I've recently come across a paper by Dan Zahavi that I think would have been clarifying for us earlier in this thread. It returns us to Husserl's insights into consciousness and applies them to the ambiguities we still find in Chalmers's continuing writings on the subject. I think that if we read and discuss this paper together it will return us to the plot that drove the thread all along -- the continuing opposition in Consciousness Studies between reductive scientistic approaches to consciousness and those that resist scientism, objectivism, physicalism on the basis of exploring both the phenomenological recognitions concerning the nature of consciousness and the varieties of human experience that for the most part remain outside scientific investigation {the psychic, the mystical, the spiritual, the occult, etc.}. The paper proceeds by challenging Chalmers's primary insistence that it is only the 'hard problem' of consciousness -- the phenomenal qualities [qualia] of experience -- that requires explanation. Zahavi argues that what Chalmers has considered the 'soft problems' represented by consciousness equally challenge scientistic reduction. Here is an extract:
"Chalmers’s discussion of the hard problem has identified and labeled an aspect of consciousness that cannot be ignored. However, his way of defining and distinguishing the hard problem from the easy problems seems in many ways indebted to the very reductionism that he is out to oppose. If one thinks that cognition and intentionality is basically a matter of information processing and causal co-variation that could in principle just as well go on in a mindless computer–or to use Chalmers’ own favored example, in an experienceless zombie–then one is left with the impression that all that is really distinctive about consciousness is its qualitative or phenomenal aspect. But this seems to suggest that with the exception of some evanescent qualia everything about consciousness including intentionality can be explained in reductive (computational or neural) terms; and in this case, epiphenomenalism threatens.
To put it differently, Chalmers’s distinction between the hard and the easy problems of consciousness shares a common feature with many other recent analytical attempts to defend consciousness against the onslaught of reductionism: They all grant far too much to the other side. Reductionism has typically proceeded with a classical divide and rule strategy. There are basically two sides to consciousness: Intentionality and phenomenality. We don’t currently know how to reduce the latter aspect, so let us separate the two sides, and concentrate on the first. If we then succeed in explaining intentionality reductively, the aspect of phenomenality cannot be all that significant. Many non-reductive materialists have uncritically adopted the very same strategy.
They have marginalized subjectivity by identifying it with epiphenomenal qualia and have then claimed that it is this aspect which eludes reductionism. But is this partition really acceptable, are we really dealing with two separate problems, or is experience and intentionality on the contrary intimately connected? Is it really possible to investigate intentionality properly without taking experience, the first-person perspective, semantics, etc., into account? And vice versa, is it possible to understand the nature of subjectivity and experience if we ignore intentionality. Or do we not then run the risk of reinstating a Cartesian subject-world dualism that ignores everything captured by the phrase “being-in-the-world”?
In the following, I wish to consider some arguments in favor of opposing the separation. I will try to supply some answers to the three following questions:
1. What forms of intentionality possess phenomenal features?
2. Do all experiences possess intentional features?
3. If the intentional and the phenomenal go hand in hand, is the connection then contingent or essential?
All of the three questions call for quite substantial analyses. All I can do in the following is to provide some preliminary reflections; reflections that will incidentally suggest that analytical philosophy in its dealing with these questions might profit from looking at some of the resources found in continental phenomenology. Why? Because many of the problems and questions that analytical philosophy of mind is currently facing are problems and questions that phenomenologists have been struggling with for more than a century.Drawing on their results would not only help avoiding unnecessary repetitions, it might also bring the contemporary debate to a higher level of sophistication.
1. Is there a ‘what it is like’ to intentional consciousness?
It is relatively uncontroversial that there is a certain (phenomenal) quality of ‘what it is like’ or what it ‘feels’ like to have perceptual experiences, desires, feelings, and moods. There is something it is like to taste an omelette, to touch an ice cube, to crave chocolate, to have stage fright, to feel envious, nervous, depressed, or happy.
However, is it really acceptable to limit the phenomenal dimension of experience to sensory or emotional states alone? Is there nothing it is like simply to think of (rather than perceive) a green apple? And what about abstract beliefs, is there nothing it is like to believe that the square root of 9 ‘ 3? Many contemporary philosophers have denied that beliefs are inherently phenomenal (cf. Tye, 1995, 138, Jacob, 1998,O’Shaughnessy, 2000, 39, 41). I think they are mistaken.
