The Phenomenological Mind

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Title of the Paper: Consciousness, Intentionality, and Perception: A Review of The Phenomenological Mind

Name: Cheng, Huei-Ying

University Affiliation:National Chengchi University, Taiwan

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Submitted to:PSYCHE

REVIEW OF: Gallagher, S. Zahavi, D. 2007.The Phenomenological Mind:An Introduction to Philosophy of Mind and Cognitive Science. New York: Routledge. vi + 244 pp. ISBN: 0415391229, (pbk.), $29.95

From the subheading of this book, one gains an impression that readers will see how resources and perspectives from phenomenology shed light on various questions in analytic philosophy of mind and cognitive science. This impression is reinforced upon finding that many analytic philosophers’ names appear throughout the book. That appearance notwithstanding, I shall arguethat the authors fail to engage with analytic philosophy at many points. But before that, let me first say something about its distinctiveness as an introductory book and how this shapesits overall structure.

Without qualifications, ‘the phenomenological mind’ can mean at least two different things: it might be a declaration of a philosophical thesis that the mind is in one sense or another ‘phenomenological,’ or instead it might refer to the ‘phenomenological’ methodology adopted by the authors. Gallagher and Zahavi intend the second connotation. In their introductory chapter, a brief history of the philosophical inquiries into the mind is outlined, and the content includes the analytic as well as the phenomenological tradition (e.g. we have Husserl in p.2, Dreyfus in p.4). Moreover, in chapter 2 they introduce the ‘phenomenological method,’ including a comparison between phenomenology and introspection (p.19-21) and the basic idea of the ‘phenomenological reduction’ (p.21-p.26). As Evan Thompson write in the back matter, this book is ‘[o]ffering a fresh new approach,’which is quite different from those adopted by John Heil,Jaegwon Kim (ontology, especially scientific reduction and mental causation) and David Braddon-Mitchell Frank Jackson (philosophy of language, especially the Kripkean conception of reference), among others. The structure of this book reflects this distinctiveapproach. In addition to relativelyfamiliar chapters on perception (Ch.5), intentionality (Ch.6), and our knowledge of other minds (Ch.9), there are some chapters rarely seen in other introductory books about the mind, such as the embodied mind (Ch.7) and time-consciousness (Ch.4). Time-consciousness is arguably a topic exclusive in the phenomenological tradition, and although embodiment has now become much more important in analytic philosophy, still it is often overlooked to some extent. What’s more, even in those relatively familiar chapters, e.g. on perception and intentionality, the authors put much effort on bringing phenomenology into the picture. In this respect, Gallagher and Zahavi are successful in living up to the first half of their premise: the book is an introduction with the phenomenological approach. Nevertheless, as I alluded to at the outset, I think they fail to live up to the second half of their premise, that the book is an engagement with philosophy of mind and cognitive science (at this occasion I shall focus on the former and keep silent about the latter). I shall argue this by considering their chapters on consciousness (Ch.3), intentionality (Ch.6), and perception (Ch.5).

Consciousness has always been a central notion in the phenomenological tradition, and it has become the most heated topic in analytic philosophy in recent decades. Since the authors intend to confront philosophy of mind with the tools of phenomenology, clarity about how theories in the analytic tradition use the term is vital. This is particular the case given thatwhat the authors want to offer is an introduction to philosophy of mind and cognitive science. Unfortunately, the authors are equivocal with respect to “consciousness,” and this thwarts communications between different traditions. Let me explain.

The authors declare that in “Ch.3: Consciousness and Self-Consciousness” they will talk about “phenomenality” (p.9; see also p.119; the authors use it and ‘phenomenal feature’ interchangeably, so presumably it is also interchangeable with “phenomenal character,”“qualitative character,” and the like), which suggest that they intend a close conceptual link between it and consciousness - i.e., the “what it is like” aspect of the mind (p.9). Besides, the chapter opens with Armstrong’s “long-distance truck driver” problem (p.45), which is often understood as a case of dissociation between intentionality and phenomenal consciousness. However, theydo not always stick to this usage of these terms. At one point, they tell us that “[p]henomenologists refer to the idea that our consciousness is of or about something as the intentionality of consciousness” (p.46). The philosophical correctness of this proposition aside, the trouble is that the authors express this thought with the phrase “the intentionality of consciousness.” Intentionality and consciousness are aspects of the mental; a mental state, event, or process can be intentional, conscious, or both. Now the phenomenologists’ thesis is that all conscious states (or events, processes) are at the same time intentional. This is interesting and might be true, but to express this with phrase like “the intentionality of consciousness” is at best misguided, for if one wants“consciousness”to mean“phenomenal feature,”as the authors do, the locution in question in effect means“the intentionality of phenomenal feature.”This is awkward, for what at issue is whether state like “pain” has phenomenal features as well as intentionality. If the answer is affirmative, the better expression should be “the intentionality of conscious / phenomenal state.” Similar considerations apply to their remark that “[t]here are basically two sides to consciousness: intentionality and experience” (p.108). Here clearly they mean “phenomenal feature” with the term “experience,”but this is also misguided because normally we use “experience” to mean mental episodes. Worse still, it is not clear about what they mean by “consciousness” here: if it means “mental state,” the usage is highly idiosyncratic and probably false, for arguably there are many unconscious mental states; if it means “conscious state,” it begs the question, for whether intentionality is a basic side of conscious states is at issue. The trouble is that though we can probably guess what they mean by those terms and have charitable readings, their usages are prone to generate confusions after all, and this is significant given that this book is “an introduction to philosophy of mind and cognitive science.” I do not believe newcomers of this field are able tocarefully bear various provisos in minds when they read on and thereby not to be misled. For a more delicate discussion of some relevant matters, I recommend Charles Siewert (2006).

