Naturalizing phenomenology: issues in contemporary phenomenology and cognitive science

332 Pages·1999·26.039 MB·English

by  Jean Petitot, Francisco J. Varela, Bernard Pachoud and Jean-Michel Roy (eds.)

NATURALIZING PHENOMENOLOGY
Contributors ISSUES IN CONTEMPORARY PHENOMENOLOGY
Renaud Barbaras AND COGNITIVE SCIENCE
Juan-Jose Botero
Roberto Casati
Natalie Depraz EDITED BY
Jean-Pierre Dupuy jean Petitot
Dagfinn F0llesdal Francisco j. Varela
Giuseppe Longo
Bernard Pachoud
Ronald Mcintyre
jean-Michel Roy
Alva Noe
Elisabeth Pacherie
Bernard Pachoud
Luiz Pessoa
Jean-Luc Petit
Jean Petitot
Jean-Michel Roy
Jean-Michel Salanskis
Barry Smith
David Woodruff Smith
Evan Thompson
Tim van Gelder
Francisco]. Varela
STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
Maria Villela-Petit STANFORD, CALIFORNIA
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Stanford University Press
We would like to thank the Centre de Recherches en Epistemologie Ap
Stanford, California
pliquee and the Ecole Normale Superieure for hosting the regular meetings
© 1999 by the Board of Trustees of the
Leland Stanford Junior University of the Phenomenologie et Cognition Research Group, as well as Professor
Jean Fran\=ois Courtine, director of the Paris Husserl Archives, for his gen
Printed in the United States of America erous help on numerous occasions.
CIP data appear at the end of the book This book is mostly the result of the various activities carried out by the
Phenomenologie et Cognition Research Group. The conference "Actualite
cognitive de la phenomenologie: Les Defis de la naturalisation," in particu
lar, played a key role in its realization. We are deeply grateful to the various
French institutions that made that conference possible: the Musee d'Art
Contemporain of the city of Bordeaux, where it took place; the Cognitive
Science Program of the Ministere de l'Enseignement Superieur et de la Re
cherche; the Direction Generale du Centre National de la Recherche Scien
tifique; the Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres; the Conseil Regional de la Re
gion Aquitaine; the Reseau Cogniseine; and the Ecole Normale Superieure.
At different stages of the organization of this conference, we also received
invaluable assistance from Anne-Marie Cocula, Catherine Larrere, Eliza
beth Rigal, Daniel Andler, Alain Berthoz, Berncvd Claverie, Jean-Marc Des
houillers, Etienne Guillon, Marc Jeannerod, and Jean Mondor.
To these institutions and individuals, the very existence of this book is
perhaps the most eloquent token of our gratitude.
Stanford University Press made the arduous task of transforming into a
book the work accomplished in the conference, and the seminars antecedent
to it, almost an easy experience, and certainly always a pleasant and enrich
ing one. Professors Tim Lenoir and Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht welcomed our
voluminous, demanding, and unconventional project in their Writing Sci
ence Series with great enthusiasm and openness of mind. Helen Tartar
helped us bring the volume to life with a sure hand, and an unfailing patience
for our Latin idiosyncrasies. Nathan MacBrien and Andrew Lewis did a re
markable job of surmounting countless difficulties of language, style, and
Vll
Vlll Acknowledgments
CONTENTS
presentation. Although inherent to any book, these difficulties were dramat FOREWORD xiii
ically increased in number and intensity by the variety of disciplines, intel CONTRIBUTORS XVll
lectual traditions, and cultural identities included in this one. To all of them r. Beyond the Gap: An Introduction to Naturalizing
we are deeply and truly thankful. Phenomenology I
JEAN-MICHEL ROY, JEAN PETITOT, BERNARD
PACHOUD, AND FRANCISCO J. VARELA
Part One Intentionality, Movement, and Temporality
I n'tentionality
2. Intentionality Naturalized? 83
DAVID WOODRUFF SMITH
3· Saving Intentional Phenomena: Intentionality,
