Cognitive Phenomenology

Elijah Chudnoff

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9780415660242
• eBook ISBN: 9781317676843
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

Phenomenology is about subjective aspects of the mind, such as the conscious states associated with vision and touch, and the conscious states associated with emotions and moods, such as feelings of elation or sadness. These states have a distinctive first-person 'feel' to them, called their phenomenal character. In this respect they are often taken to be radically different from mental states and processes associated with thought.

This is the first book to fully question this orthodoxy and explore the prospects of cognitive phenomenology, applying phenomenology to the study of thought and cognition. Does cognition have its own phenomenal character? Can introspection tell us either way? If consciousness flows in an unbroken 'stream' as William James argued, how might a punctuated sequence of thoughts fit into it?

Elijah Chudnoff begins with a clarification of the nature of the debate about cognitive phenomenology and the network of concepts and theses that are involved in it. He then examines the following topics:

• introspection and knowledge of our own thoughts
• phenomenal contrast arguments
• the value of consciousness
• the temporal structure of experience
• the holistic character of experience and the interdependence of sensory and cognitive states
• the relationship between phenomenal character and mental representation

Including chapter summaries, annotated further reading, and a glossary, this book is essential reading for anyone seeking a clear and informative introduction to and assessment of cognitive phenomenology, whether philosophy student or advanced researcher. It will also be valuable reading for those in related subjects such as philosophy of mind, philosophy of psychology and epistemology.

1 Introspection

DOI: 10.4324/9781315771922-2

Disputes about cognitive phenomenology are disputes about our conscious mental life. Much of our knowledge of our conscious mental life derives from introspection. A natural idea, then, is to try to settle the disputes about cognitive phenomenology by appeals to introspection.

This natural idea, however, turns out to be problematic. Do phenomenally conscious thoughts inherit their phenomenal characters from concurrent sensory states? Consider two appeals to introspection in the literature that address this question:

Striking examples of thoughts occurring, conscious, but in the absence of verbal expression or imagery, are to be found where there is what we might call an abrupt shift in the direction of thought. Suppose you are sitting and reading one morning, and suddenly you remember some incipient appointment – you wonder when exactly it was, feel anxious that you may have missed it, and look at your watch. The thought of the appointment and when it was is an occurrence of consciousness, but it may not be verbalized silently or aloud. You may not have said to yourself – “I have an appointment around now, don’t I? When was it? Did I miss it?” You may not even have said something fragmentary like: “Appointment! When? Miss it?” And you may not have visualized or imaged any item or event at the time of this thought, such as the person with whom you had the appointment, or the place at which you were to meet. But this little wordless episode of noniconic thinking – your suddenly realizing that you had an appointment – is phenomenally conscious, and the way it seems to you to have this thought differs from the way it would seem to you to have imagery experience of some sort.¹

From a phenomenological perspective, thinking a thought is much like running a sentence through one’s head and/or (in some cases) having a mental image in mind together with (in some cases) an emotional/bodily response and a feeling of effort if the thought is complex or difficult to grasp. For example, when you think that claret is delightful, you may have an experience of sub-vocalized speech (saying to yourself “Claret is delightful”), or you may bring mental images of claret to mind, or perhaps even remember occasions where you had a particularly delightful claret. Further, a feeling of warmth may descend upon you, along with a smile on your lips with an associated facial sensation. The only phenomenology to be found when a thought is introspected is the phenomenology of these and other such states.²

The appeals are before us, but it isn’t really clear what to think in light of them. Some readers might sympathize with the first, remembering similar examples from their own life. Other readers might do the same with the second. Opinion divides. Now what?

The first section below is about the role introspection should play in disputes about cognitive phenomenology. There are two extreme views: introspective evidence should settle them directly; introspective evidence should be ignored completely. Between these there are any number of intermediate views. I will suggest that some intermediate view is true, but that it is difficult to say anything very precise about the role introspection should play in advance of assessing various arguments that appeal to it in some way or another.