Troubles occur not only with “consciousness” but with “intentionality.” As mentioned above, generally speaking phenomenologists regard intentionality as the mark of the mental; this thesis has often been called “representationalism” or “intentionalism.” Here I go with them in adopting the latter label (elsewhere I argue that “representationalism” is a preferable label in this context, but I shall not go into that). As they note, one of the main motivations for it is G. E. Moore’s “diaphanous quality of experience: when you try to focus your attention on the intrinsic features of experience, you always seem to end up attending to what the experience is of” (p.117). They go on to mention Tye and Dretske and do not really assess the thesis. But one should notice that recently this thesis has become highly controversial through reflections on, say, the experiences of blurriness: when nearsighted persons see without helps from glasses, their visual fields are blurry all the way out. Is blurriness a feature belongs to “what the experience is of”? Arguably not. The debate is a live, heated one, and it is central to considerations concerning intentionalism. Nonetheless, here the authors simply leave the relevant issues utterly untouched. Readers may refer toTim Crane (2006) for a nice discussion of the transparency and the example from blurriness.

The considerations about transparency lead us to perception. The authors open their chapter on perception by declaring that “The Primacy of Perception, the title of one of Merleau-Ponty’s most famous talks, gives us a hint as to how most phenomenologists view perception. It is considered fundamental” (p.89). Similar declarations can be found throughout the chapter. This is a true description, to be sure, but to let it be the guiding principle of that chapter is not a good idea. For one thing, this begs the question against what many analytic philosophers say about perception; for another, it is not suitable for an introductory book anyway. I myself side with phenomenologists that perception is in a significant sense primary, but this needs arguments, both positive and negative. A. D. Smith (2002, 2008) providesabundant discussions concerning various issues about perception in both the analytic tradition and the phenomenological tradition; although unlike Smith, Gallagher and Zahavi are offering an introductory book, it does not follow that one-sided discussions are acceptable.

I shall conclude this review by a general observation derived by above discussions.Gallagher and Zahavi intend to approach many issues in philosophy of mind and cognitive science from a phenomenological point of view, and the thoughts behind this are well taken. My worry is that most of what they are doing is only to envisage what phenomenologists would say about those issues in philosophy of mind and cognitive science, but this does not fit its subheading, and is not very significant philosophically speaking. Besides, in the case of consciousness they are just not careful enough about their usages of terminologies. Philosophers in the analytic tradition can certainly benefit from their researches, but it seems to me that this particular book is not qualified as an introductory work, not because it is too dense, but because of the situations I tried to point out. Above I referred to some other authors’ works for the readers to compare with, but my intention is not that Gallagher’s and Zahavi’s efforts should be simply set aside;exactly not. The review proceeds with a critical voice only because I treasure exchanges between philosophical traditions, and I think both clarity and depth are necessary conditions of real communications and improvements. In the case of consciousness I suggest the authors to be clearer about important terminologies; in the cases of intentionality and perception I suggest the authors to deepen their discussions. They may do these by engaging more with analytic philosophy, for the latter has provided many intricate distinctions concerning terminologies about consciousness,abundant discussions concerning the relations between intentionality and qualia (if any), and the status of perception and its relation to thoughts.

References

Braddon-Mitchell, D. Jackson, F. (2007) Philosophy of Mind and Cognition: An Introduction. Blackwell Publishing; 2nd Edition.

Crane, T. (2006). Is there a perceptual relation? In T.S. Gendler, J. Hawthorne(eds.),Perceptual Experience (pp. 126-146). New York: OxfordUniversity Press.

Heil, J. (2004) Philosophy of Mind: A Contemporary Introduction. New York: Routledge; 2nd Edition.

Kim, J. (2006) Philosophy of Mind. Westview Press; 2nd Edition.

Siewert, C. (2006). Consciousness and intentionality. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. URL = <

Smith, A. D. (2002). The Problem of Perception. Cambridge, MA: HarvardUniversity Press.

Smith, A. D. (2008). Husserl and externalism, Synthese, 160, 313-333.

Huei-Ying Cheng

Department of Philosophy

National Cheng-Chi University, Taiwan

No.64, Sec. 2, Jhihnan Rd., Wunshan District, Taipei City 11605, Taiwan (R.O.C.)

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