Abstract
Recently, a number of neuroscientists and philosophers have taken the so-called predictive coding approach to support a form of radical neuro-representationalism, according to which the content of our conscious experiences is a neural construct, a brain-generated simulation. There is remarkable similarity between this account and ideas found in and developed by German neo-Kantians in the mid-nineteenth century. Some of the neo-Kantians eventually came to have doubts about the cogency and internal consistency of the representationalist framework they were operating within. In this paper, I will first argue that some of these concerns ought to be taken seriously by contemporary proponents of predictive coding. After having done so, I will turn to phenomenology. As we shall see, Husserl’s endorsement of transcendental idealism was partially motivated by his rejection of representationalism and phenomenalism and by his attempt to safeguard the objectivity of the world of experience. This confronts us with an intriguing question. Which position is best able to accommodate our natural inclination for realism: Contemporary neuro-representationalism or Husserl’s transcendental idealism?
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Notes
Swanson further argues that predictive coding theory can be “seen as a major step in the evolution of Kant’s transcendental psychology” (2016, p. 10), though he also acknowledges that the former’s evolutionary, computational and neuroscientific approach “goes beyond Kant’s insights in ways that Kant could not have imagined” (2016, p. 11). One might wonder, though, whether the naturalism of predictive coding theory is not ultimately incompatible with Kant’s transcendental framework. For a critical take on the possibility of naturalizing Kant, see Allison (1995). For a more general discussion of whether naturalism and transcendental philosophy can be reconciled, see Zahavi (2004, 2013).
One reason for these continuing disagreements is not only that people tend to employ notions such as “direct”, “indirect”, and “immediate” in quite different ways, but also that there has been a tendency to conflate epistemic, experiential, and causal understanding of these terms. The presence of causal intermediaries does not necessarily entail that perception is experientially and/or epistemically indirect. Likewise, the fact that our perceptual access to spatio-temporal objects in the world is enabled and underpinned by various sub-personal mechanisms and non-conscious cognitive processes does not necessarily entail that we therefore fail to see the objects as they are in themselves. Rather, one might view the cognitive processing as that which makes it possible for us to experience those objects in the first place (Hopp 2011, p. 163).
Let me add that neuro-representationalism can obviously also be found outside of the predictive coding framework. For a prominent example, see Grush (2003).
I am indebted to helpful comments from Liesbet de Kock and John Michael.
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Zahavi, D. Brain, Mind, World: Predictive Coding, Neo-Kantianism, and Transcendental Idealism. Husserl Stud 34, 47–61 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10743-017-9218-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10743-017-9218-z