Abstract
Traditionally, phenomenal consciousness has been restricted to the realm of perceptual and otherwise sensory experiences. If there is a kind of phenomenology altogether unlike sensory phenomenology, then this was a mistake, and requires an accounting. I argue such cognitive phenomenology exists by appealing to a phenomenal contrast case that relies on meaningful and relatively meaningless dialogue. I explain why previous phenomenal contrast arguments are less likely to be effective on even neutral parties to the debate: these arguments rely on a ‘hard-to-understand’ sentence, which may elicit sensory crutches that one focuses on, thereby obscuring cognitive phenomenology. I argue for a positive characterization of the phenomenal contrast in terms of seeming to be aware of abstract relations that obtain between different contributions in a dialogue. This paves the way for arguing that what it’s like to entertain a cognitive content that p differs from that of q in their cognitive phenomenology.
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Notes
C.f. Bayne & Montague’s (2011, 1–2) characterization of sensory phenomenology, which includes imagery and moods. For my characterization to include moods, we might take moods to consist in some combination, kinds, or ‘colorings’ of the (i)-(v) type imagery—or, for simplicity, as a kind of persisting emotive (v)-type imagery. I pass over issues about the ontological status of imagery, or whether we are really presented with them.
E.g. one might think, as Prinz (2011, 178) does, that conscious bodily sensations are a subset of perceptual experiences.
E.g, Montague (2017).
I follow Chudnoff’s (2015a, 3, 98–99) use of the term ‘glossed phenomenal contrast argument’. Chudnoff’s (2015a, 98) glossed contrast argument includes a premise giving an added gloss of the phenomenal contrast—the phenomenal contrast consists at least partly in a seeming awareness of abstract states of affairs—together with a premise that no possible combination of wholly sensory states can make one seem aware of abstract states of affairs. Similarly, Montague’s (2017, 2052) argument includes the gloss that a phenomenal contrast is essentially linked to the deployment of high-level properties (ibid., §3.1), together with a premise that such concept deployment is essentially linked to irreducibly cognitive phenomenology (ibid., §3.2, 3.3).
By contrast, Strawson’s (1994, 5–6) case of Jack, a monoglot Englishman, and Jacques, a monoglot Frenchman, listening to the news in French, relies solely on premises about the phenomenal differences between mental states. Similarly, though Horgan & Tienson (2002, 523) conclusion is that a phenomenal contrast consists in a difference in intentional content, they do little more than appeal to a phenomenal contrast to argue for this; no supporting gloss is given.
E.g., Chudnoff’s (2015a, 98–9; 2015b, Ch2).
An example of change-blindness occurs in ‘mudsplashing’, in which some high-contrast shapes are splattered over a scene, making it difficult to detect changes in other parts of the scene. Selection effects involve paying attention to certain features of a scene which may affect the beliefs formed from perceiving the scene: e.g., in a scene of a black man with pliers, one may pay attention only to the features pliers share with guns, resulting in one’s believing that the man is armed with a gun (Siegel 2013: 240). Another example of a self-confirmation effect is from Shoemaker (1996), in which a fraternity inductee comes to believe he is in pain when an ice cube is pressed against his throat due to an expectation of pain. Fürst suggests something like this may generate false beliefs about the presence of cognitive phenomenology, too.
My objections to Pitt’s version of a machine-gun sentence apply also to Horgan & Tienson’s (2002) ‘Dogs dogs dog dog dogs’.
This assumes that we may have linguistic imagery (e.g., an ‘inner voice speaking’) even when reading without understanding.
Compare with linguistic intellectual gestalts, such as Chudnoff’s (2013, 182–3) example of an incomprehensible passage made comprehensible after being given a keyword:
A newspaper is better than a magazine. A seashore is a better place than the street. At first it is better torun than to walk. You may have to try several times. It takes some skill but it is easy to learn. Even young children can enjoy it. Once successful, complications are minimal. Birds seldom get too close. Rain, however, soaks in very fast. Too many people doing the same thing can also cause problems. One needs lots of room. If there are no complications it can be very peaceful. A rock will serve as an anchor. If things break loose from it, however, you will not get a second chance.
Now read this again with the keyword: kite. Reading with the keyword, I found I could not help but have additional visual non-linguistic imagery to aid in understanding. Perhaps this is because I had to effortfully keep the keyword in mind while reading this passage, to convert it into a comprehensible passage. Perhaps, alternatively, it is because one goes from reading a passage with no discernible theme to one with a clear theme (kites); but arguably, the top-down and bottom-up readings of the dialogue have similar themes (see fn.14). Or, most plausibly to my mind, it is due to Chudnoff’s passage describing many salient physical items, which all change in their meaning with the keyword, while mine has fewer, perhaps only one (the airplane).
Compare how Chudnoff (2015a, 100–101) rules out alternative glosses or accounts of the phenomenal contrast between mathematical insight experiences, and experiences with no such insight. Chudnoff positively motivates his gloss—one seems aware of an abstract state of affairs—by introspective comparison between Goldbach’s conjecture and [If a < 1, 2–2a > 0]. My corresponding positive motivation for my gloss—that one seems aware of logical or semantic relations—is the naturalness of appealing to seeming awareness of different meaning relations given that we read the same dialogue in two different directions. Further motivation for my gloss includes the inference to the best explanation arguments in Sects. 1.4 and 1.7.