Back in the Logical Investigations (1900-01) Husserl argued that conscious thoughts have experiential qualities, and that episodes of conscious thoughts are experiential episodes. In arguing for this claim, Husserl drew some distinctions that I think are of relevance in this context. According to Husserl, every intentional experience possesses two different, but inseparable moments. Every intentional experience is an experience of a specific type, be it an experience of judging, hoping, desiring, regretting, remembering, affirming, doubting, wondering, fearing, etc. Husserl called this aspect of the experience, the intentional quality of the experience. Every intentional experience is also directed at something, is also about something, be it an experience of a deer, a cat, or a mathematic state of affairs. Husserl called the component that specifies what the experience is about, the intentional matter of the experience (Husserl, 1984, 425-426). Needless to say, the same quality can be combined with different matters, and the same matter can be combined with different qualities. It is possible to doubt that ‘the inflation will continue’, doubt that ‘the election was fair’, or doubt that ‘one’s next book will be an international bestseller’, just as it is possible to deny that ‘the lily is white’, to judge that ‘the lily is white’, or to question whether ‘the lily is white’. Husserl’s distinction between the intentional matter and the intentional quality consequently bears a certain resemblance to the contemporary distinction between propositional content and propositional attitudes (though it is important to emphasize that Husserl by no means took all intentional experiences to be propositional in nature). But, and this is of course the central point, Husserl considered these cognitive differences to be experiential differences. Each of the different intentional qualities has its own phenomenal character. There is an experiential difference between affirming and denying that Hegel was the greatest of the German idealists, just as there is an experiential difference between expecting and doubting that Denmark will win the 2002 FIFAWorld Cup. What it is like to be in one type of intentional state differs from what it is like to be in another type of intentional state.[2] Similarly, the different intentional matters each have their own phenomenal character. There is an experiential difference between believing that ‘thoughts without content are empty’ and believing that ‘intuitions without concepts are blind’, just as there is an experiential difference between denying that ‘the Eiffel Tower is higher than the Empire State building’ and denying that ‘North Korea has a viable economy’. To put it differently, a change in the intentional matter will entail a change in what it is like to undergo the experience in question.[3] And these experiential differences, these differences in what it is like to think different thoughts, are not simply sensory differences.[4]
In the same work, Husserl also called attention to the fact that one and the same object can be given in a variety of different modes. This is not only the case for spatiotemporal objects (one and the same tree can be given from this or that perspective, as perceived or recollected etc.), but also for ideal or categorial objects. There is an experiential difference between thinking of the theorem of Pythagoras in an empty and signitive manner, i.e., without really understanding it, and doing so in an intuitive and fulfilled manner, i.e., by actually thinking it through with comprehension (Husserl, 1984, 73, 667-676). In fact, as Husserl points out, our understanding of signs and verbal expressions can illustrate these differences especially vividly: “Let us imagine that certain arabesques or figures have at first affected us merely aesthetically, and that we then suddenly realize that we are dealing with symbols or verbal signs. In what does this difference consist? Or let us take the case of a man attentively hearing some totally strange word as a sound-complex without even dreaming it is a word, and compare this with the case of the same man afterwards hearing the word, in the course of conversation, and now acquainted with its meaning, but not illustrating it intuitively. What in general is the surplus element distinguishing the understanding of a symbolically functioning expression from the uncomprehended verbal sound? What is the difference between simply looking at a concrete object A, and treating it as a representative of ‘any A whatsoever’? In this and countless similar cases it is the act-characters that differ.”(Husserl, 1984, 398).
More recently, Galen Strawson has argued in a similar fashion, and in his book Mental Reality he provides the following neat example. . . ."
http://cfs.ku.dk/staff/zahavi-publications/intentionality-experience.pdf/
"Chalmers’s discussion of the hard problem has identified and labeled an aspect of consciousness that cannot be ignored. However, his way of defining and distinguishing the hard problem from the easy problems seems in many ways indebted to the very reductionism that he is out to oppose. If one thinks that cognition and intentionality is basically a matter of information processing and causal co-variation that could in principle just as well go on in a mindless computer–or to use Chalmers’ own favored example, in an experienceless zombie–then one is left with the impression that all that is really distinctive about consciousness is its qualitative or phenomenal aspect. But this seems to suggest that with the exception of some evanescent qualia everything about consciousness including intentionality can be explained in reductive (computational or neural) terms; and in this case, epiphenomenalism threatens.
To put it differently, Chalmers’s distinction between the hard and the easy problems of consciousness shares a common feature with many other recent analytical attempts to defend consciousness against the onslaught of reductionism: They all grant far too much to the other side. Reductionism has typically proceeded with a classical divide and rule strategy. There are basically two sides to consciousness: Intentionality and phenomenality. We don’t currently know how to reduce the latter aspect, so let us separate the two sides, and concentrate on the first. If we then succeed in explaining intentionality reductively, the aspect of phenomenality cannot be all that significant. Many non-reductive materialists have uncritically adopted the very same strategy.
They have marginalized subjectivity by identifying it with epiphenomenal qualia and have then claimed that it is this aspect which eludes reductionism. But is this partition really acceptable, are we really dealing with two separate problems, or is experience and intentionality on the contrary intimately connected? Is it really possible to investigate intentionality properly without taking experience, the first-person perspective, semantics, etc., into account? And vice versa, is it possible to understand the nature of subjectivity and experience if we ignore intentionality. Or do we not then run the risk of reinstating a Cartesian subject-world dualism that ignores everything captured by the phrase “being-in-the-world”?
