In this chapter we reflect on questions about the nature and sources of agentive phenomenology – that is, the set of those experience-types associated with exercises of agency, and paradigmatically with intentional actions. Our discussion begins with pioneering work in psychology and neuroscience that dates to the early 80s (section 1). As we will see, much of the current work on agentive phenomenology in both psychology and philosophy draws motivation from this work, and the questions it (...) raises. After discussing empirical work relevant to agentive phenomenology, we turn to consideration of its nature. We cover questions about the scope of agentive phenomenology, about its relationship to other types of experiences (section 2.1), about the best way to characterize aspects of agentive phenomenology, and about the function of various types of agentive experience (section 2.2). (shrink)

Most incompatibilist theories of free will and moral responsibility require, for a person to count as morally responsible for an action, that specific events leading up to the action be undetermined. One might think, then, that incompatibilists should remain agnostic about whether anyone is ever free or morally responsible, since whether there are such undetermined events would seem to be an empirical question unsettled by scientific research. Yet, a number of incompatibilists have suggested that the phenomenological character of our experiences (...) already gives us good reason to believe that much of our behavior is freely undertaken, so that we are justified in believing that the free will condition for moral responsibility is often satisfied. I argue, however, that on the assumption that free will is incompatible with determinism, reflections on the character of our experiences do not provide good support for the claim that we ever act freely. (shrink)

The phenomenological goal of grounding the content of conceptual thought in the background understanding of everyday, skillful coping was approached using evolutionary autonomous agent methodology. The behavior of an EAA evolved to perform a specified motor task was identified with skillful coping. Changes in the dynamics of the EAA controller occurred when the EAA encountered an unexpected obstacle with loss of longer time scale components in its hierarchical temporal organization. These temporal changes are consistent with the phenomenological changes which we (...) experience with breakdown during equipment use with our adoption of a more immediate, determinate stance. Since this latter experience is the basis of conceptual thought, the EAA paradigm goes some way in providing a naturalized explanation for the grounding of the content of conceptual thought in everyday, skillful coping in a manner that is physiologically plausible and phenomenologically accurate. (shrink)

Contemporary philosophers and scientists have done much to expand our understanding of the structure and neural mechanisms of joint action. But the phenomenology of joint action has only recently become a live topic for research. One method of clarifying what is unique about the phenomenology of joint action is by considering the alternative perspective of agents subsumed in group action. By group action we mean instances of individual agents acting while embedded within a group agent, instead of with (...) individual coordination. Paradigm examples are educational bureaucracies, corporations, and nation states. There is a phenomenological difference between agents whose actions are subsumed within a group action (“the university did X”) as compared to agents who act jointly (“we did x”). Attending to this difference clarifies what is phenomenologically distinctive about joint action. Appealing to an Aristotelian account of agency and to the metaphysical concept of weak emergence, we argue that what makes paradigmatic group action distinctive is the relative inaccessibility, un-revisability, and evaluative simplicity of the group agent’s goal(s) from the perspective of individual agents. This suggests that a distinctive feature of joint agency is the maintenance of a greater sense of individual agency. Put simply, joint agency is often experienced as an enhancement of the individuals’ agency precisely because our paradigmatic agential powers are extended intersubjectively as we act together. In contrast, group agency often involves a loss of the sense of agency, precisely because it is the emergent group agent that maintains the agential powers. (shrink)

Several philosophers claim that the phenomenology of one’s own agency conflicts with standard causal theories of action, couched in terms of causation by mental events or states. Others say that the phenomenology is prima facie incompatible with such a theory, even if in the end a reconciliation can be worked out. Here it is argued that the type of action theory in question is consistent with what can plausibly be said to be presented to us in our experience (...) of our agency. Several routes to a claim that there is nevertheless a prima facie incompatibility are examined, and all are found wanting. The phenomenology of agency, it is argued, is no threat to a standard causal theory of action. (shrink)

The causal theory of action is thought to be plagued by the problem of the disappearing agent. However, philosophers have reached no consensus on the nature of this problem, let alone on whether it is solvable. In this article, I interpret the problem as a phenomenological challenge: the causal theory of action employs an event-causal framework, with which certain aspects of the phenomenology of agency seem incompatible. I examine two areas in which the phenomenology appears to speak against (...) an event-causal framework: (1) the phenomenology of acting and (2) the phenomenology of making choices. Specifically, some philosophers have asserted that the phenomenology of acting involves content that action is caused by the agent themselves rather than by their mental states. Some philosophers have argued that the phenomenology of making choices involves content that the agent stands apart from their mental states in a way that allows them to reflect on, evaluate, or even manipulate their mental states. I argue that in neither case does the phenomenology pose a real challenge to the causal theory of action. (shrink)

Traditional articulations of the conception of dirty hands, as the doing of wrong in order to do right, invite construals of the issues raised thereby as mired in conceptual confusions and inconsistencies, and moreover as generating unproductive discussions of the scope of the proposed notion itself. The status of the concept of dirty hands is thus precarious, in spite of its provenance in the work of political thinkers such as Machiavelli. This essay articulates one nonparadoxical conception of dirty hands, as (...) the uncomfortable phenomenology of agents authorized to act on behalf of others, when they are called upon to do things that, while morally correct, are also personally or morally distasteful. The key point is that the dirt of action remains on these agents’ hands, even if moral responsibility for the relevant actions should be conceived as falling on the persons in whose name they take the said action. This articulation opens up for investigation questions about the phenomenology of authorized agency, as well as the moral labor involved in leadership and in other contexts of authorized distasteful action. These are questions of social ontology. Here there is important philosophical work that remains to be done. (shrink)

