For: “Plain” Analytical Phenomenology
Against: Dennett’s “Heterophenomenology”
The Viability of a Phenomenological
Approach to Consciousness I (Lecture 1)
Charles Siewert
Rice University
Contemporary philosophy of
consciousness
• Largely: defense or criticism of attempts to reductively
explain consciousness
– Attempts, that is, to identify consciousness with, and
explain it as, what is conceived of in terms that don’t
presuppose it (e.g., in either information-processing, or
physiological terms).
• Typical guiding concern: is the doctrine of physicalism
true or false, and what are the implications of our
answer?
Contemporary Philosophy of
Consciousness—standard options
1.
Explain consciousness reductively. Say how we might reductively
explain it.) (Frequent strategy: reductive representationialism—“first
order” (e.g., Dretske, Tye, Prinz, Hill); “higher-order” (e.g., Rosenthal,
Lycan, Carruthers)
1.
Marginalize the importance of consciousness.
–
–
–
1.
Can be combined with 1. (e.g., Geoff Lee)
Or: effort at threat containment. (e.g., Kim)
At the extreme: eliminate altogether the troublesome sense of
‘consciousness.’ (e.g., Dennett, Rey)
Show 1 and 2 don’t work. Persistence of “hard problem,” “gap,”
“mystery.” (e.g., Chalmers, Levine, McGinn)
My project for
the philosophy of consciousness
• Not antireductionist, but nonreductionist: my
primary focus is neither on defending nor on
criticizing attempts to reductively explain
consciousness.
• Rather: initially bracketing such theories, first ask
what can we say about consciousness that will
help us understand its place in our knowledge,
understanding, values and agency.
My research program
I: substantive, but open identification of topic: consciousness
II: “phenomenal intentionality” (how experience is related to both
sensory object perception and exercise of conceptual capacities)
III. epistemic significance of consciousness (its role in warranting both
sense-perceptual, and introspective judgments)
IV: consciousness, mind and meaning
V:. consciousness, agency and selfhood
VI. consciousness and value
VII: examination of (causal, nomological, reductive) frameworks for
explaining consciousness in light of I-VI.
Controversial questions we should initially leave open
•
How RICH OR POOR in detail is sensory experience/consciousness?
•
How is it related to ATTENTION?
•
Is sensory experience “INTENTIONAL”? “REPRESENTATIONAL”?
•
Does it “REPRESENT HIGHER-LEVEL PROPERTIES”? Confined to “lower” or
“intermediate level representations”? How is what we experience through the
senses related to our grasp of CONCEPTS?
•
Is CONCEPTUAL THOUGHT PHENOMENAL in the same way as sense experience?
•
Is introspection based on “INNER SENSE”?
•
Is consciousness essentially “SELF-REPRESENTATIONAL”? Or “SELF-REFLEXIVE”?
•
Is there experience/consciousness of AGENCY? Of SELF?
My approach: a kind of phenomenology
• Phenomenological Movement. What links together, as a matter of
intellectual history: Brentano, Husserl, Stein, Scheler, Heidegger, Sartre,
Gurwitsch, Merleau-Ponty, &?.
• My Version of “Analytic Phenomenology.”
A practice of self-critical first-person reflection used to clarify distinctions
and show their relevance to theoretical and philosophical issues.
Influenced by and arguably continuous with the phenomenological
movement, understood historically
Responsive to issues and arguments in the contemporary analytic
tradition.
Contrasts with, e.g., “heterophenomenology,” and other approaches
characterized by either a disregard for, or rather different use of
“introspection”—or, as I prefer, first-person reflection.
An “underived” and “self-critical” use
of “first-person reflection”
• FIRST-PERSON: my phenomenology relies on a way of judging
about your own attitudes, thought and experience—and a type of
warrant in so judging—distinctive of the first-person case, in
consideration of real and hypothetical situations.
• UNDERIVED: It does not assume that the warrant we have for firstperson claims about experience is limited to what they can derive
from the fact that granting them accuracy best explains “thirdperson” observational data acquired without reliance on firstperson reflection.
• SELF-CRITICAL: it acknowledges the fallibility of first-person
judgment about experience, but affirms and tries to strengthen its
powers of self-correction.
