The Conscious and Phenomenal Character of Thought: Reflections on Their Possible Dissociation

Abstract

In this paper I focus on what we can call “the obvious assumption” in the debate between defenders and deniers (of the reductionist sort) of cognitive phenomenology: conscious thought is phenomenal and phenomenal thought is conscious. This assumption can be refused if “conscious” and “phenomenal” are not co-extensive in the case of thought. I discuss some prominent ways to argue for their dissociation and I argue that we have reasons to resist such moves, and thus, that the “obvious assumption” can be transformed into a grounded claim one can explicitly believe and defend.

Keywords

• cognitive phenomenology
• phenomenal character
• cognitive access
• co-extension