Representation, and Symbol
III
JEAN-MICHEL ROY
4· Leibhaftigkeit and Representational Theories
of Perception I48
ELISABETH PACHERIE
Movement
5. Perceptual Completion: A Case Study in
Phenomenology and Cognitive Science
I6I
EVAN THOMPSON, ALVA NOE, AND LUIZ PESSOA
6. The Teleological Dimension of Perceptual
and Motor Intentionality
I96
BERNARD PACHOUD
7· Constitution by Movement: Husser! in Light of Recent Part Three The Nature and Limits of Naturalization
Neurobiological Findings 220
Philosophical Strategies of Naturalization
JEAN-LUC PETIT
Temporality I 5. Naturalizing Phenomenology? Dretske on Qualia 429
RONALD MCINTYRE
8. Wooden Iron? Husserlian Phenomenology Meets
I6. Theimmediately Given as Ground and Background 440
Cognitive Science 245
JUAN-JOSE BOTERO
TIM VAN GELDER
I 7. When Transcendental Genesis Encounters the
9· The Specious Present: A Neurophenomenology
Naturalization Project 464
of Time Consciousness, 266
NATALIE DEPRAZ
FRANCISCO J. VARELA
Skeptical Attitudes
Part Two Mathematics in Phenomenology
I 8. Sense and Continuum in Husser! 490
Formal Models JEAN-MICHEL SALANSKIS
I9. Cognitive Psychology and the Transcendental Theory
IO. Truth and the Visual Field 3I7 of Knowledge 508
BARRY SMITH
MARIA VILLELA-PETIT
I I. Morphological Eidetics for a Phenomenology of Perception 330 20. The Movement of the Living as the Originary
JEAN PETITOT Foundation of Perceptual Intentionality 525
I2. Formal Structures in the Phenomenology of Motion 372 RENAUD BARBARAS
ROBERTO CASATI
Historical Perspectives
Phenomenology and Mathematics
21. Philosophy and Cognition: Historical Roots 539
13. Godel and Husser! 385 JEAN-PIERRE DUPUY
D A G FINN F 0 L L E S D A L
NOTES 561
14· The Mathematical Continuum: From Intuition to Logic 40I
BIBLIOGRAPHY 597
GIUSEPPE LONGO
INDEX OF PERSONS 631
INDEX OF TOPICS 635
FOREWORD
The ambition of this book is to shed new light on the relations between
phenomenology of a Husserlian kind or origin and the contemporary ef
forts toward a scientific theory of cognition, with its complex structure
comprising various disciplines, different levels of explanation, and conflict
ing hypotheses.
The project of a science of cognitive phenomena did not reach full matu
rity until the middle of the twentieth century, even though its roots go as far
back as the emergence of rational knowledge, and several of its component
disciplines severed their ties with philosophy or embraced the experimental
method at the dawn of the nineteenth century (or even at the end of the eigh
teenth). It has become commonplace to refer to this shift as the emergence
of a Cognitive Revolution 1 that has also revived many fundamental issues
of Husserlian phenomenology.2 The contributions in this volume should
first and foremost be understood as attempts to contribute further to these
developments.
Accordingly, the book's primary goal is not to engage in a new exegesis of
Husserl's writings, although it certainly does not dismiss the importance of
interpretive and critical work. It is rather to assess the extent to which the
sort of phenomenological investigation he initiated can favor the construc
tion of a scientific theory of cognition and, more particularly, contribute to
progress in specific contemporary theories, by complementing them in some
crucial aspects and calling them into question in others.
It is clear, however, that Husserlian phenomenology cannot become in
strumental for the development of contemporary cognitive science without
undergoing substantial transformations itself. Therefore, this book will also
be centrally concerned with the reorientation of Husserlian phenomenology.
To what extent, for instance, do recent contributions in cognitive neuro
science, as well as in physico-mathematical and computational modeling of
perception, throw new light on the most general assumptions underlying this
phenomenology and possibly modify them in a radical way?
