Mechanisms and Consciousness Integrating Phenomenology with Cognitive Science Routledge Research in Phenomenology Series

This book develops a new approach to naturalizing phenomenology. The author proposes to integrate phenomenology with the mechanistic framework that offers new methodological perspectives for studying complex mental phenomena such as consciousness.

While mechanistic explanatory models are widely applied in cognitive science, their approach to describing subjective phenomena is limited. The author argues that phenomenology can fill this gap. He proposes two novel ways of integrating phenomenology and mechanism. First, he presents a new reading of phenomenological analyses as functional analyses. Such functional phenomenology delivers a functional sketch of a target system and provides constraints on the space of possible mechanisms. Second, he develops the neurophenomenological approach in the direction of dynamic modeling of experience. He shows that neurophenomenology can deliver dynamical constraints on mechanistic models and thus inform the search for an underlying mechanism.

Mechanisms and Consciousness will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in phenomenology, philosophy of mind, and the cognitive sciences.

Introduction

Part I. Integrating Phenomenology with Cognitive Science

1. The Concept of Phenomenology

2. Naturalizing Phenomenology Reconsidered

3. Models of Explanation in Cognitive Science

Part II. Phenomenology and Mechanism: In Search of Constraints

4. Phenomenology and Functionalism

5. Phenomenology and Dynamical Modeling

6. Conclusion: Towards Methodologically Guided Mutual Constraints

Marek Pokropski is Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Warsaw, Poland.