In this paper, I draw from Kantian and Husserlian reflections on the self-awareness of thinking for a contribution to the cognitive phenomenology debate. In particular, I draw from Kant’s conceptions of inner sense and apperception, and from Husserl’s notions of lived experience and self-awareness for an inquiry into the nature of our awareness of our own cognitive activity. With particular consideration of activities of attention, I develop what I take to be Kant’s and Husserl’s “agentive” and “proprietary” accounts. (...) These, I believe, augment contemporary discussions in interesting ways and further bolster the case for cognitive phenomenology. Moreover, the historical comparison highlights a number of assumptions made today that were not yet part of the framework at the time of Kant or at the time of Husserl. This helps reflect on the legitimacy of these assumptions. (shrink)

In this paper the relationship between phenomenology of perception and synthetic phenomenology is discussed. Synthetic phenomenology is presented on the basis of the issues in A.I. and Robotics that required to address the question of what enables artificial agents to have phenomenal access to the environment. Phenomenology of perception is construed as a theory with autonomous structure and domain, which can be embedded in a philosophical as well as a scientific theory. Two attempts at specifying the (...) phenomenal content of artificial agents are discussed. Concepts and experimental evidence on the independence of perception and the coordination of motion and appearances are set out to submit that phenomenology of perception makes a contribution to synthetic phenomenology. (shrink)

: I focus on Uriah Kriegel’s account of conative phenomenology. I agree with Kriegel’s argument that some conative phenomenology is primitive in that some conative phenomenal properties cannot be reduced to another kind of property. I disagree, however, with Kriegel’s specific characterization of the properties in question. Kriegel argues that the experience of deciding-and-then-trying is the core of conative phenomenology. I argue, however, that the experiences of trying and acting better occupy this place. Further, I suggest that (...) the attitudinal component of the experiences of trying and acting is not, as Kriegel suggests, best characterized in terms of commitment to the rightness or goodness of the objects of experience. Rather, I argue that the attitudinal component is best characterized in imperatival terms. Keywords : Agentive Phenomenology; Deciding; Trying; Imperatives Kriegel e la fenomenologia dell’azione Riassunto : In questo testo mi concentrerò sulla descrizione della fenomenologia conativa di Kriegel. Mentre condivido la tesi di Kriegel, secondo cui parte della fenomenologia conativa è primitiva, nel senso che parte delle proprietà fenomeniche conative non possono essere ridotte ad altri tipi di proprietà, debbo tuttavia dissentire riguardo la specifica caratterizzazione data da Kriegel delle proprietà in questione. Kriegel ritiene che l’esperienza del decidere-e-poi-sforzarsi sia il nucleo della fenomenologia conativa. Io direi tuttavia che le esperienze dello sforzo e dell’azione occupano meglio questa posizione. Inoltre, suggerirei che la componente relativa all’atteggiamento delle esperienze dello sforzo e dell’azione non sia descrivibile al meglio, come suggerisce Kriegel, in termini di impegno legato all’adeguatezza o all’integrità dell’oggetto d’esperienza. Direi piuttosto che la componente dell’atteggiamento sia meglio descrivibile in termini imperativi.. Parole chiave : Fenomenologia dell’agentività; Atto della decisione; Atto dello sforzo; Imperativi. (shrink)

The notion of a secondary property is usefully construed this way: sensory-perceptual experiences that present apparent instantiations of such a quality have intentional content—presentational content—that is systematically non-veridical, because the experientially presented quality is never actually instantiated; but judgments that naively seem to attribute instantiations of this very quality really have different content—judgmental content—that is often veridical. Color-presenting experiences and color-attributing judgments, for instance, are plausibly regarded as conforming to such a dual-content secondary-quality account. In this paper we address the (...) comparative theoretical advantages and disadvantages of two alternative versions of compatibilism about agentive freedom. Illusionist compatibilism is a dual-content secondary-quality view asserting that free-agency experience has presentational content that is libertarian and systematically non-veridical, whereas free-agency attributing judgments have non-libertarian, compatibilist, content. Uniform compatibilism instead asserts that free-agency experience and free-agency attributing judgments have uniform, compatibilist, content. We argue that uniform compatibilism fully accommodates the directly introspectable features of free-agency phenomenology, and is more plausible than illusionist compatibilism. (shrink)

Here, I put forward a new account of how experience gives rise to the belief that time passes. While there is considerable disagreement amongst metaphysicians as to whether time really does pass, it has struck many as a default, ‘common sense’ way of thinking about the world. A popular way of explaining how such a belief arises is to say that it seems perceptually as though time passes. Here I outline some difficulties for this approach, and propose instead that the (...) belief in time passing is elicited by a particular feature of agentive experience. When we deliberately move our bodies, bring something to mind, or focus our attention, we experience ourselves as the sources of these actions. Sensing oneself as a source, I argue, is a unique type of change experience, one which leads us to a belief that time is passing. (shrink)