I am neutral about whether the phenomenal contrast in dialogue is accounted for by the kind of holistic phenomenology that Chudnoff (2013) is interested in. This is because it is not clear to me whether holistic phenomenology is accounted for by seeming awareness of abstract relations that obtain between parts and wholes. For I’m not sure whether the relation between parts and wholes is abstract. It seems to me this depends on whether the parts or wholes represented are concrete or abstract. One reason to think the relations in Chudnoff’s examples are concrete is that he appeals to visual experiences of shapes on the page. A reason to think the relations are abstract is that the visual experience he thinks has holistic, cognitive phenomenology is the one that is had as part of an overall intellectual experience of a mathematical proof (2013, 184). However, the proof is a visual proof depicted on a page. So the proof may be thought to be concrete as well. Chudnoff does not argue for this, but if it turns out that some holistic phenomenology can be characterized as seeming awareness of abstract relations between abstract parts and wholes, then my argument may be seen as an elucidation of his argument. That is, my discussion of seeming awareness of abstract relations could then reinforce his conclusion that some holistic phenomenology must be cognitive phenomenology—the kind of holistic phenomenology that involves seeming awareness of abstract relations obtaining between abstract entities.
Anders Nes (2012) uses metaphors describing imagery as being ‘directed at’ or ‘circling around’ a theme or thought. He contrasts this with imagery that isn’t so directed when one doesn’t understand the sentence expressing the theme. Nes (2012) concludes that an account of the phenomenal contrast requires an appeal to the conceptual content of the theme. He remains neutral about whether this phenomenal ‘thematic unity’ consists in proprietary phenomenology, or purely sensory phenomenology. My argument suggests an elucidation of Nes’s metaphors: the phenomenology of thematic unity is explained by seeming awareness of logical relations between (propositions or concepts underlying) the sensory imagery and (propositions or concepts underlying) the theme. This would require cognitive phenomenology.
Since Nes’s examples contrast the presence and absence of themes, he does not conclude that different themes contribute different phenomenology Nes (2012, 97–8). Arguably, the dialogue bottom-up has one theme—that of scheduling an interview with Jim Nicholson about the Bush fundraising issue—and top-down a different theme—that of working together to plan an opportunity related to Jim. If correct, my example shows that even slightly different themes contribute different proprietary phenomenology. And this is because one seems aware of different logical relations on the top-down and bottom-up readings. Nevertheless, the dialogue’s salient contrast is at least not entirely explained by different phenomenal thematic unity. For the imagery isn’t all ‘directed at’ one unifying theme. Instead, one sees how each contribution to the dialogue, as one is reading it, is variously related to multiple contributions read before on that reading.
Montague (2016, 180) likewise says ‘impure’ cognitive phenomenology is cognitive phenomenology only in a deflationary sense, and rejects classifying ‘seeing-as’ phenomenology as impure.
This conclusion is stronger than the best glossed arguments that appeal to an absence versus presence of seeming awareness of abstract states of affairs, which don’t conclude the proprietary phenomenology is also distinctive: e.g., Chudnoff (2015a, 98; 2015b, 55).
And though Montague (2017) doesn’t appeal to seeming awareness of abstracta, her examples contrast the absence versus presence of representing high-level concepts: e.g. merely seeing a tree and seeing a tree as a tree. An appeal to a generic proprietary phenomenology of deploying a high-level concept seems sufficient given this kind of contrast case, absent further argumentation.
Perhaps Montague’s phenomenal contrast argument could be supplemented with an example like the duck-rabbit case, involving representing different high-level concepts, to conclude there is distinctive proprietary phenomenology. A drawback of this is that the stark contrast in concepts deployed may induce different sensory phenomenology—e.g. different attentional patterns (Carruthers & Veillet, 2011)—to help one see the picture differently, potentially obscuring cognitive phenomenology.
My argument most clearly supports the view that there is cognitive phenomenology associated with representing the kind of abstract relations or properties that aren’t, strictly speaking, instantiated by concrete things. Now, abstract logical relations may be said to be ‘high-level’ relational properties, unlike ‘low-level’ properties such as spatial or temporal relations, color, and shape. So my conclusion is compatible with (but doesn’t entail) the definition of cognitive phenomenology that Montague (2017, 2058) argues for: as phenomenology associated with representing high-level properties, including natural and functional kinds. These are instantiated by concrete things.
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Acknowledgements
I am very grateful to Nate Adams, Jim Darcy, Derek Lam, and an audience at the University of Virginia for their helpful discussion and suggestions. Multiple referees, including two at this journal, helped tremendously to improve it. I am especially indebted to Brie Gertler, Harold Langsam, Walter Ott, and Frederick Johnson for helping me through multiple rewrites.
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Fung, T. Dialogue and Cognitive Phenomenology. Erkenn 88, 2695–2715 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-021-00494-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-021-00494-7