THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF COGNITION: EXPERIENCING NON-SENSORIAL THINKING

My topic of study concerns the Cognitive Phenomenology debate and in my work, I offer a brief collection of the main arguments presented within it, in order to analyse the different positions of philosophical lines in contrast that characterise it (Liberals and Conservatives). Regarding the fundamental stances on the phenomenal and intentional character of conscious thoughts, one of my challenges has been to know which properties of mind are related to our thoughts. Moreover, I explained the interpretation that has been given of them by some materialist theories of mind and, on the other side, by the theories which prove the non reducibility of the mental to the physical. I proceeded to realise a defence of the Liberal view, showing that pure Cognitive phenomenology offers very convincing arguments on conscious experience of a subject's inner mental states and on their intentional (potentially conscious) contents. The conservative line, such as Prinz, Carruthers and Tye, proposes solutions that are based on the fundamental assertion that one is not in contact with cognitive properties and thoughts depend on what transmits them, natural language or an internal speech. That position is highly debated and at the end, I realised that there is a moderate solution that can be chosen and it is that I propose in the final part of my work. Key-words: phenomenal properties; functional properties; phenomenal intentional states; introspection.