PCS
Phenomenology
and the Cognitive Sciences
Vol. 1.1
(2002)
Phenomenology
and the Cognitive Sciences: Introduction
Phenomenology
and the Cognitive Sciences
is an interdisciplinary journal.
It aims to provide a forum for the investigation of issues that define
the intersections between phenomenology, empirical science, and analytic
philosophy of mind.
There
is a growing interest among phenomenologists and philosophers of mind in
experimental results developed in the cognitive neurosciences, psychology, and
the clinical sciences. This is a
common interest that the new journal seeks to explore. Its publication represents an attempt
to foster a constructive dialogue between phenomenological approaches (defined
mainly but not exclusively in the broad tradition following Edmund Husserl) and
disciplines that have not always been open to or aware of phenomenological
contributions to the understanding of cognition. Its targeted audience includes philosophers, scientists, and
clinicians involved in the study of cognition, and interested in the connection
between empirical studies and the first-person perspective.
The reasons why such a dialogue
is far from being easy
Since
the beginning of the twentieth century, when Husserl established the new
philosophical approach of phenomenology, and thinkers like Frege and Russell
were shaping the beginnings of an analytic approach, these two traditions have
developed separately, if not in open hostility. On the one hand, this situation, still quite real in some
circles, is paradoxical for two reasons.
First, on the theoretical level, both phenomenology and early analytic
philosophy had common roots in the philosophy of mathematics that led them to
join forces in the critique of psychologism. Second, on the personal level, there were important and
productive exchanges between Husserl, Frege, and Russell.[1] Husserl, trained as a mathematician and
introduced to psychology through Brentano's early teachings, was influenced by
Frege's criticism of psychologism.
On
the other hand, the opposition between analytic philosophy and phenomenology
can be clearly seen in their different attitudes toward naturalism. Husserl's anti-psychologism broadened
into a critique of naturalism. By
employing specific phenomenological methods, he seemingly undercut naturalistic
(empiricist) approaches to consciousness.
This led to a transcendental stance and the claim for the primacy of the
constitutive a priori
structures of subjectivity. Although most phenomenologists after Husserl raised
strong objections against his idealism, many of them followed his claim for the
radical autonomy of philosophy, renaming it, in various contexts,
"fundamental ontology" (Heidegger), "ontophenomenology"
(Sartre), "ontology of the flesh" (Merleau-Ponty), or, again,
"radical ethics" (Levinas).
This kind of foundationalist autonomy seemingly precluded the kind of
fruitful and enlightening dialogue with the natural sciences, which is
sometimes found in the philosophy of mind.
Today, many phenomenologists view analytic philosophy as overly formalistic and concerned more with the logic of how we say things about experience and existence than with experience and existence themselves. At the same time, most representatives of analytic philosophy of mind identify the continental phenomenological tradition as either solipsistically introspective (Husserlian transcendentalism) or a literary enterprise, concerned with questions of being (Heidegger) or of rhetoric (poststructuralism). These tendencies, which are undeniably at work in these traditions of thought, turn them towards a certain kind of "nombrilism," be it gnoseological or linguistic.
From
the perspective of the empirical sciences, finally, phenomenology is sometimes
viewed as a speculative science of subjectivity, and is, in some quarters,
mistaken as a form of traditional introspectionism. There are also aspects of phenomenology that appear to be
anti-scientistic, if not anti-scientific.
Yet it is important to note that despite its anti-naturalism, the
general spirit of phenomenology is concerned to make science epistemologically
secure. This is quite clear in
Husserl's transcendentalism, and perhaps on a more pragmatic level in the work
of Merleau-Ponty, who often appealed to empirical studies in psychology. In the
context of advancing the cognitive sciences, the difficult questions are to
what extent it is possible to do phenomenology outside of the transcendental
stance, and how phenomenology can square with precisely defined empirical
protocols. Even though an older generation of phenomenologists, such as
Merleau-Ponty, Gurwitsch, and Sartre attempted to create a more concrete
dialogue with the empirical sciences, their approaches remained framed by either ontological or methodological
concerns. Different approaches are
possible, however. One can take one's phenomenological bearings from specific
empirical case studies, or one can attempt to naturalize phenomenology.
Older and more recent attempts
towards the beginning of a fruitful dialogue
At
the end of the nineteenth century, two major figures in psychology, Carl Stumpf
in Germany, and William James in the United States, endeavored to develop a
descriptive analysis of consciousness.
These projects caught Husserl's interest, especially in regard to the
understanding of the temporality of consciousness. The attempt to describe
different acts of consciousness, for example, attention, memory, and perception
in Stumpf's Tonspychologie
(1883, 1890), or to point out the multifarious qualities of our
becoming-conscious, for example, James' discussions of dreaming, awakening,
imagining in the Principles of Psychology (1890), can be considered a first step toward what Don Ihde
(1977) later called an “experimental
phenomenology.” These
projects represent the continuation of a long-standing tradition in modern
philosophy that recognized the continuity between empirical results and
philosophical analysis, even though the methodology of their relationship was
not always clear.