There is an unavoidable reciprocal movement between the attempt tore-
Xlll
XVl Foreword
torical investigations of Kevin Mulligan, Peter Simons, and Barry Smith into
the development of ontological theory and mereology.
4· Finally, there was also a growing interest in developing an interface
between the phenomenology of embodiment and action in the later work of
Husser! and Merleau-Ponty and contemporary research in neurosciences, CONTRIBUTORS
artificial life, and evolution theory, especially research conducted from a sit
uated, embodied, or enactive perspective-a trend progressively more vis
ible in the contemporary debate within cognitive science.
This book finds its unity in the cross-linking of these various motivations
and is accordingly directed at an unusual variety of audiences ranging from
cognitive scientists to philosophers of supposedly opposite persuasions. We Renaud Barbaras is an associate professor at the University of Paris-Sor
hope through this book the research programs of Husserlian phenomenol bonne and a member of the Institut Universitaire de France. A Merleau
ogy and of the cognitive sciences will be brought closer and mutually en Ponty scholar, he is the author of De l'etre du phenomene: Sur !'ontologie de
riched. We also hope thereby to throw further light on the conditions to be Merleau-Ponty (Grenoble: Millon, 1991) and Le Tournant de /'experience:
fulfilled by a science of cognition both naturalist and adequate to "the things Recherches sur Ia philosophie de Merleau-Ponty (Paris: Vrin, 1998).
themselves." Universite de Paris IV, Departement de Philosophie, 17 rue Victor Cousin, 75005,
Paris, Fr anee
Juan-Jose Botero is the director of the Department of Philosophy of the Uni
Finally, a word about the conventions we have used in the text. In citing the
versidad Nacional de Colombia (Bogota) and a former editor of the philo
works of Husser!, whenever possible we have referred to the Husserliana edi
sophical journal Ideas y valores (Bogota). He is the author of several articles
tion, by paragraph and page number(s). Where an English-language trans
in the philosophy of science and the philosophy of mind.
lation of Husser! has been given, it is cited by the translator's name, followed
by paragraph and page number(s). For the abbreviations used in the text for jjbo [email protected]
works by Husser!, see the Bibliography, pp. 6oo-6o2.
Roberto Casati is a researcher at CNRS (CEPERC, Aix-en-Provence, and
CREA, Paris). He is the coauthor, with A. Varzi, of Holes and Other Super
ficialities (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1994) and the author of Parts and Places
(Cambridge: MIT Press, 1999 ), as well as numerous papers in the philoso
phy of cognitive science.
[email protected]
Natalie Depraz is an affiliate of the Paris Husser! Archives (CNRS). A found
ing editor of Alter: Revue de phenomenologie (Editions Alter, Paris), she is
the author of Transcendance et incarnation: Le Statut de l'intersubjectivite
a
comme alterite soi chez Husser! (Paris: Vrin, 1995) and of several papers
on Husserlian phenomenology.
[email protected]
Jean-Pierre Dupuy is professor of social and political philosophy at the Ecole
Polytechnique (Paris) and the founding director of the CREA. He has pub
lished extensively on self-organization theory. His publications include
XVll
XV Ill Contributors Contributors XIX
L'Auto-organisation: De Ia physique au politique (Paris: Le Seuil, 1983), Bernard Pachoud teaches psychology at the University of Picardie, Amiens,
Aux origines des sciences cognitives (La Decouverte, 1994), Self-Deception and is a research affiliate of CREA (Paris). He has published on the prag
and Paradoxes of Rationality (Stanford, Calif.: CSLI, 1998). matic approach to thought and language disorders in schizophrenia. He is
[email protected] currently researching the psychology and philosophy of consciousness.
[email protected]
Dagfinn Fellesdal is the C. I. Lewis Professor of Philosophy at Stanford Uni
versity and a professor of philosophy at the University of Oslo. He has writ Luiz Pessoa is an assistant professor of computer and systems engineering at
ten and edited numerous volumes, including Husser/ und Frege (Oslo: Nor the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He received his doctorate in
wegian Academy of Science, r 9 58) and Rationale Argumentation (Berlin: cognitive and neural systems from Boston University and has contributed ar
De Gruyter, 1986). He also served as an editor of the Journal of Symbolic ticles on computational modeling of vision, visual psychophysics, and neural
Logic from 1970 to 1982. network models.
