How to defend the phenomenology of attitudes

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Abstract

This paper develops a novel defense of the non-sensory phenomenology of desires, and more broadly, of attitudes. I argue that the way to defend this type of phenomenology is to: (i) offer a defense of the view that attitudes are states that realize the causal role of attitude types and (ii) argue that what realizes the causal role of attitudes are, in certain cases, states that possess non-sensory phenomenology. I carry out this approach with respect to desires by developing the view that desires play the causal role of motivating action, and in some cases, the states that play this role are states that possess the non-sensory phenomenology of attraction. I proceed to argue that if this way of defending the non-sensory phenomenology of desires, and more broadly, of attitudes, is unsuccessful, we should be eliminativists about this type of phenomenology.

Keywords

Cognitive phenomenology Desire Realizer functionalism Attitudes 
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Notes

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to Baron Reed, Brie Gertler, and Andrew Melnyk for their valuable comments on earlier versions of this paper, as well as to Sanford Goldberg, Jennifer Lackey, Lauren Ashwell, Ruth Chang, Eli Alshanetsky, Matt Duncan, Derek Green, Nicholas Leonard, Rebecca Mason, and audience members at the 2017 Central APA conference for their insightful comments concerning issues related to this project.

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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2017

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Philosophy DepartmentUniversity of Wisconsin-ParksideKenoshaUSA

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