The balance of the chapter is dedicated to one such argumentative strategy. The strategy is to draw conclusions about cognitive phenomenology from premises about the kind of introspective access we have to our conscious thoughts. David Pitt has developed the most detailed argument of this sort. In the second section (“The Argument from Introspectability”), I explain Pitt’s argument. In the third section (“Assessing the Argument from Introspectability”), I discuss challenges to it.

The role of introspection

Some things we can tell by introspection.

I can tell by introspection that it looks to me as if there is a computer in front of me. I can tell by introspection that it does not look to me as if there is an elephant in front of me. In general I have some introspective knowledge of what phenomenally conscious states I am in.

Suppose I feel an itch in my ear and a pinch on my elbow. Aside from being able to tell by introspection that I feel these things, I can also tell by introspection that the itch feels different from the pinch. Suppose I also feel a tickle on my shoulder. Plausibly, if I’m attentive enough, I can also tell by introspection whether the tickle is phenomenally more similar to the itch than it is to the pinch. In general I have some introspective knowledge about the phenomenal similarities and differences among the phenomenally conscious states I am in.

Say I have a headache and it is distracting me from other business. Dwelling on the headache I might ask myself, “Is it a sharp headache or a dull headache?” And presumably I can tell by introspection how well the candidate descriptions fit my headache. If the headache is sharp, I know that it is sharp and I know that it is not dull. In general I have some introspective knowledge about the accuracy of some simple descriptions of phenomenally conscious states I am in.

At this point it is natural to ask: what is the nature of this introspective capacity that reveals such facts about presence and absence, similarity and difference, accuracy and inaccuracy?

This is a difficult question, and there are many different approaches to it in the literature. One might worry that it is impossible to pursue our present inquiry – about the proper role of introspection in exploring cognitive phenomenology – without first saying something about the nature of introspection. For its nature will determine its proper role. Consider vision, however. You do not need to know much about the nature of vision to know that you shouldn’t try to determine the sound of an instrument by looking at it. Simple observation and reflection suffice. Similarly, I believe we can establish some useful guidelines about the role introspection might play in our inquiry without committing to a specific theory about its nature. So for now I will bracket the question about its nature. It will come up again below.

The examples catalogued above illustrate what I have in mind by introspection. Our question is: how might the capacity illustrated in them be used to settle disputes about cognitive phenomenology? Let us focus on Irreducibility and consider two extreme views:

Extreme Optimism: Introspection alone can put us in a position to know whether Irreducibility is true.

Extreme Pessimism: Introspection cannot make any difference to our position to know whether Irreducibility is true.

To my knowledge, no one endorses either view. Siewert and Tye and Wright, for example, do not just stop with their introspective reports. They supplement those reports with further argumentation. And skeptics about introspection generally allow that our introspective reports at least form a data set that can be drawn on in theorizing about the mind. Still, I believe that Extreme Optimism and Extreme Pessimism are useful focal points: examining reasons for rejecting them will not serve any ad hominem purpose, but it will bring to light considerations relevant to developing a more nuanced view about the role introspection should play in our inquiry.

The picture suggested by Extreme Optimism is that just as you can tell by introspection whether you are having a headache, or whether it feels different from the itch on your ear, or whether it is sharp, you can tell by introspection whether Irreducibility is true – i.e. whether some cognitive states put one in phenomenal states for which no wholly sensory states suffice. On its face this seems incredible. Suppose you can tell the following by introspection: that you are thinking about dinner, that your thought and your hunger are phenomenally different, and that your thought is intruding on the course of more lofty philosophical reflections. None of this suggests you can tell whether Irreducibility is true by introspection. Irreducibility is a (i) logically complex (ii) generalization about (iii) possible (iv) explanatory relations. The claims we typically know by introspection are (a) logically simple claims about the (b) actual (c) intrinsic properties of (d) particular mental states. So there are these four differences – (i) instead of (a); (ii) instead of (d); (iii) instead of (b); and (iv) instead of (c) – that distinguish Irreducibility from the claims with respect to which introspection generally inspires confidence.

