Since the late 1970's, the main research program for understanding intentionality -- the mind's ability to direct itself onto the world -- has been based on the attempt naturalize intentionality, in the sense of making it intelligible how intentionality can occur in a perfectly natural, indeed entirely physical, world. Some philosophers, however, have remained skeptical of this entire approach. In particular, some have argued that phenomenal consciousness - - the subjective feel of conscious experience -- has an essential role to play in the theory of intentionality, a role missing in the naturalization program. Thus a number of authors have recently brought to the fore the notion of phenomenal intentionality, as well as a cluster of nearby notions. There is a vague sense that their work is interrelated, complementary, and mutually reinforcing, in a way that suggests a germinal research program. With twelve new essays by philosophers at the forefront of the field, this volume is designed to launch this research program in a more self-conscious way, by exploring some of the fundamental claims and themes of relevance to this program.

Mendelovici proposes a novel theory of intentionality in terms of phenomenal consciousness, arguing that the view avoids the problems of its competitors and can accommodate a wide range of cases, including those of thought and nonconscious states.

What kinds of features of the world figure consciously in our perceptual experience? Colours and shapes are uncontroversial; but what about volumes, natural kinds, reasons for belief, existences, relations? Eleven new essays investigate different kinds of phenomenal presence.

What do thoughts, hopes, paintings, words, desires, photographs, traffic signs, and perceptions have in common? They are all about something, are directed, are contentful - in a way chairs and trees, for example, are not. This book inquires into the source of this power of directedness that some items exhibit while others do not. An approach to this issue prevalent in the philosophy of the past half-century seeks to explain the power of directedness in terms of certain items' ability to reliably track things in their environment. A very different approach, with a venerable history and enjoying a recent resurgence, seeks to explain the power of directedness rather in terms of an intrinsic ability of conscious experience to direct itself. This book attempts a synthesis of both approaches, developing an account of the sources of such directedness that grounds it both in reliable tracking and in conscious experience.

The philosophy of perception investigates the nature of our sensory experiences and their relation to reality. Raising questions about the conscious character of perceptual experiences, how they enable us to acquire knowledge of the world in which we live, and what exactly it is we are aware of when we hallucinate or dream, the philosophy of perception is a growing area of interest in metaphysics, epistemology, and philosophy of mind. William Fish’s Philosophy of Perception introduces the subject thematically, setting out the major theories of perception together with their motivations and attendant problems. While providing historical background to debates in the field, this comprehensive overview focuses on recent presentations and defenses of the different theories, and looks beyond visual perception to take into account the role of other senses. Topics covered include: the phenomenal principle perception and hallucination perception and content sense-data, adverbialism and idealism disjunctivism and relationalism intentionalism and combined theories the nature of content veridicality perception and empirical science non-visual perception. With summaries and suggested further reading at the end of each chapter, this is an ideal introduction to the philosophy of perception.

The central concern of the cognitive phenomenology debate is whether there is a distinctive 'cognitive phenomenology, ' that is, a kind of phenomenology that has cognitive or conceptual character in some sense that needs to be precisely determined. This volume addresses the question of whether conscious thought has cognitive phenomenology.

Intentionality Deconstructed argues for the view that no concrete entity - mental, linguistic, or any other - can possess intentional content. Nothing can be about anything. The concept of intentionality is flawed, and so content ascriptions cannot be "absolutely" true or false - they lack truth conditions. Nonetheless, content ascriptions have truth conditions and can be true (or possess a related epistemic merit) relative to practices of content ascription, so that different practices may imply different (not real but practice-dependent) intentional objects for the same token mental state. The suggested view does not deny the existence of those mental states standardly considered intentional, notably the so-called propositional attitudes; it affirms it. That is, support is provided for the existence of those states with the properties usually attributed to them, but absent intentional properties. Specifically, it is argued that the so-called propositional attitudes possess logico-syntactic properties, whose postulation plays an important role in addressing the challenge of reconciling intentional anti-realism with beliefs being true or having alternative epistemic merits, the argument from the predictive and explanatory success of content ascription for intentional realism, and the cognitive suicide objection to views that deny intentionality. As part of the rejection of this final objection, intentional anti-realism is presented as a radical view, which claims "Nothing can possess intentional content" but not that nothing can possess intentional content, and it is argued that this is a legitimate characteristic of radical philosophy. In spite of rejecting the "claim that" talk, intentional anti-realism gives clear sense to its dispute with its rivals as well as to its own superiority. Various arguments for intentional anti-realism are presented. One argument rejects all possible accounts of intentionality, namely primitivism, intrinsic reductionism - the prominent example of which is the phenomenal intentionality thesis - and extrinsic reductionism (that is, reductive naturalistic accounts). According to another argument, since intentional properties are shown to be dispensable for all possibly relevant purposes, and no sound arguments support the claim that they ever are instantiated, the application of Ockham's razor shows that no such properties ever are instantiated, and another step shows that neither can they be.

