approach seemed more attentive than the Husserl's one to the bodily-worldly dimension of subjective experience. Beyond any contraposition between both philosophers, it is true that also Husserl's considerations on the lived body as common power of sensation and action constitute an essential source of inspiration for the contemporary sensorimotor and enactive theories of subjectivity. Husserl's analysis of lived body provides to the exponents of embodied cogni-tive science the theoretical framework for a philosophical legitimization of the sensorimotor approach, since lived body constitutes the zero orientation point that makes possible every perception and action and founds therefore a basic motor intentionality on the ground of the intimate relationship between kinaesthesia and perception. Phenomenology can offer to cog-nitive science a theoretical framework that allows a rigorous description of the manifold ways the subject make experience of the world starting from its embedded/embodied constitution and a regressive analysis that aims at a genetic reconstruction of its development.

Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences (2005) 4:1-21, 2005

Recent philosophy of mind has tended to treat “inner” states, including both qualia and intentional states, as “theoretical posits” of either folk or scientific psychology. This article argues that phenomenology in fact plays a very different role in the most mature part of psychology, psychophysics. Methodologically, phenomenology plays a crucial role in obtaining psychophysical results. And more importantly, many psychophysical data are best interpreted as reporting relations between stimuli and phenomenological states, both qualitative and intentional. Three examples are used to argue for this thesis: the Weber–Fechner laws, the Craik- O’Brien–Cornsweet effect, and subjective contour figures. The phenomenological properties that play a role here do so in the role of data that ultimately constrain theoretical work (in this case theory of vision), and not as theoretical posits.

Phenomenology and Embodied Action, 2013

The enactivist tradition, out of which neurophenomenology arose, rejects various internalisms – including the representationalist and information-processing metaphors – but remains wedded to one further internalism:the claim that the structure of perceptual experience is directly, constitutively linked only to internal, brain-based dynamics. I aim to reject this internalism and defend an alternative analysis. The paper presents a direct-realist, externalist, sensorimotor account of perceptual experience. It uses the concept of counterfactual meaningful action to defend this view against various objections. This account of experience matches certain first-person features of experience better than an internalist account could. It is fully tractable as “normal science.” The neuroscientific conception of brain function should change from that of internal representation or modelling to that of enabling meaningful, embodied action in ways that constitutively involve the world. Neurophenomenology should aim to match the structure of first-person experience with the structure of meaningful agent-world interactions, not with that of brain dynamics. The sensorimotor approachshows us what external objects are, such that we may enact them, and what experience is, such that it may present us with those enacted objects.

Consciousness and Cognition, 2006

We review the use of introspective and phenomenological methods in experimental settings. We distinguish different senses of introspection, and further distinguish phenomenological method from introspectionist approaches. Two ways of using phenomenology in experimental procedures are identified: first, the neurophenomenological method, proposed by Varela, involves the training of experimental subjects. This approach has been directly and productively incorporated into the protocol of experiments on perception. A second approach may have wider application and does not involve training experimental subjects in phenomenological method. It requires front-loading phenomenological insights into experimental design. A number of experiments employing this approach are reviewed. We conclude with a discussion of the implications for both the cognitive sciences and phenomenology.

Continental Philosophy Review, 2008

A remarkably productive area of interdisciplinary research is emerging at the intersection of phenomenology and cognitive science. Part of the motivation for this exchange has arisen from recent transformations taking place in the sorts of questions cognitive scientists are asking about cognition. After the successive waves of behaviorism and computationalism, cognitive scientists are now increasingly turning their attention to the embodied, emplaced, and enactive dimensions of cognition. This developing approach within the disciplines of cognitive science insists that cognition is best characterized as belonging to embodied, situated subjects, i.e., beings who are in-the-world. Guiding this movement toward more contextualized features of cognition and perception is an increased attention, on the part of many cognitive scientists, to phenomenological research on consciousness and the body, which, for the last century, has developed useful methodological and conceptual tools for understanding the intertwining of subjectivity, the body, and the world. It is precisely with respect to the embodied, embedded, and enactive aspects of cognition and perception that phenomenological philosophy and cognitive science have converged on a kindred domain of research.

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).

Husserl Studies, 2004

Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Supplementary Volume 29: 93-132.

We argue that phenomenology can be of central and positive importance to the cognitive sciences, and that it can also learn from the empirical research conducted in those sciences. We discuss the project of naturalizing phenomenology and how this can be best accomplished. We provide several examples of how phenomenology and the cognitive sciences can integrate their research. Specifically, we consider issues related to embodied cognition and intersubjectivity. We provide a detailed analysis of issues related to time-consciousness, with reference to understanding schizophrenia and the loss of the sense of agency. We offer a positive proposal to address these issues based on a neurobiological dynamic-systems model.

2020

Abstract. Recent philosophy of mind has tended to treat "inner" states, including both qualia and intentional states, as "theoretical posits" of either folk or scientific psychology. This article argues that phenomenology in fact plays a very different role in the most mature part of psychology, psychophysics. Methodologically, phenomenology plays a crucial role in obtaining psychophysical results. And more importantly, many psychophysical data are best interpreted as reporting relations between stimuli and phenomenological states, both qualitative and intentional. Three examples are used to argue for this thesis: the Weber-Fechner laws, the Craik-O'Brien-Cornsweet effect, and subjective contour figures. The phenomenological properties that play a role here do so in the role of data that ultimately constrain theoretical work (in this case theory of vision), and not as theoretical posits.