The phenomenology of agency has, until recently, been rather neglected, overlooked by both philosophers of action and philosophers of consciousness alike. Thankfully, all that has changed, and of late there has been an explosion of interest in what it is like to be an agent. 1 This burgeoning field crosses the traditional boundaries between disciplines: philosophers of psychopathology are speculating about the role that unusual experiences of agency might play in accounting for disorders of thought and action; cognitive scientists (...) are developing models of how the phenomenology of agency is generated; and philosophers of mind are drawing connections between the phenomenology of agency and the nature of introspection, phenomenal character, and agency itself. My aim in this paper is not to provide an exhaustive survey of this recent literature, but to provide a.. (shrink)

In this book, Robert Sokolowski argues that being a person means to be involved with truth. He shows that human reason is established by syntactic composition in language, pictures, and actions and that we understand things when they are presented to us through syntax. Sokolowski highlights the role of the spoken word in human reason and examines the bodily and neurological basis for human experience. Drawing on Husserl and Aristotle, as well as Aquinas and Henry James, Sokolowski here employs (...) class='Hi'>phenomenology in a highly original way in order to clarify what we are as human agents. (shrink)

A formalism is developed that treats a robot as a subject that can interpret its own experience rather than an object that is interpreted within our experience. A regulative definition of a meaningful experience in robots is proposed in which the present sensible experience is considered meaningful to the agent, as the subject of the experience, if it can be related to the agent's temporal horizons. This definition is validated by demonstrating that such an experience in evolutionary autonomous agents is (...) embodied, contextual and normative, as is required for the maintenance of phenomenological accuracy. With this formalism it is shown how a dialectic similar to that described in Hegelian phenomenology can emerge in the robotic experience and why the presence of such a dialectic can serve as a constraint in the further development of cognitive agents. (shrink)

The experiences described in the VIP transcripts are incredibly varied and yet frequently explicitly labelled by participants as "voices." How can we make sense of this? If we reflect carefully on uses of the word "voice", we see that it can express at least two entirely different concepts, which pick out categorically different phenomena. One concept picks out a speech sound (e.g. "This synthesizer has a "voice" setting"). Another concept picks out a specific agent (e.g. "I hear two voices: one (...) is a ten year-old boy…"). This chapter explores how these two concepts are related to one another in the context of voice-hearing. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that the conscious awareness one has of oneself as acting, i.e., agentive awareness, is not a type of sensory awareness. After providing some set up in Sect. 1, I move on in Sect. 2 to sketch a profile of sensory agentive experiences as representational states with sensory qualities by which we come to be aware of ourselves as performing actions. In Sect. 3, I critique two leading arguments in favor of positing such sensory (...) experiences: the argument from pathology and the argument from cognitive impenetrability. Since neither of these arguments succeeds, the case for positing SAEs is dealt a significant blow. I proceed in Sect. 4 to advance my positive argument against SAEs. The argument runs as follows: If SAEs exist, then they must exist in some sensory modality or set of sensory modalities. Either the relevant sensory modalities are ones that we already recognize, or they are novel sensory modalities. I will argue that neither of these options is workable, and so we have nowhere to locate SAEs. Agentive awareness is not sensory awareness. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore scientific attempts to articulate a unified theory of the serotonin system and to explain the effects of psychedelic substances. I consider how certain accounts of psychedelic action have focused primarily on cognitive states, and I propose some phenomenological insights to supplement these models and inform work on psychedelics as therapeutic agents. Specifically, I argue that considering “psychological transformation” to be a core desideratum of psychedelic therapy should lead us to investigate the role of affect in (...) guiding significant psychological change. The phenomenological tradition offers resources for describing the relationship between knowledge and affect, and I argue that epistemically significant affective states such as fascination and revelation are more central to psychedelic experience than is commonly acknowledged. I propose that understanding the role of affect in psychedelic experiences is critical to developing a plausible account of the potential for using these substances therapeutically. (shrink)

This paper aims to lay bare the underlying logical structure of early Buddhist moral thinking. It argues that moral vocabulary in the Pali Suttas varies depending on the kind of agent under discussion and that this variance reflects an understanding that the phenomenology of moral experience also differs on the same basis. An attempt is made to spell this out in terms of attachment. The overall picture of Buddhist ethics that emerges is that of an agent-based moral contextualism. This (...) account does not imply that the prescription for moral conduct differs according to class of agent, but rather that the correct description of moral experience does. Further it implies that the descriptions of the moral experiences of different classes of agent differ phenomenologically, rather than in terms of overt behavioral characteristics. While most of the discussion is centered on the distinction between ordinary persons and disciples in higher training, the paper concludes with a brief exploration of the problematic moral experience of the arahat. (shrink)