In the following, I wish to consider some arguments in favor of opposing the separation. I will try to supply some answers to the three following questions:
1. What forms of intentionality possess phenomenal features?
2. Do all experiences possess intentional features?
3. If the intentional and the phenomenal go hand in hand, is the connection then contingent or essential?
All of the three questions call for quite substantial analyses. All I can do in the following is to provide some preliminary reflections; reflections that will incidentally suggest that analytical philosophy in its dealing with these questions might profit from looking at some of the resources found in continental phenomenology. Why? Because many of the problems and questions that analytical philosophy of mind is currently facing are problems and questions that phenomenologists have been struggling with for more than a century.Drawing on their results would not only help avoiding unnecessary repetitions, it might also bring the contemporary debate to a higher level of sophistication.
1. Is there a ‘what it is like’ to intentional consciousness?
It is relatively uncontroversial that there is a certain (phenomenal) quality of ‘what it is like’ or what it ‘feels’ like to have perceptual experiences, desires, feelings, and moods. There is something it is like to taste an omelette, to touch an ice cube, to crave chocolate, to have stage fright, to feel envious, nervous, depressed, or happy.
However, is it really acceptable to limit the phenomenal dimension of experience to sensory or emotional states alone? Is there nothing it is like simply to think of (rather than perceive) a green apple? And what about abstract beliefs, is there nothing it is like to believe that the square root of 9 ‘ 3? Many contemporary philosophers have denied that beliefs are inherently phenomenal (cf. Tye, 1995, 138, Jacob, 1998,O’Shaughnessy, 2000, 39, 41). I think they are mistaken.
Back in the Logical Investigations (1900-01) Husserl argued that conscious thoughts have experiential qualities, and that episodes of conscious thoughts are experiential episodes. In arguing for this claim, Husserl drew some distinctions that I think are of relevance in this context. According to Husserl, every intentional experience possesses two different, but inseparable moments. Every intentional experience is an experience of a specific type, be it an experience of judging, hoping, desiring, regretting, remembering, affirming, doubting, wondering, fearing, etc. Husserl called this aspect of the experience, the intentional quality of the experience. Every intentional experience is also directed at something, is also about something, be it an experience of a deer, a cat, or a mathematic state of affairs. Husserl called the component that specifies what the experience is about, the intentional matter of the experience (Husserl, 1984, 425-426). Needless to say, the same quality can be combined with different matters, and the same matter can be combined with different qualities. It is possible to doubt that ‘the inflation will continue’, doubt that ‘the election was fair’, or doubt that ‘one’s next book will be an international bestseller’, just as it is possible to deny that ‘the lily is white’, to judge that ‘the lily is white’, or to question whether ‘the lily is white’. Husserl’s distinction between the intentional matter and the intentional quality consequently bears a certain resemblance to the contemporary distinction between propositional content and propositional attitudes (though it is important to emphasize that Husserl by no means took all intentional experiences to be propositional in nature). But, and this is of course the central point, Husserl considered these cognitive differences to be experiential differences. Each of the different intentional qualities has its own phenomenal character. There is an experiential difference between affirming and denying that Hegel was the greatest of the German idealists, just as there is an experiential difference between expecting and doubting that Denmark will win the 2002 FIFAWorld Cup. What it is like to be in one type of intentional state differs from what it is like to be in another type of intentional state.[2] Similarly, the different intentional matters each have their own phenomenal character. There is an experiential difference between believing that ‘thoughts without content are empty’ and believing that ‘intuitions without concepts are blind’, just as there is an experiential difference between denying that ‘the Eiffel Tower is higher than the Empire State building’ and denying that ‘North Korea has a viable economy’. To put it differently, a change in the intentional matter will entail a change in what it is like to undergo the experience in question.[3] And these experiential differences, these differences in what it is like to think different thoughts, are not simply sensory differences.[4]
In the same work, Husserl also called attention to the fact that one and the same object can be given in a variety of different modes. This is not only the case for spatiotemporal objects (one and the same tree can be given from this or that perspective, as perceived or recollected etc.), but also for ideal or categorial objects. There is an experiential difference between thinking of the theorem of Pythagoras in an empty and signitive manner, i.e., without really understanding it, and doing so in an intuitive and fulfilled manner, i.e., by actually thinking it through with comprehension (Husserl, 1984, 73, 667-676). In fact, as Husserl points out, our understanding of signs and verbal expressions can illustrate these differences especially vividly: “Let us imagine that certain arabesques or figures have at first affected us merely aesthetically, and that we then suddenly realize that we are dealing with symbols or verbal signs. In what does this difference consist? Or let us take the case of a man attentively hearing some totally strange word as a sound-complex without even dreaming it is a word, and compare this with the case of the same man afterwards hearing the word, in the course of conversation, and now acquainted with its meaning, but not illustrating it intuitively. What in general is the surplus element distinguishing the understanding of a symbolically functioning expression from the uncomprehended verbal sound? What is the difference between simply looking at a concrete object A, and treating it as a representative of ‘any A whatsoever’? In this and countless similar cases it is the act-characters that differ.”(Husserl, 1984, 398).
More recently, Galen Strawson has argued in a similar fashion, and in his book Mental Reality he provides the following neat example. . . ."
http://cfs.ku.dk/staff/zahavi-publications/intentionality-experience.pdf/
Last edited:
