Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t8hqh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T22:00:11.308Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Phenomenal intentionality: reductionism vs. primitivism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Philip Woodward*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Valparaiso University, Valparaiso, IN, USA

Abstract

This paper explores the relationship between phenomenal properties and intentional properties. In recent years a number of philosophers have argued that intentional properties are sometimes necessitated by phenomenal properties, but have not explained why or how. Exceptions can be found in the work of Katalin Farkas and Farid Masrour, who develop versions of reductionism regarding phenomenally-necessitated intentionality (or ‘phenomenal intentionality’). I raise two objections to reductive theories of the sort they develop. Then I propose a version of primitivism regarding phenomenal intentionality. I argue that primitivism avoids the pitfalls of reductionism while promising broad explanatory payoffs.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Journal of Philosophy 2018

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bonjour, Laurence. 1998. In Defense of Pure Reason. New York, NY: Cambridge UP.Google Scholar
Bourget, David. 2010. “Consciousness is Underived Intentionality.” Noûs, 44 (1): 3258.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bourget, David. 2017. “The Role of Consciousness in Grasping and Understanding.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 95 (2): 285318.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burge, Tyler. 1988. “Individualism and Self-Knowledge.” Journal of Philosophy, 85 (11): 649663.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Camp, Elisabeth. 2006. “Metaphor in the Mind: The Cognition of Metaphor.” Philosophy Compass, 1 (2): 154170.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carruthers, Peter, and Veillet, Benedicte. 2011. “The Case against Cognitive Phenomenology.” In Cognitive Phenomenology, edited by Bayne, Tim and Montague, Michelle, 3556. New York, NY: Oxford UP.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chalmers, David. 2012. Constructing the World. Oxford: Oxford UP.Google Scholar
Chudnoff, Elijah. 2011. “What Intuitions are Like.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 82 (3): 625654.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chudnoff, Elijah. 2013. “Awareness of Abstract Objects.” Noûs, 47 (4): 706726.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Farkas, Katalin. 2013. “Constructing a World for the Senses.” In Phenomenal Intentionality, edited by Kriegel, Uriah, 99114. New York, NY: Oxford UP.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gertler, Brie. 2007. “Overextending the Mind?.” In Arguing about the Mind, edited by Gertler, Brie and Lawrence, L., 192206. Abingdon: Routledge.Google Scholar
Horgan, Terence, and Tienson, John. 2002. “The Intentionality of Phenomenology and the Phenomenology of Intentionality.” In Philosophy of Mind: Classical and Contemporary Readings, edited by Chalmers, David, 520533. New York, NY: Oxford UP.Google Scholar
Kriegel, Uriah. 2011. The Sources of Intentionality. New York, NY: Oxford UP.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Loar, Brian. 2003. “Phenomenal Intentionality as the Basis of Mental Content.” In Reflections and Replies: Essays on the Philosophy of Tyler Burge, edited by Hahn, Martin and Ramberg, Bjørn, 229258. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Lormand, Eric. 1996. “Nonphenomenal Consciousness.” Noûs, 30 (2): 242261.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ludwig, Kirk. 2012. “What Role Should Propositions Have in the Theory of Meaning? Review Essay: Scott Soames. What is Meaning?Philosophia, 40 (4): 885901.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lycan, William. 2008. “Phenomenal Intentionalities.” American Philosophical Quarterly, 45 (3): 233252.Google Scholar
Mendelovici, Angela. 2010. Mental Representation and Closely Conflated Topics. Doctoral Dissertation.Google Scholar
Millikan, Ruth Garrett. 1993. “Knowing What I’m Thinking of.” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 67: 91124.10.1093/aristoteliansupp/67.1.91CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Masrour, Farid. 2013. “Phenomenal Objectivity and Phenomenal Intentionality: In Defense of a Kantian Account.” In Phenomenal Intentionality, edited by Kriegel, Uriah, 116134. New York, NY: Oxford UP.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199764297.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peacocke, Christopher. 1996. “Entitlement, Self-Knowledge, and Conceptual Redeployment.” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 96: 117158.Google Scholar
Ott, Walter. 2016. “Phenomenal Intentionality and the Problem of Representation.” Journal of the American Philosophical Association, 2: 131145.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Perky, C. W., 1910. “An Experimental Study of Imagination.” The American Journal of Psychology, 21: 422452.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pitt, David. 2004. “The Phenomenology of Cognition or What is It like to Think That P?Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 69 (1): 136.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pitt, David. 2011. “Introspection, Phenomenality, and the Availability of Intentional Content.” In Cognitive Phenomenology, edited by Bayne, Tim and Montague, Michelle, 141173. New York, NY: Oxford UP.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Prinz, Jesse. 2011. “The Sensory Basis of Cognitive Phenomenology”.” In Cognitive Phenomenology, edited by Bayne, Tim and Montague, Michelle, 174196. New York, NY: Oxford UP.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robinson, William. 2005. “Thoughts without Distinctive Non-Imagistic Phenomenology.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 70 (3): 534562.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robinson, William. 2011. “A Frugal View of Cognitive Phenomenology.” In Cognitive Phenomenology, edited by Bayne, Tim and Montague, Michelle, 197214. New York, NY: Oxford UP.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Russell, Bertrand. 1910. “Knowledge by Acquaintance and Knowledge by Description.” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 11 (5): 108128.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Searle, John. 1992. The Rediscovery of the Mind. Cambridge: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Siegel, Susanna. 2010. The Contents of Visual Experience. New York, NY: Oxford UP.Google Scholar
Siewert, Charles. 1998. The Significance of Consciousness. Princeton UP: Princeton.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Strawson, Galen. 2008. Real Materialism and Other Essays. Oxford: Oxford UP.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tye, Michael, and Wright, Briggs. 2011. “Is There a Phenomenology of Thought?” In Cognitive Phenomenology, edited by Bayne, Tim and Montague, Michelle, 326344. New York, NY: Oxford UP.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilson, Robert A., 2003. “Intentionality and Phenomenology.” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 84 (4): 413431.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woodward, Philip. 2016. “Conscious Intentionality in Perception, Imagination, and Cognition.” Phenomenology and Mind, 10: 140155.Google Scholar