Taking as a starting point Taylor's concept about man as a being of meanings, this article examines, in particular, the way that Taylor elaborates his conception of the practical use of reason, recovering some fundamental notions of the phenomenological tradition and hermeneutics, relating to language, such as, the idea of the background, and the incarnated situation of man. Considering that, ultimately, the background is a horizon of previous reference, from the ontological point of view, to the subjective domain of reason (...) in the human agent, the analysis of Taylor ends up favoring certain approaches of contemporary philosophy such as, Heidegger’s existential analytic that aims at leaving aside, paradoxically, the premise of the subject. If we consider this indication, a challenge that remains, then, to the future development of the ways of understanding moral philosophy and philosophical anthropology, is how to link the analysis of the moral problem, in a subject of senses, with the ontological theory of the background that is, however, a-subjective. Tomando como punto de partida el concepto que tiene Taylor acerca del ser humano como un ser de significados, este artículo estudia el modo como Taylor elabora su concepción del uso práctico de la razón, recuperando ciertas nociones fundamentales de la tradición fenomenológica y hermenéutica relativas al lenguaje, como lo son la idea del trasfondo y la situación encarnada del hombre. Puesto que, en definitiva, el trasfondo constituye un horizonte de referencia anterior, desde el punto de vista ontológico, al dominio subjetivo de la razón en el agente humano, el análisis de Taylor termina por favorecer ciertos enfoques de la filosofía contemporánea como, por ejemplo, la analítica existenciaria de Heidegger, que buscan prescindir, paradójicamente, de la premisa del sujeto. Si atendemos a esta indicación, un desafío que resta, pues, al desarrollo futuro de los modos de comprensión de la filosofía moral, y de la antropología filosófica, es el de cómo vincular el análisis del problema moral, de un sujeto de sentidos, con una teoría ontológica del trasfondo que es, en cambio, a-subjetiva. (shrink)

Following a brief summation of the phenomenological method, the paper considers three metaethical positions adopted by phenomenologists and the implications of those positions for a normative ethics. The metaethical positions combine epistemological and ontological viewpoints. They are non-intellectualism and strong value realism as represented by the axiological views of phenomenologists such as Scheler, Meinong, Reinach, Stein, Hartmann, von Hildebrand, and Steinbock; non-intellectualism and anti-realism as represented by the freedom-centered phenomenologies of Sartre, Beauvoir, and Merleau-Ponty; and weak intellectualism and weak value (...) realism as represented by Husserl and Drummond. The paper argues that only the third metaethical view can support a normative ethics that is consistent with the essential features of the phenomenological method, that allows for freedom in an agent’s choosing from a multiplicity of first-order goods, including vocational goods, practical identities, and life plans, available in the agent’s factical circumstances, and that provides norms governing the correctness of our actions and our obligations to others. The normative dimension is introduced, first, by the requirement that the fulfillment of first-order evaluations and choices be truthful, that is, that the evaluations be appropriate and the actions right. Second, transcendental considerations revealed in the phenomenological analysis of intentional experience disclose a notion of second-order goods of agency that universally bind agents in their exercise of freedom and their dealings with others. (shrink)

Cette édition numérique a été réalisée à partir d'un support physique, parfois ancien, conservé au sein du dépôt légal de la Bibliothèque nationale de France, conformément à la loi n° 2012-287 du 1er mars 2012 relative à l'exploitation des Livres indisponibles du XXe siècle. Quelle sera la fonction d'une logique si le formalisme l'oblitère? On l'a caractérisée sur deux états disjoints : la phénoménologie catégoriale, dont Kant avait épuisé les ressources, et le formulaire quantificationnel. « Copyright Electre » Pages de (...) début Avant-propos - Des dimensions intelligibles Première partie - La seconde navigation Présentation Chapitre premier - Le prix de l'expérience Chapitre II - Logique, histoire formalisation Chapitre III - La logique stoïcienne et la construction du récit Chapitre IV - La dissidence des preuves Deuxième partie - Mises au point Chapitre V - Catégories, apophantique, énonciation Chapitre VI - La vérité d'Aristote et la vérité de Tarski Chapitre VII - Port-Royal et la géométrie des modalités subjectives Chapitre VIII - La philosophie critique et l'énigme du jugement de gout Troisième partie - Perspectives Chapitre IX - De l'expression et de ses recommencements Chapitre X - Le roman grec. Du protreptique à l'éducation sentimentale Chapitre XI - Ce que dit le « menteur crétois », cet agent double Chapitre XII - Entre logique naturelle et intelligence artificielleChapitre XIII - Logique, grammaire, style Index nominum Pages de fin. (shrink)

According to a number of popular intentionalist theories in philosophy of mind, phenomenology is essentially and intrinsically intentional: phenomenal properties are identical to intentional properties of a certain type, or at least, the phenomenal character of an experience necessarily fixes a type of intentional content. These views are attractive, but it is questionable whether the reasons for accepting them generalize from sensory-perceptual experience to other kinds of experience: for example, agentive, moral, aesthetic, or cognitive experience. Meanwhile, a number (...) of philosophers have argued for the existence of a proprietary phenomenology of thought, so-called cognitive phenomenology. There are different ways of understanding the relevant sense of “proprietary,” but on one natural interpretation, phenomenology is proprietary to thought just in case enjoying an experience with that phenomenal character is inseparable from thinking an occurrent, conscious thought. While one may have instances of thought without CP experience, one will never find CP independent of thought. So the former justifiably can be said to “belong to” the latter. The purpose of this paper is to argue that these intentionalist and cognitive phenomenology views make surprisingly uncomfortable bedfellows. I contend that the combination of the two views is incompatible with our best theories of how our concepts are structured. So cognitive phenomenology cannot determine the contents of our thoughts. (shrink)

This paper distinguishes between two senses of the term “ phenomenology ”: a narrow sense and a broader sense. It claims, with particular reference to the moral sphere, that the narrow meaning of moral phenomenology cannot stand alone, that is, that moral phenomenology in the narrow sense entails moral intentionality. The paper proceeds by examining different examples of the axiological and volitional experiences of both virtuous and dutiful agents, and it notes the correlation between the phenomenal and (...) intentional differences belonging to these experiences. The paper concludes with some reflections on how the focus on the broader sense of “ phenomenology ” serves to provide a more precise sense of what we might mean by “ moral phenomenology.”. (shrink)