Phenomenology is about subjective aspects of the mind, such as the conscious states associated with vision and touch, and the conscious states associated with emotions and moods, such as feelings of elation or sadness. These states have a distinctive first-person ‘feel’ to them, called their phenomenal character. In this respect they are often taken to be radically different from mental states and processes associated with thought. This is the first book to fully question this orthodoxy and explore the prospects of cognitive phenomenology, applying phenomenology to the study of thought and cognition. Does cognition have its own phenomenal character? Can introspection tell us either way? If consciousness flows in an unbroken ‘stream’ as William James argued, how might a punctuated sequence of thoughts fit into it? Elijah Chudnoff begins with a clarification of the nature of the debate about cognitive phenomenology and the network of concepts and theses that are involved in it. He then examines the following topics: introspection and knowledge of our own thoughts phenomenal contrast arguments the value of consciousness the temporal structure of experience the holistic character of experience and the interdependence of sensory and cognitive states the relationship between phenomenal character and mental representation. Including chapter summaries, annotated further reading, and a glossary, this book is essential reading for anyone seeking a clear and informative introduction to and assessment of cognitive phenomenology, whether philosophy student or advanced researcher. It will also be valuable reading for those in related subjects such as philosophy of mind, philosophy of psychology and epistemology.

Can neurophysiology ever reveal to us what it is like to smell a skunk or to experience pain? In what does the feeling of happiness consist? How is it that changes in the white and gray matter composing our brains generate subjective sensations and feelings? These are several of the questions that Michael Tye addresses, while formulating a new and enlightening theory about the phenomenal "what it feels like" aspect of consciousness. The test of any such theory, according to Tye, lies in how well it handles ten critical problems of consciousness. Tye argues that all experiences and all feelings represent things, and that their phenomenal aspects are to be understood in terms of what they represent. He develops this representational approach to consciousness in detail with great ingenuity and originality. In the book's first part Tye lays out the domain, the ten problems and an associated paradox, along with all the theories currently available and the difficulties they face. In part two, he develops his intentionalist approach to consciousness. Special summaries are provided in boxes and the ten problems are illustrated with cartoons. A Bradford Book Representation and Mind series

Aspects of Psychologism is a penetrating look into fundamental philosophical questions of consciousness, perception, and the experience we have of our mental lives. Psychologism, in Tim Crane's formulation, presents the mind as a single subject-matter to be investigated not only empirically and conceptually but also phenomenologically: through the systematic examination of consciousness and thought from the subject's point of view. How should we think about the mind? Analytical philosophy tends to address this question by examining the language we use to talk about our minds, and thus translates our knowledge of consciousness into knowledge of the concepts which this language embodies. Psychologism rejects this approach. The philosophy of mind, Crane contends, has become too narrow in its purely conceptual focus on the logical and linguistic formulas that structure thought. We cannot assume that the categories needed to understand the mind correspond absolutely with such semantic categories. Crane's claim is that intentionality--the "aboutness" or "directedness" of the mind--is essential to all mental phenomena. He criticizes materialist doctrines about consciousness and defends the position that perception can represent the world in a non-conceptual, non-propositional way, opening up philosophy to a more realistic account of the mind's nature.