Abstract
According to contemporary representationalism, phenomenal qualia—of specifically sensory experiences—supervene on representational content. Most arguments for representationalism share a common, phenomenological premise: the so-called “transparency thesis.” According to the transparency thesis, it is difficult—if not impossible—to distinguish the quality or character of experiencing an object from the perceived properties of that object. In this paper, I show that Husserl would react negatively to the transparency thesis; and, consequently, that Husserl would be opposed to at least two versions of contemporary representationalism. First, I show that Husserl would be opposed to strong representationalism, since he believes the cognitive content of a perceptual episode can vary despite constancy of sensory qualia. Second, I then show that Husserl would be opposed to weak representationalism, since he believes that sensory qualia—specifically, the sort that he calls “kinesthetic sensations”—can vary despite constancy in representational content.
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Notes
See Harman (1990), Dretske (1995), Tye (1995, 2000), Byrne (2001). The view is also known as “intentionalism.” To avoid unnecessary confusion with Husserl’s view on intentionality, I will avoid this alternative term. The sort of conception of intentionality advocated by contemporary representationalism is markedly different from the Husserlian conception. Most contemporary representationalists regard intentionality as a kind of causal relation, a view that is famously rejected by Husserl (see Hua XIX, p. 405; Hua III, p. 89, footnote). At bottom, I think it is this diversity in conceptions of “intentionality” that leads to disagreement about whether sensory qualia are representational or intentional. For the contemporary representationalist, if sensory qualia are causally functional, then they are “intentional.” For Husserl, who denies that intentionality is a causal relation, causal functionality is insufficient for intentionality. Nevertheless, since—as we will see—the representationalist insists on the supervenience of qualia on representational content, which is a relation about which the subject can be personally aware, the Husserlian counterexamples to this global claim succeed in undoing the main thesis of contemporary representationalism. Or so I will argue.
This initial supervenience formulation of representationalism is consistent with both the strong and weak kinds of representationalism that I will introduce in Sect. 1.
I borrow this “weak–strong” taxonomy from Crane (2009).
It should be noted that hyletic data are not, for Husserl, paradigmatic of Erlebnisse. In general, Husserl focuses on intentional Erlebnisse.
As suggested by Keller (1999, p. 34).
All translations from Husserliana are mine.
Hua XIX, p. 399. For similar claims elsewhere in the Logical Investigations, see also Hua XIX, pp. 80–82, 134–135, 207, 358–359, 525–526, 763–764.
Hua III, p. 172: my italics. See also Husserl III, pp. 65, 73–76, 82.
See Hua XIX, p. 165, Hua III, pp. 67–69, 83–84.
See also Hua III, pp. 168, 203–204, 207, 303; Hua IV, p. 57, Hua XIX, pp. 356–357, 383, 406.
Especially this last citation should make clear that hyletic data are not the only sorts of Erlebnisse. Indeed, as I have already pointed out, intentional Erlebnisse are more central to Husserl’s project. If, as I have claimed in (2.1), “qualia” is a good rendering of “Erlebnisse,” then an exegetical consequence of my view is that Husserl recognizes the existence of intentional qualia. Accordingly, for Husserl there is something that it’s like—for example—to performing an intentional act.
See Husserl IV, pp. 55–58, 144–151; Hua III, pp. 202–203; Husserl XVI, pp. 91, 149–150.
See Hopp (2008, esp. pp. 228–233) for some compelling reasons to be suspicious of the hyletic data of color experiences.
Byrne (2001) is a notable exception. Byrne simply claims that the content of sensory experiences is, in fact, propositional.
See my earlier discussion of “cognitive qualia” in Sect. 2.
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Acknowledgments
Early work on this paper was made possible from a generous creative leave grant from the Office of Research and Development at California State University, Los Angeles during the spring quarter of 2009. I am grateful to Mark Balaguer, David Pitt and Charles Siewert, who read ancestors of this paper and offered invaluable comments and criticisms. Drafts of this paper were publicly delivered on two occasions. First at a meeting of the California Phenomenology Circle at UC Riverside, where I benefited from helpful comments and questions from, in particular, Ronald McIntyre, Samantha Matherne and Mark Wrathall. Second at the inaugural meeting of the Workshop in Phenomenological Philosophy at Seattle University, where I benefited from further comments and questions from Steven Crowell, John J. Drummond, Burt Hopkins, Walter Hopp, Anne Ozar, Abe Stone and Jeffrey Yoshimi. The paper was much improved by such feedback. However, whatever remains faulty in this paper is entirely my responsibility.
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Shim, M.K. Representationalism and Husserlian Phenomenology. Husserl Stud 27, 197–215 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10743-011-9093-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10743-011-9093-y