In this paper I try to give an account of necessary and sufficient conditions of true freedom of action, of true or ultimate responsibility, even while acknowledging that such ultimate responsibility is impossible, because one of the conditions—being causa sui, or absolutely self-originating—is unfulfillable. I consider various forms of the ‘able-to-choose’ condition on freedom, and summarize the argument in part III of my book Freedom and Belief for the seemingly paradoxical claim that one of the conditions of truly free action (...) is believing that you are free. Much of the discussion is intended as a contribution to the phenomenology of agency and in particular the phenomenology of the experience of freedom. (shrink)

Many philosophers hold that moral agency is defined by an agent’s capacity for rational reflection and self-governance. It is only through the exercise of such capacities, these philosophers contend, that one’s actions can be judged to be of distinctively moral value. The moral phenomenology of the Danish philosopher and theologian K. E. Løgstrup, currently enjoying a revival of interest amongst Anglo-American moral philosophers, is an exception to this view. Under the auspices of his signature theory of the ‘sovereign expressions (...) of life,’ Løgstrup provides a rich moral phenomenology aimed at establishing the ethical value of ‘spontaneous,’ non-deliberative actions, such as those exemplified in the showing of trust and acts of mercy. In this thesis, my aim is to investigate what mode of moral agency, if any, is compatible with Løgstrup’s phenomenology of the sovereign expressions of life. I argue that Løgstrup’s moral phenomenology is compatible with a distinctive medio-passive mode of agency. According to this conception of moral agency, the subject’s agency is constituted not through her capacity to stand back and make a judgment on how to act, but rather in the way the subject comports herself in relation to situations and encounters that are experienced first-personally as overwhelming and encompassing. I will proceed by providing detailed analyses of the core aspects of Løgstrup’s moral phenomenology and his theory of the sovereign expressions of life. In the process, I will elucidate the decisive influence that thinkers such as Martin Heidegger, Martin Luther and Søren Kierkegaard had on Løgstrup’s way of thinking about ethics. Thus, in this thesis my aim is to contribute both to Løgstrup scholarship and to central on-going debates in moral philosophy and the philosophy of action. (shrink)

It will be argued that the virtual agent (VA) can be characterized using phenomenological descriptive tools and other conceptual means within related paradigms of the analysis of subjectivity. From such a point of view, the main features of VA are: •VA is constituted by its communicative valencies; •VA is intentionally active in perception, and it is the case also at the intersubjective level; •VA establishes and supports the truth of its statements, which come out as a creative boundary, an "unquestionable (...) point of contact" between virtual "I" and virtual reality; •communicative intersubjectivity in cyberspace is better describedthrough recursive ontologies. Peirce's conception of the Subject as a species of semiosis can be helpful to clarify these points. Unlike the traditional concept of subject where communication stands at a level resting on an underlying level of being, for Peirce communication is inherent in mind itself. Along these lines, I argue for the open multivalence of the signified as overdetermined by communicative acts. (shrink)

Affordances are possibilities for action offered by the environment. Recent research on affordances holds that there are differences in how people experience such possibilities for action. However, these differences have not been properly investigated. In this paper I start by briefly scrutinizing the existing literature on this issue, and then argue for two claims. First, that whether an affordance solicits action or not depends on its relevance to the agent’s concerns. Second, that the experiential character of how an affordance solicits (...) action depends on the character of the concern to which it is relevant. Concerns are conceived of as bodily forms of responsiveness, and solicitations are experienced through this responsiveness. The main aim of this paper is to make clear that an understanding of experiential differences in solicitations has to be based on a phenomenological appreciation of how one experiences one’s responsiveness to those solicitations. In the remainder of the paper I show how such a phenomenological appreciation reveals several characteristics of our responsiveness and I briefly explore three of them: valence, force and mineness. In the final section I discuss the self-referentiality of affordances in light of the current proposal, and argue that this self-referentiality is broader than is typically acknowledged. (shrink)

Not all research in machine consciousness aims to instantiate phenomenal states in artefacts. For example, one can use artefacts that do not themselves have phenomenal states, merely to simulate or model organisms that do. Nevertheless, one might refer to all of these pursuits -- instantiating, simulating or modelling phenomenal states in an artefact -- as 'synthetic phenomenality'. But there is another way in which artificial agents (be they simulated or real) may play a crucial role in understanding or creating consciousness: (...) 'synthetic phenomenology'. Explanations involving specific experiential events require a means of specifying the contents of experience; not all of them can be specified linguistically. One alternative, at least for the case of visual experience, is to use depictions that either evoke or refer to the content of the experience. Practical considerations concerning the generation and integration of such depictions argue in favour of a synthetic approach: the generation of depictions through the use of an embodied, perceiving and acting agent, either virtual or real. Synthetic phenomenology, then, is the attempt to use the states, interactions and capacities of an artificial agent for the purpose of specifying the contents of conscious experience. This paper takes the first steps toward seeing how one might use a robot to specify the non- conceptual content of the visual experience of an (hypothetical) organism that the robot models. (shrink)

Extended cognition brings with it a particular phenomenology. It has been argued that when an artifact is integrated into an agent’s cognitive system, it becomes transparent in use to the cognizing subject. In this paper, I challenge some of the assumptions underlying how the transparency of artifacts is described in extended cognition theory. To this end, I offer two arguments. First, I make room for some forms of conscious thought and attention within extended cognitive routines, and I question the (...) close association drawn between attention and effort. Second, I vindicate the importance of paying careful attention to individual differences and the diverse ways in which bodies and technologies can be experienced. I end by offering some hints toward an alternative, and more accurate, account of the phenomenology of extended cognition. (shrink)

Most of us are familiar with the phenomenology of mental effort accompanying cognitively demanding tasks, like focusing on the next chess move or performing lengthy mental arithmetic. In this paper, I argue that phenomenology of mental effort poses a novel counterexample to tracking intentionalism, the view that phenomenal consciousness is a matter of tracking features of one’s environment in a certain way. I argue that an increase in the phenomenology of mental effort does not accompany a change (...) in any of the following candidate representational contents: representation of externally presented features, e.g. brightness, contrast, and so on representation of task difficulty, representation of the possibility of error, representation of trying to achieve some state of affairs, representation of bodily changes like muscle tension, or representation of change in cognitive resource availability and lost opportunity cost. While tracking intentionalism about some phenomenal experiences like pains might obtain, it does not seem to obtain for all phenomenal experiences. This puts the intentionalist into an uncomfortable position of trying to explain why some phenomenal experiences have representational content and not others. Since many believe that tracking intentionalism or something like it provides the best chance of naturalizing consciousness, these arguments deserve detailed consideration. (shrink)

Physical education is often justified within the curriculum as academic study, as a worthwhile activity on a par with other academic subjects on offer and easy to assess. Part of the problem has been that movement studies in physical education are looked upon as disembodied and disconnected from its central concerns which are associated with employing physical means to develop the whole person. But this, Merleau-Ponty would say, is to ignore the nature of experience and to consider the cognitive aspects (...) of our perceptual experience in isolation from the personal meaning gained when looked at from the ?inside? or participatory perspective of the moving agent. In this sense, physical education has lost meaning for some students because our embodied relationship with the world is not an external or contemplative one. Phenomenology, according to Merleau-Ponty, is significant for physical education because it highlights what it is like to be embodied and recognises the role corporeal movement and embodiment plays in learning, in, by and through physical education. What makes this account educationally significant for physical education is that the whole person should benefit by the experience, as it includes an emphasis on all three educational domains (the psychomotor, the cognitive and the affective), rather than as separate physical and mental qualities that bear no relation to each other. (shrink)

Agentive awareness is one's awareness of oneself as presently acting. Dominant accounts in cognitive science consider agentive awareness to be grounded in the states and processes underlying sensorimotor control. In this paper, I raise concerns for this approach and develop an alternative. Broadly, in the approach I defend, one is agentively aware in the virtue of intending to act. I further argue that agentive awareness is not constituted by intentions themselves but rather first-personal thoughts that are formed (...) on the basis of them. I develop this proposal, highlight some of its theoretical advantages, and show how it successfully meets various challenges. (shrink)

Joint actions typically involve a sense of togetherness that has a distinctive phenomenological component. While it has been hypothesized that group size, hierarchical structure, division of labour, and expertise impact agents’ phenomenology during joint actions, the studies conducted so far have mostly involved dyads performing simple actions. We explore in this study the complex case of collectively improvised musical performances, focusing particularly on the way group size and interactional patterns modulate the phenomenology of joint action. We recorded two (...) expert improvisation ensembles of contrasting sizes (16 vs 4 musicians) and collected data about their musical behaviour, as well as reports about five aspects of their phenomenology (sense of agency, agentive identity, integration, dependence, reflexivity) and about their musical intentions. Our overall data enabled us to assess how those five phenomenological dimensions related to one another during jointly improvised performances. They also show how such phenomenology varied with the way improvisers dynamically related to one another throughout the performance. Finally, we observe that group size strongly altered the phenomenology of improvisers who otherwise shared many characteristics (high expertise, similar aesthetic preferences, etc.). Our study thus sheds light on the interactional and structural parameters that shape and modulate our felt experience when acting together, and thereby highlights the importance of pluralism for studying the phenomenology of joint action. (shrink)

This chapter aims at investigating the phenomenology of joint action and at gaining a better understanding of (1) how the sense of agency one experiences when engaged in a joint action differs from the sense of agency one has for individual actions and (2) how the sense of agency one experiences when engaged in a joint action differs according to the type of joint action and to the role one plays in it.

Few researchers of the past made sense of the collapse of representations in the quantum domain, and looked for a new process of sense-making below the level of representations: the level of the phenomenology of perception and action; the level of the elaboration of knowledge out of experience. But some recent philosophical readings of quantum physics all point in this direction. They all recognize the fact that the quantum revolution is a revolution in our conception of knowledge. In these (...) recent readings of quantum physics, quantum states are primarily generators of probabilistic valuations. Accordingly, they should not be seen as statements about what is the case, but as statements about what each agent can reasonably expect to be the case. Three features of such non-interpretational, non-committal approaches to quantum physics strongly evoke the phenomenological epistemology. These are: their deliberately first-person stance; their suspension of judgment about a presumably external domain of objects, and subsequent redirection of attention towards the activity of constituting these objects; their perception-like conception of quantum knowledge. But beyond phenomenological epistemology, these new approaches of quantum physics also make implicit use of a phenomenological ontology. Chris Fuch’s participatory realism thus formulates a non-external variety of realism for one who is deeply immersed in reality. But participatory realism strongly resembles Merleau-Ponty’s endo-ontology, which is a phenomenological ontology for one who deeply participates in Being. This remarkable analogy is supported by Merleau-Ponty himself. Indeed, 50 years before QBism, Merleau-Ponty acknowledged the strong kinship between the status of quantum mechanics and his phenomenology of embodiment. He did so in two texts that remained unpublished until after his death: Visible and invisible, and the Lectures on Nature. The final part of this article is then devoted to a study of Merleau-Ponty’s conception of quantum physics. (shrink)

This volume brings together philosophers and physicists to explore the parallels between Quantum Bayesianism, or QBism, and the phenomenological tradition. It is the first book exclusively devoted to phenomenology and quantum mechanics. By emphasizing the role of the subject's experiences and expectations, and by explicitly rejecting the idea that the notion of physical reality could ever be reduced to a purely third-personal perspective, QBism exhibits several interesting parallels with phenomenology. The central message of QBism is that quantum probabilities (...) must be interpreted as the experiencing agent's personal Bayesian degrees of belief--degrees of belief for the consequences of their actions on a quantum system. The chapters in this volume elaborate whether and specify how phenomenology could serve as the philosophical foundation of QBism. This objective is pursued from the perspective of QBists engaging with phenomenology as well as the perspective of phenomenologists engaging with QBism. These approaches enable us to realize a better understanding of quantum mechanics and the world we live in, achieve a better understanding of QBsim, and introduce the phenomenological foundations of quantum mechanics. Phenomenology and QBism is an essential resource for researchers and graduate students working in philosophy of physics, philosophy of science, quantum mechanics, and phenomenology. (shrink)

Context: The enactivist tradition, out of which neurophenomenology arose, rejects various internalisms – including the representationalist and information-processing metaphors – but remains wedded to one further internalism: the claim that the structure of perceptual experience is directly, constitutively linked only to internal, brain-based dynamics. Problem: I aim to reject this internalism and defend an alternative analysis. Method: The paper presents a direct-realist, externalist, sensorimotor account of perceptual experience. It uses the concept of counterfactual meaningful action to defend this view against (...) various objections. Results: This account of experience matches certain first-person features of experience better than an internalist account could. It is fully tractable as “normal science.” Implications: The neuroscientific conception of brain function should change from that of internal representation or modelling to that of enabling meaningful, embodied action in ways that constitutively involve the world. Neurophenomenology should aim to match the structure of first-person experience with the structure of meaningful agent-world interactions, not with that of brain dynamics. Constructivist content: The sensorimotor approach shows us what external objects are, such that we may enact them, and what experience is, such that it may present us with those enacted objects. (shrink)

A number of philosophical projects require a proper understanding of the modal aspects of agency, or of what I call ‘the agentive modalities.’ I propose a general account of the agentive modalities, one which takes as its primitive the decision-theoretic notion of an option. I relate this account to the standard semantics for ‘can’ and to the viability of some positions in the free will debates.

The phenomenal character of a perceptual experience describes ‘what it is like’ for an agent undergoing it. This is a familiar notion when it comes to our sensory states. Recently, there has been increased discussion about how certain cognitive states can also have phenomenal characters. A further, more interesting question asks what links, if any, might between what the phenomenal character of a mental state and when that mental state is considered rational. I will assume that some cognitive states can (...) have phenomenal characters and will focus on a prominent phenomenal feature of a particular cognitive state: namely, deliberation over how to act. I aim to expose one way in which we can describe the phenomenology of deliberating, as well as its potential link to the rationality of deliberation. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine phenomenologically the structure of the normative noema, which I call the “nomothetic noema.” I distinguish the meaning content, its normative characters, which I call “ductive forces”, and its modes of givenness. Next, I introduce the traditional difference between modalities de re and de dicto. I argue that the current tendency, in deontic logic, to treat deontic expressions as operators over sentences induces, at least on the syntactic surface, a de dicto reading. I then discuss some (...) of the theoretical decisions that underlie deontic logic, starting from two basic asymmetries between modal alethic logic and deontic logic. The decisive point is to recover a strong sense of permission that I equate with the factor of free agency, which is difficult to formalize. Finally, I return to the analysis of the nomothetic noema and try to show how a de re reading is better suited to account for normative intentionality. I simultaneously introduce the concept of status-imposing norms, which must be formulated with a normative use of the copulas “is” and “has.” I conclude that the treatment of normative expressions is more appropriate when they are understood as complex copulas, irreducible to assertive sentences, rather than as operators over whole sentences. I emphasize on this occasion that, from a phenomenological point of view and within the framework of genetic analysis, the primitive basic datum is the freedom of agency, on which the normative domain of assigning statuses to agents, obligations, and prohibitions is built. (shrink)