Consider also the fact that even after introspecting philosophers disagree about Irreducibility. Why is there such disagreement? Bayne and Spener helpfully distinguish four candidate explanations.³

First, two philosophers might disagree because there are individual differences between them. Some philosophers have irreducibly cognitive phenomenal states and some do not. Those that have them introspect their irreducibility. Those that do not have them do not introspect their irreducibility. Hence the disagreement. The disputants are correct in their introspective judgments about themselves – but they go wrong in generalizing to others.

Second, two philosophers might disagree because there are terminological variations between them. The term “phenomenal state” is often introduced using sensory examples – itches, bodily sensations, visual perceptions, and the like. Suppose one disputant assigns a meaning to “phenomenal state” according to which a mental state is a phenomenal state just in case it is phenomenally similar to itches, bodily sensations, visual perceptions, and the like. Suppose the other disputant assigns a meaning to “phenomenal state” according to which a mental state is a phenomenal state just in case it is individuated by what it is like for one to be in it – where the locution “what it is like” is not itself tied to the sensory.⁴ Then both disputants might sometimes be in what I have been calling cognitive phenomenal states, but only the second will agree to call them that. In this case the disputants are not making introspective errors; rather they are engaging in a verbal dispute.

Third, two philosophers might disagree because they have different background beliefs and expectations. The interaction between observations and background beliefs and expectations is a complicated matter. Here is a simple perceptual example illustrating the phenomenon. Suppose Al is confident that all swans are white, and subscribes to an elaborate but mistaken theory that implies that all swans must be white. Suppose Beth does not subscribe to this theory, but has only ever observed white swans, and so tentatively believes all swans are white but is open to changing her view. Then both Al and Beth see a black swan. On the basis of this observation Al comes to believe that there are birds that could easily trick the naive observer into thinking there are black swans, but that are really of a different species. Beth comes to believe there are black swans. Perhaps something similar is going on with disputes about cognitive phenomenology. Any such explanation of the disagreement will require an elaboration of the relevant background beliefs and expectations and a story about how they might interact with introspective observations. There is no a priori reason to rule out such an explanation however.

Fourth, two philosophers might disagree because introspection is insufficient to settle the question of whether Irreducibility is true. This is a result of what Bayne and Spener call operational constraints. Here is a simple perceptual example illustrating the phenomenon. Suppose Al and Beth wonder what is inside an opaque box. They each have different conjectures. Suppose, further, that the only data they rely on in determining which conjecture is correct is what they can tell by looking at the box. It would be no surprise if Al and Beth fail to come to an agreement. Visual perception does not enable one to tell what is inside opaque containers. It just does not work like that. Maybe there are similar operational constraints on introspection. Introspection will tell you whether you are thinking about dinner, whether your thought and your hunger are phenomenally different, and whether your thought is intruding on the course of more lofty philosophical reflections. But it will not tell you whether Irreducibility is true. If this is so, then Extreme Optimism is false.

It is reasonable to suppose that there are at least some individual differences, terminological variations, and differences in background beliefs and expectations among philosophers. And it is reasonable to suppose that these do contribute somewhat toward sustaining disagreement about Irreducibility. I doubt that they constitute the whole story though. Operational constraints are at least part – and probably a large part – of the story as well. Further, the applicability of this form of explanation to the disagreement about Irreducibility is a typical instance of a general phenomenon, sometimes exhibited by introspection with respect to other disputes about the mental and sometimes exhibited by other basic sources of knowledge with respect to various disputes about their own domains. Before trying to characterize the general phenomenon, let us consider some examples.

The following are disputed claims about mental states, observable properties, and abstract objects:

Relationalism: The phenomenal character of a sensory state is constituted by the objects it makes one directly aware of.

Dispositionalism: Each color is a disposition to cause sensory states with a certain phenomenal character in normal observers in normal conditions.

Structuralism: Mathematical objects are positions in structures – e.g. the number 3 is the fourth position in the natural number structure.

I might be able to tell by introspection whether it ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Epigraph
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 Introspection
• 2 Contrast
• 3 Value
• 4 Time
• 5 Independence
• 6 Intentionality
• Conclusion
• Glossary
• Bibliography
• Index