Main business today
• Examine a prominent, contrasting approach to
the study of consciousness: Dennett’s thirdpersonal “heterophenomenology”
• To clarify and make the case for my alternative
“plain” (neither “third-personal” nor “pure”)
self-critical phenomenology.
What is at stake in these
methodological disputes:
How should we seek self-knowledge?
What is Dennett’s methodological view?
• What he calls “heterophenomenology”
• Grounded in criticism of the idea that
introspection is infallibile
An alleged demonstration of
introspection’s fallibility :
Dennett:
• “The visual field seems to naïve reflection to
be uniformly detailed and focused from the
center out to the boundaries…
• But a simple experiment show that this is not
so.” (Consciousness Explained, p. 53)
The playing card surprise
Fixate straight ahead. Slowly bring the card
towards the place you’re staring at.
“You will probably be surprised at how close to
center you can move the card and still be
unable to identify it.” (CE, 54)
The lesson of this surprise?
“Were you surprised…?
[If so] that must mean that had you held forth on
the topic before the surprising demonstration,
you would very likely have got it wrong.
People often claim a direct acquaintance with
more content in their peripheral visual field than
in fact they have.” (CE, 68)
Dennett: evidence of fallibility
undermines reliance on introspection
• There is often a “first-person plural presumption” in discussion of
what is found in our “streams of consciousness”.
• Problem: disagreement.
• Dennett’s diagnosis:
– “we are fooling ourselves about the high reliability of introspection.”
– “the doctrine of infallibility is just a mistake”
– We claim to be using powers of inner observation when really we are
theorizing.
What to do about introspective fallibility/disagreement?
Shift to “third-person point of view”
• the first-person perspective: “a treacherous incubator
of errors.”
• Mental events are “not among the data of science”
• “The challenge is to construct a theory of mental
events, using the data that scientific method permits.
• Such a theory will have to be constructed from the
third-person point of view since all science is
constructed from that perspective.” (CE )
Dennett’s aim: a “neutral path”?
• Supposed to provide a neutral description of the data
that does not prejudge the issue Nagel raises (whether
we can give a complete account of the world in
objective terms).(CE, 71)
• Supposed to be neutral regarding which entities have
consciousness.(CE, 72)
• Supposed to be neutral about whether there could be
“zombies” in the philosopher’s (Chalmers’ style
“conceivability argument”) sense. (CE, 73)
To “heterophenomenology”
• From mere sounds, to text, to “speech acts”. View
subjects via “the intentional stance” (CE, 76-77)
• Let subjects’ texts “constitute the subject’s
heterophenomenological world”—comparable to
the world created in fiction.
• Then we can determine (by theorizing from the
third-person point of view) to what extent (if any)
the “heterophenomenological world” of the
subject corresponds to reality. (See CE, p. 98)
Dennett on “first-person authority”
• “If you want us to believe everything you say about your
phenomenology…that is asking too much. You are not authoritative
about what is happening in you but only about what seems to be
happening in you, and we are giving you total, dictatorial authority
over the account of how it seems to you, about what it is like to be
you.” (CE, 96)
• “…[T]he facts about what people believe and report when they
express their beliefs—are phenomena any scientific theory of mind
must account for…The question whether items thus portrayed
exist…is an empirical matter to investigate.
• “If suitable real candidates are uncovered, we can identify them as
the long-sought referents of the subject’s terms; if not, we will have
to explain why it seems to subjects that these items exist.” (CE, 98)
HP: “Heterophenomenology”: the basic idea
The “primary data” for the study of consciousness are subjects’ reports,
interpreted as expressions of their beliefs about experience.
HP inquiry is “neutral” or “agnostic” about the truth of any of those beliefs.
(pp.82-83)
Subjects are assumed to have “dictatorial authority” regarding what they
believe about their experience.
But they are presumed to have no authority regarding the experience itself.
Dennett describes this as granting subjects authority regarding “how it
seems” to them, and regarding “what it’s like to be them.” (p.84) Thus, in
Dennett’s HP, what it’s like to be a subject is identified with what the
subject believes to be true about his or her experience.
Dennett’s NO PRESUMED AUTHORITY thesis.
The methodolgical lesson of “Feenoman”
• Heterophenomenology says: Treat our beliefs about our
own experience as anthropological observers would treat
tribe’s beliefs about their forest god “Feenoman.”
• Scientists would accept without question the tribe
members’ reports of what they believe. But the
anthropologists would not presume these beliefs are
justified to any degree.
• They would only accept what they need to explain the
beliefs/practices from a third-person observer’s point of
view.
Dennett’s NO PRESUMED AUTHORITY thesis.
The methodolgical lesson of “Feenoman”
• In studying consciousness we should proceed with
respect to our beliefs about our own experience in
much the same way anthropologists would proceed
with respect to the tribe’s “Feenoman” beliefs.
• “Only when such a theory [one that explains why we
believe what we do about experience] is in place will
be able, for the first time, to know what we mean
when we talk about ‘the experiences themselves’ as
distinct from what we, each subjectively, take our
experiences to be.” (CE p. 90)
Crucial thesis of HP: no presumed firstperson authority about experience
In HP, subjects are assumed to have “DICTATORIAL
AUTHORITY” regarding what they BELIEVE about their
experience.
But they are presumed to have NO AUTHORITY regarding the
EXPERIENCE itself.
Why accept this methodological claim? Dennett’s argument
seems to be:
1. It is the only good way we can recognize and correct
introspective fallibility.
2. It is presupposed in scientific practice.
We need to distinguish three theses re
FP judgment about experience
• INFALLIBILSM: FP judgments about experience (or some important
subclass of these) are such that, when you make them, you can’t be
wrong.
• NO PRESUMED FP AUTHORITY (Dennett’s HP): FP reports/beliefs
about experience are presumed to have no authority—unless and
until their accuracy is confirmed by third-person theorizing.
• DEFEASIBLE FP AUTHORITY (e.g., Siewert): the fact that someone
makes a sincere FP judgment about experience gives one some
reason to accept its truth, but doesn’t guarantee this: the judgment
is still open to rational correction.
Dennett seems to neglect the third
• DEFEASIBLE FP AUTHORITY (e.g., Siewert): the
fact that someone makes a sincere FP judgment
about experience gives one some reason to
accept its truth, but doesn’t guarantee this.
• Compare our treatment of memory: we are
entitled to rely on it without deriving its authority
in some “memory-free” way—but still we
recognize memories are fallible, and correctible
by other memories.
Why think that HP is presupposed by science?
Dennett’s evidence (“Who’s on First?” (WF)
1. Imagery Research
2. Visual Illusion Research
3. Research using “masking”
Here: Comment on (2) and (3)
Dennett’s evidence that
HP is presupposed by science
In research on visual illusions
researchers only assume as data
what subjects believe to be the
case:
“…[O]f course experimenters on illusion
rely on subjects’ introspective
beliefs (as expressed in their
judgments) about how it seems to
them, but that is the agnosticism of
heterophenomenology;
to go beyond it would be, for
instance, to assume that in size
illusions there really were visual
images of different sizes
somewhere in subjects’ brains (or
minds), which of course no
researcher would dream of doing.”
(WF p.87)
Dennett’s evidence that HP is
presupposed by science
3. “Masked priming”—scientific
researchers should not (and
would not) just assume that the
subjects’ were not conscious of
the “masked” stimulus, when
they deny being conscious of it.
All that should be accepted is that
subjects believe that they were
not conscious of the stimulus.
One needs to seek evidence as to
whether subjects were not
conscious of the stimulus, or
were conscious of it for an
instant but had no memory of it
(because of the “masking”
stimulus). (WF, p. 89)
Critique of Dennett’s HP: Preview
1. Dennett’s “surprise” argument fails doubly:
(a) it fails to show we actually have the false introspective
beliefs he attributes to us, and
(b) it fails to show us how to justify his key methodological
principle (“no presumed FP authority”) on the basis of
recognizing FP fallibility.
2. His examples from experimental psychology don’t show
that scientific practice does or needs to presuppose the
“no presumed FP authority” principle essential to HP.
Actually, there is reason to believe the opposite.
Critique of Dennett’s HP: Preview
3. The “no presumed FP authority” principle of HP,
implies we can grasp the concepts we use to form FP
beliefs about experience well enough to seek TP
evidence to justify them, without assuming we can
accurately apply these concepts in the FP case. If this
is false, the practice of HP undermines our grasp of
the very concepts it needs to employ.
4. By denying any presumption that we can accurately
apply concepts of experience in the FP case, HP
would, without justification, de-legitimize critical
self-examination of beliefs about experience.
Dennett’s failed argument from surprise
What exactly does Dennett think surprise in the playing
card demo shows we would have got wrong had we
“held forth” on it? Two possible mistakes:
a) False claims about how well we see shape and colors
outside of the focal point when staring fixedly.
b) False claims about how much “content” we have in
“peripheral visual field” in normal (active, saccadic)
vision.
It seems that Dennett wants to say he shows we make
mistake (b) (“people often claim more direct
acquaintance with content… than they have”).
Dennett’s failed argument from surprise
a)
b)
False claims about how well we see shape and colors outside of the focal
point when staring fixedly.
False claims about how much “content” we have in “peripheral visual field”
in normal (active, saccadic) vision.
It seems that Dennett wants to say he shows we make mistake (b).
But surprise at how poor our peripheral vision is when staring fixedly does not
show we have mistaken views about how much we see in normal active
vision.
It’s unclear surprise even shows we previously had mistaken views about (a). To
be surprised that p does not necessarily require that you previously
expected that not p. It might be enough that you did not expect that p.
Also notice: to disconfirm the alleged error, we rely on introspection, and make
no apparent commitment to the “no presumed FP authority” principle.
So: Criticism #1 of Dennett
• His “simple demonstration” (supposedly) showing the
fallibility of introspection, attributes beliefs to us he offers
no good reason to think we actually have. ((“The visual
field seems to naïve reflection to be uniformly detailed and
focused….”)
• Anyway, he doesn’t show to get from demonstrating the
fallibility of introspection, to justifying the “no presumed
authority” principle. This is a big gap in the argument.
• The kind of “correction” he illustrates seems to presume
the reliability of introspection.
Dennett’s failed argument from Visual illusion Research
When subjects’ say: “That circle looks bigger to me than that one,”
don’t researchers accept both
(i) that the subjects believe that one circle looks bigger than the other,
and
(ii) that it actually does look bigger to them than the other?
What is supposed to show researchers accept only (i) (the belief
report), and then (“heterophenomenologically”) seek out thirdperson evidence of the accuracy of the subjects’ beliefs (about
experience)?
Dennett suggests accepting (ii) would commit researchers to the
existence of variously sized circular items in the subjects’ brains (or
minds). But this is simply mistaken.
Dennett’s failed argument from
Visual illusion Research
Further, suppose researchers don’t accept (ii)—subjects’
reports that one figure looks bigger to them than the
other.
Then they simply have no reason for regarding this as a
case of visual illusion (rather than introspective error).
But if they do accept (ii) on the authority of subjects’
reports, then they aren’t heterophenomenologists.
D’s failed argument from the “masking” example.
Granted: researchers do not (should not) assume that subjects
would be correct in denying they were very briefly
conscious of a stimulus.
But this can easily be justified without HP, as follows.
Why we shouldn’t just accept
subjects’ denial of disk experience
When there is no masking stimulus, subjects do report seeing the
priming stimulus, and we give prima facie credence to their reports
then—so there is at least some reason to expect they would see
the same stimulus briefly under masking conditions.
Now the subjects’ denial of seeing the stimulus is based entirely on a
lack of memory of having done so—but memory is fallible, and the
conditions for forming reliable memories are especially poor here.
For if there is an experience of the disk, it is very brief and it is
quickly replaced by something else that captures attention.
This is reason to be cautious about accepting the truth of subjects’
reports in these particular circumstances. But this reason appeals
to the presumption of first-person authority that HP denies.
So: Criticism #2 of Dennett
• HP is not in fact, presupposed in the conduct
of experimental research on vision.
• HP’s “no presumed first-person authority”
plays no discernible role in the research.
• On the contrary, a presumption of first-person
authority seems to be playing a crucial role in
his examples (much as Goldman suggests).
How Dennett Might Reply
Even if it’s unclear HP is required for legitimate
research about consciousness…
What have we got to lose, if we go with it? What
harm would it do, to accept HP? Why should we
grant introspection some “prima facie” authority?