In
the 1930s and again in the 1960s, close to the center of the developing school
of phenomenological thinkers, we find interest in this kind of natural
philosophy reawakened in several well-known phenomenological philosophers,
Gurwitsch, Sartre and Merleau-Ponty.
All of them developed a serious interest in empirical data, be they
psychological or psycho-physiological. Gurwitsch (1966) was predisposed to the
Gestalt school of psychology, as well as to the insights of James. Sartre's theory of emotions (1939) and
his work on imagination (1936) were deeply influenced by the psychological
theories of his time, most notably the work of Janet. Merleau-Ponty's (1945) understanding of embodiment owes much
to his reading of neurologists and psychologists (for example, Head, Von
Uexküll, Goldstein, Von Weizsäcker). These are philosophical phenomenologists who seek out
empirical case studies in order to renew, refine, and validate their
phenomenological analyses.
In
more recent years, as many phenomenologists turned their attention to less
empirical matters, philosophers of mind in the analytic tradition have
collaborated with scientists of cognition. In America and in Great Britain, and more recently on the
European continent, analytic philosophers have considered the results of
experimental and clinical sciences like neuropsychology, neurophysiology,
psychopathology, and developmental psychology. The very same topics that had
once motivated the attention of James, Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, and others
– consciousness, embodiment, memory, attention, the perception of others,
and so forth – are now drawing renewed interest. Now, however, our sciences and their
technologies have made great advances, especially with respect to the study of
the brain. In addition, computational
models of cognition have been proposed, revised, rejected, and corrected, and
they continue to be debated in the rich and complex theoretical settings of
dynamical systems and neural networks.[2]
Phenomenologists
who want to understand cognition are now encountering scientists and other
philosophers who are studying the very same issues from a variety of
perspectives. At the same time, scientists and non-phenomenological
philosophers are encountering phenomenology and the first-person issues that
define phenomenological subject matter.
All of this interest creates an exciting opportunity for
interdisciplinary cooperation and exchange.
What this journal is about
It
would be unfortunate if this opportunity were not fully exploited to everyone's
advantage, and especially to the advantage of science and philosophy in their
most original senses. It would be
unfortunate if the issues, the things themselves, were investigated by each of
these approaches but in an isolated manner, working side-by-side, but always
remaining one sided. The
interdisciplinary goal of this journal requires, first of all a spirit of
mutual confidence and reciprocal openness. This is the vision of a growing
number of philosophers and scientists.
It was the vision of Francisco Varela, who first proposed the idea for
this journal, but whose untimely death this past year prevented him from seeing
it come to fruition.
Varela
belonged to a group of scientists and philosophers who defended the idea that
phenomenology, rather than remain in its anti-naturalist posture, should open
up to the possibility of naturalization (see Petitot et al., 1999). This remains a proposal that is controversial
in the best sense. It is worthy of
serious dispute. In an important sense the question of whether the
naturalization of phenomenology is even possible is one that is located at the
methodological center of the cognitive sciences, in the same way that the
"hard problem" or "explanatory gap" is at the thematic
center.
Faced
with fascinating issues that are scientific and philosophical at the same time,
issues that call for the use of recently developed and newly emerging
methodologies which challenge disciplinary lines, issues that require
interpretations which cannot always be accomplished using pre-established
categories, and issues that are revelatory concerning the nature of our own
existence, this is no time to be dogmatic or overly scholastic. Yet it is a time to be careful and not
to forget what others have already accomplished. This journal will try to meet all of these challenges within
its defined scope.
Phenomenology
and the Cognitive Sciences is
not intended to be a forum for the scholarly interpretation of phenomenological
texts (there are other good journals that serve that important purpose). Rather, it is intended to provide a
public space for theoretical, phenomenological, and empirical investigations of
the problems that define the subject matter of the cognitive sciences, with
special but not exclusive emphasis given to phenomenological and first-person
perspectives. It is also a place
for disputations about the issues and the methods that are central to such
investigations. Although we hope
to see some of the disputations resolved, our aim is not to end up in an irenic
state where every critical argument is smoothed over in an unproductive
consensus. And while we will
remain suspicious of that kind of false agreement, we will remain trusting in
the way that concepts and themes developed in one field can motivate productive
interest and curiosity for the concepts and themes developed in other
fields. In this way, the journal
is designed to foster a co-generative, mutual enlightenment between
disciplines, which at the same time is knowledgeable about the limitations of
each discipline and careful about the possibilities of working across
disciplines.
Each
annual Volume will consist of four Issues. Some Issues will be thematic, and others will be open to
various topics. The journal welcomes contributions by
phenomenologists, scientists, clinicians, and philosophers who study cognition,
broadly defined to include issues that are open to both phenomenological and
empirical investigation. In
addition, the journal welcomes discussions of methodological issues that
involve the variety of approaches appropriate for addressing these
problems. Phenomenology and the
Cognitive Sciences will also publish
critical review articles that address recent work in areas relevant to the connection
between empirical results in experimental science and first-person perspective.
The Editors
References
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Dreyfus, H. 1992. What Computers Still Can't Do: A
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