Science without data? Phenomenal Consciousness and Heterophenomenology

SEMINÁRIO DE FILOSOFIA ANALÍTICA

2009-10: Sessão 5
Sara Bizarro
(Universidade de Lisboa, LanCog Group)

Science Without Data?
Phenomenal Consciousness and Heterophenomenology.

26 de Fevereiro de 2010, 16:00
Faculdade de Letras de Lisboa
Sala Mattos Romão, Departamento de Filosofia

Abstract: The word consciousness is used for several types of mental events: wakefulness, attention, recalling, emotions, thoughts, beliefs, self-consciousness etc. Cognitive Science and Psychology research these types of events. Phenomenal Consciousness is defined in the Philosophy of Mind as "subjective experience" or as the "what it is like for somebody to be that person in that moment". All the mental events listed above are usually accompanied by some sort of phenomenal subjective feeling for those experiencing them. In contemporary Philosophy of Mind it is often argued that this phenomenal side of consciousness cannot be the object of scientific enquiry (Chalmers) and that, therefore, a science of consciousness is doomed from the start (Nagel). On the other side of the debate, heterophenomenologists (Dennett) argue that we are justified in using reports of individuals regarding their subjective experience as data in our scientific enquiries about consciousness. In this talk I will discuss weather the reports of subjects can be considered reliable data for a scientific study of consciousness using as reference the debate about the legitimacy of mental imagery reports presented by Pylyshyn, Shepard and Kosslyn

http://lancog.org/events.html 
Apoios: Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Lisboa