In a recent article appearing in this journal, Theresa Scavenius compellingly argues that the traditional “rational-individualistic” conception of responsibility is ill-suited to accounting for the sense in which moral agents share in responsibility for both contributing to the causes and, proactively, working towards solutions for climate change. Lacking an effective moral framework through which to make sense of individual moral responsibility for climate change, many who have good intentions and the means to contribute to solutions for climate change tend to (...) dismiss or put off addressing the root causes. With this tendency arises the practical problem that climate change calls for urgent global collective action, both in terms of mitigation and adaptation, in order to prevent global temperature rise from exceeding 2C and avoid worst case climate scenarios. In this paper, I develop a phenomenological theory of ecological responsibility which addresses the conceptual problem Scavenius brings out and contributes to clarifying the sense in which moral agents share responsibility for both the causes and solutions for climate change. To develop this theory, I draw from, combine, and transform insights from the late work of Husserl on open horizons, transcendental intersubjectivity, and genetic phenomenology with breakthroughs from Emmanuel Levinas in articulating an original, asymmetrical theory of unlimited, diachronic responsibility. In drawing from Husserl, I show how what Levinas describes as the source of a demand for unlimited, diachronic responsibility can be phenomenologically reinterpreted in terms of a horizon of indeterminacy. I then show how horizons of indeterminacy arise in phenomenological descriptions of both human and nonhuman entities in such a way that discloses the demand for responsibility as a broad-ranging demand for unlimited, diachronic ecological responsibility. An important implication of this phenomenological theory of ecological responsibility is that it contributes to clarifying the sense in which individual moral agents share in responsibility for long range collective moral problems such as climate change. (shrink)

This is a response to a Symposium on Phenomenology and Scripture. In examining a move from phenomenology to scripture, this symposium does not address all possible readers; it addresses a specific readership, for a specific reason, and within the framework of specific assumptions. By way of response, I want first to identify a few features of what I take to be the symposium’s specific address or context. Then, I will comment on what messages I believe the authors have (...) delivered to this context. The symposium specifically addresses those who participate willy nilly in the transcendental project of modern philosophy and of modern northern Europe. In that project, knowing, as noesis, means intentionality: its subject or agent is ultimately reducible to the unity of apperception; and its object— noema—is the object of the ego’s intentional knowing—the thematized object. It appears, furthermore, that the symposium identifies phenomenology not only with the species of Husserlian philosophy, but also with the broader genus of all efforts, from Descartes to Kant to Hegel to Husserl to Heidegger, to identify philosophy with an effort to frame the a priori conditions for, or the possibility of, knowing what we would know: from self to world to being itself—or to God. (shrink)

By putting existential phenomenology into conversation with virtue ethics, this book offers a new interpretation of human flourishing. It rejects characterizations of flourishing as either a private subjective state or an objective worldly status, arguing that flourishing is rather a successfully negotiated self-world fit – a condition involving both the essential dependence of the self upon the world and others, and the lived normative responsiveness of the agent striving to be in the world well. A central argument of the (...) book is that there is an irreducible normative plurality arising from the different practical perspectives we can adopt – the first, second, and third-person stances – all of which make different kinds of normative claim that we understand ourselves as having reason to meet. Flourishing is human excellence within each of these normative domains (self-fulfillment, moral responsibility, and responsiveness to intersubjective standards) achieved in such a way that success in one domain does not compromise success in another. Existential Flourishing provides a correspondingly transformed interpretation of the virtues as solutions to various existential problems we face in responding to these normative domains. The book also addresses traditional problems in virtue ethics and analyzes the structure of four virtues in detail: justice, patience, modesty, and courage. (shrink)

If Husserl is correct, phenomenological inquiry produces knowledge with an extremely high level of epistemic warrant or justification. However, there are several good reasons to think that we are highly fallible at carrying out phenomenological inquiries. It is extremely difficult to engage in phenomenological investigations, and there are very few substantive phenomenological claims that command a widespread consensus. In what follows, I introduce a distinction between method-fallibility and agent-fallibility, and use it to argue that the fact that we are fallible (...) phenomenologists does not undermine Husserl’s claims concerning the epistemic value of phenomenological inquiry. I will also defend my account against both internalist and externalist objections. (shrink)

In this article, I argue for cooperation as a three-dimensional phenomenon lying on the continua of a cognitive, a behavioural, and an affective axis. Traditional accounts of joint action argue for cooperation as involving a shared intention. Developmental research has shown that such cooperation requires rather sophisticated social cognitive skills such as having a robust theory of mind - that is acquired not until age 4 to 5 in human ontogeny. However, also younger children are able to cooperate in various (...) ways. Moreover, the coordinated behaviours of the agents can be more or less complex. Finally, phenomenological considerations and findings from social psychology illustrate that affective states and agent-specificities may play a central role in cooperative activities. I end with discussing the implications of my analysis that speak in favour of a pluralist account of social cognition. (shrink)

Mele endeavors to analyze autonomy, understood as an actual condition of self-governance, in two stages. An account of ideally self-controlled agents is developed first. This account is then supplemented with features sufficient for individual autonomy.

Phenomenology has primarily been concerned with questions about knowledge and ontology. However, in recent years the rise of interest and research in phenomenology and embodiment, the emotions and cognitive science has seen the concept of agency move to a central place in the study of phenomenology generally. The Routledge Handbook of Phenomenology of Agency is an outstanding reference source to this topic and the first volume of its kind. It comprises twenty-seven chapters written by leading international (...) contributors. Organised into two parts, the following key topics are covered: * major figures * the metaphysics of agency * rationality * voluntary and involuntary action * moral experience * deliberation and choice * phenomenology of agency and the cognitive sciences * phenomenology of freedom * embodied agency Essential reading for students and researchers in phenomenology, philosophy of mind, metaphysics and philosophy of cognitive science The Routledge Handbook of Phenomenology of Agency will also be of interest to those in closely related subjects such as sociology and psychology. (shrink)