[email protected] Department of Computer and Systems Engineering, Federal University of Rio de
Janeiro, Centro de Tecnologia, Bloco H, Sala H-319, Ilha do Fundao, Rio de Janeiro,
Giuseppe Longo is a CNRS Director of Research at the Ecole Normale RJ, Brazil
Superieure (Paris). He coauthored Categories, Types, and Structures (Cam
Jean-Luc Petit is a professor of philosophy at the University of Strasbourg II.
bridge: MIT Press, 1991) and has written extensively in the area of mathe
matical logic and its applications to computer science. He is the editor-in A former dire~tor of the Centre d'Analyse des Savoirs Contemporains (Stras
bourg), he has published extensively on the relations between analytical phi
chief of Mathematical Structures for Computer Science (Cambridge Univer
losophy of action and Husserl's phenomenology. His most recent publica
sity Press).
tion is Les Neurosciences et Ia philosophie de /'action (Paris: Vrin, 1997).
[email protected]; http://www.dmi.ens.fr/users/longo
[email protected]
Ronald Mcintyre is a professor of philosophy at California State University,
Jean Petitot is a professor at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales
Northridge. He is the author (in collaboration with David W. Smith) of
in Paris and a research associate at Ecole Polytechnique (CREA). His publi
Husser/ and Intentionality: A Study of Mind, Meaning, and Language (D.
cations include Morphogenese du Sens (Paris: PUF, 198 5 ), Les Catastrophes
Reidel, 1982) and of several studies in the philosophy of mind and language.
de Ia parole: De Roman ]akobson a Rene Thorn (Paris: Maloine, 198 5 ), Phy
[email protected]
sique du sens (Paris: CNRS, 1992), and numerous papers on the relations be
tween Husserlian phenomenology and cognitive science.
Alva Noe is an assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Cali
fornia, Santa Cruz. He received his doctorate from Harvard University and peti tot@poly. polytechn iq ue. fr;
http://www. polytechn ique. fr I Ia boratoi res/crealJ eanPetitot /home.html
works on topics in the philosophy of perception and the philosophy of mind
and contributed several articles in these areas.
Jean-Michel Roy teaches philosophy in the departments of Philosophy and
Board of Studies in Philosophy, University of California, Santa Cruz,
Cognitive Science of the University of Bordeaux. He is also a research affili
Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
ate of the Paris Husser! Archives and the Laboratoire Physiologie de I' Action
et de Ia Perception (CNRS). His publications include the editing of La Theo
Elisabeth Pacherie is a researcher at CNRS (CEPERC, Aix-en-Provence, and
rie computationnelle de /'esprit (Paris: PUF, 1992) and of "Signification,
CREA, Paris). She is the author of Naturaliser l'intentionnalite (Paris: PUF,
phenomenologie et philosophie analytique" (Paris: PUF, 199 5 ).
1993) and of several papers in the theory of action and the philosophy
[email protected]
of mind.
Pacherie@poly. polytech niq ue.fr
Jean-Michel Salanskis is a professor in the Department of Philosophy at the
University of Lille III. His main publications are in the philosophy of math-
XX Contributors Contributors XXI
ematics and the field of hermeneutics. They include L'Hermeneutique for topoiesis and Cognition (with Humberto Maturana; Reidel, 198o), and The
melle (Paris: Editions du CNRS, 1991), Le Labyrinthe du continu (Berlin: Embodied Mind (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1992).