“Why not live by the heterophenomenological
rules?...Nobody has yet pointed to any variety of data
that are inaccessible to heterophenomenology.” (WF,
p.92)
Criticism #3: HP could keep us from grasping
concepts of experience. Thus it could deny us access
to all the data of consciousness.
Note HP identifies “what it’s like to have an experience” with
what a subject believes about her own experience.
But there is a difference between, e.g., the way an itch feels
(= what it’s like for one to feel it) and what you believe
about itches. The former is the “phenomenology”
(phenomenal character) of an itch.
If you don’t get this distinction, you simply don’t get the very
idea of consciousness. But HP explicitly obliterates the
distinction.
Criticism #3: HP could keep us from grasping
concepts of experience (consciousness)
If you don’t get the distinction between, e.g., the way an itch feels
(= what it’s like for one to feel it) and what you believe about
itches, you simply don’t get the very idea of consciousness. But HP
explicitly obliterates the distinction.
This criticism presupposes I am generally competent in saying “I feel an
itch” when I do, and that I can tell my own itches apart from tickles
or toothaches and other states that aren’t itches (like beliefs about
itches).
Admittedly, HP asks us not to presuppose this competence.
But then it prevents our understanding the very notions whose
accuracy it pretends to investigate.
HP risks destroying our grasp of the beliefs it
claims to investigate
This example points to a deeper more general problem with HP.
HP presupposes, without justification, that we can understand the
concepts we use in forming FP beliefs about experience well
enough to seek TP evidence for these beliefs…
without assuming we can accurately apply these concepts in the
FP case.
But to start, it is strongly counterintuitive to suppose that I could
understand well enough what I meant by ‘itch’ though I was quite
incompetent at correctly telling when I feel an itch.
HP risks destroying our grasp of the beliefs it
claims to investigate
Suppose: our grasp of the concepts we use in forming FP beliefs about experience
depends on our being able to correctly apply these concepts in such beliefs.
Then we cannot understand them well enough for inquiry into the truth of such
beliefs, unless we assume those beliefs are not massively false.
But HP forbids us from making that assumption. So HP is self-defeating.
Our grasp of these concepts does not depend on the accuracy of these beliefs, only if
our concepts of experience are pure “functional role” concepts.
But such “conceptual functionalism” is, and should be, extremely controversial. It
should not be assumed.
And notice: to assume it would be to abandon the “neutrality” Dennett claims for HP
(about, e.g., “zombies”). For we would in effect presuppose the inconceivability of
zombies.
Criticism #4: HP robs us of the ability to improve and
correct our introspection by critical reflection.
Consider the claim Dennett thinks we erroneously hold: “The visual field [is] uniformly
detailed and focused from the center out to the boundaries.”
How am I supposed to correct such an error (by, e.g., Dennett’s playing card
demonstration) without presuming myself entitled to at least some of my
introspective judgments about experience?
Mustn’t I presumed I’m warranted in saying, e.g., “I am now looking straight ahead,
not at the card”—”The card now looks nearer to the spot I’m looking at”, etc.)
There is no way to correct alleged errors in some of our first-person judgments about
experience through critical self-examination without reliance on other first-person
judgments about experience.
It seems HP, strictly followed, would rob us of critical self-examination of FP beliefs
about experience.
Heterophenomenology:
unnecessary and harmful
•
UNNEEDED AS RESPONSE TO FALLIBILITY. First, the argument for HP
rests on dubious and unjustified claims about what introspection
erroneously tells us. Second, to determine whether we really do believe
what Dennett says we do, and to correct the errors we make, we can and
do rely on first-person reflection without any HP third-person derivation.
•
UNNEEDED TO ACCOUNT FOR EXPERIMENTAL PRACTICE. Experimental
study of consciousness does not require HP’S implicit “no presumed
first-person authority”—such a claim plays no essential role in the
experimental reasoning.
•
POSITIVELY HARMFUL. HP (consistently pursued) could harm the study
of consciousness by preventing: our understanding the concepts of
experience that figure in our first-person beliefs about it; and critical
first-person reflection to correct errors in those beliefs.
Points the way to an alternative
Plain, Self-Critical Phenomenology
 Rely on first-person judgment about experience in
response to “Socratic” questioning,
 While granting that such judgment is fallible,
 And seeking rational self-correction,
 But without pretending to derive its warrant entirely
from observational, third-person evidence.