Springer Verlag, 1992), and Husser! (Paris: Belles Lettres, 1997). fv@ccr. j ussieu. fr; http:// www.ccr. j ussieu. fr /va rela/ welcome. h tml
salanskis@univ-liHeJ .fr (Lille)
Maria Villela-Petit is a researcher at CNRS (Paris Husserl Archives). A
Barry Smith is a professor of philosophy and a member of the Center for Husserl scholar, she has written on the interpretation of Husserlian phe
Cognitive Science at SUNY Buffalo. Editor of The Monist, he has published nomenology and its development in the works of Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty,
on the history of Austrian philosophy (Austrian Philosophy, Open Court, and Paul Ricoeur. She is also the author of essays on ancient philosophy and
1994) and the development of formal ontology (Parts and Moments, Phi aesthetics.
losophia Verlag, 198 5). He is also a coeditor of The Cambridge Companion [email protected]
to Husser! (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).
ph ismith@u bvms.cc. buffalo.ed u; h ttp://wings. buffalo.edu /philosophy/faculty/smith
David Woodruff Smith is a professor in the Department of Philosophy at the
University of California, Irvine, and a researcher at Ontek Corporation. A
coeditor of The Cambridge Companion to Husser! (Cambridge University
Press, 199 5) and of Husser! and Intentionality (with Ronald Mcintyre,
Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1982), he has also published The Circle of Ac
quaintance (Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1989 ).
[email protected]
Evan Thompson is an associate professor in the Department of Philosophy
and a member of the Centre for Vision Research at York University, Toronto,
Canada. He is the author of Colour Vision: A Study in Cognitive Science and
the Philosophy of Perception (London: Routledge Press, 199 5) and coau
thor, with Francisco J. Varela and Eleanor Rosch, of The Embodied Mind:
Cognitive Science and Human Experience (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1991).
[email protected]
Tim van Gelder is an associate professor (Principal Fellow) in the Depart
ment of Philosophy, University of Melbourne. He received his doctorate
from the University of Pittsburgh. His work in the foundations of cognitive
science includes coediting the volume Mind as Motion: Explorations in the
Dynamics of Cognition (Cambridge: MIT Press, 199 5) and several contri
butions.
[email protected]
Francisco J. Varela is the director of research at CNRS (LENA and CREA,
Paris). A neurobiologist, he has written and edited numerous volumes on the
autonomy approach to biological systems. His main publications include
Principles of Biological Autonomy (Amsterdam: North Holland, 1979), Au-
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CHAPTER ONE
Beyond the Gap: An Introduction to Naturalizing Phenomenology
JEAN-MICHEL ROY, JEAN PETITOT, BERNARD
PACHOUD, AND FRANCISCO J. VARELA
We are fighting against the naturalization of consciousness.
-Edmund Husser/, "Phi/osophie als strenge Wissenschaft"
The purpose of this introductory essay is to make explicit the general intel
lectual project behind the book. It should be clear that it expresses the opin
ion of the editors; none of the contributors has been invited to discuss or
modify it. In fact this essay does not even fully reflect the opinions of the ed
itors, because it gives no room to the differences existing in their concerns
and philosophical.orientations. A more adequate statement of their respec
tive positions is to be found in their individual contributions.
I. THE PROBLEM OF PHENOMENOLOGICAL DATA
Researchers in the contemporary sciences of cognition have begun to ap
proach many of the central problems of Husserlian phenomenology with
new perspectives and new tools. Some of these problems, such as the neces
sity of "going back to the phenomena," the nature of consciousness, and the
importance of intentionality as the hallmark of mental states or the embod
iment of cognitive structures, are of special importance. Accordingly, each of
them offers a possible way of introducing the general project of integrating
Husserlian phenomenology into contemporary cognitive sciences. We have
chosen to take as a guideline the idea, currently growing in importance
within the cognitive science community, that a successful scientific theory of
cognition must account for phenomenality, that is-to put it in quite gen
eral terms-for the fact that for a whole set of cognitive systems, and for the
human one in particular, things have appearances. We will argue that on the
basis of its past achievements in describing such phenomenality, Husserlian
phenomenology can play a key role in helping to meet this requirement, pro
vided that it can be naturalized, and even though Husserl himself strongly
opposed naturalism. By "naturalized" we mean integrated into an explana-
I