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A proposal for genetically modifying the projectof ‘‘naturalizing’’ phenomenology
Brady Thomas Heiner Æ Kyle Powys Whyte
Published online: 5 July 2008
� Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2008
Abstract In this paper, we examine Shaun Gallagher’s project of ‘‘naturalizing’’
phenomenology with the cognitive sciences: front-loaded phenomenology (FLP).
While we think it is a productive proposal, we argue that Gallagher does not employ
genetic phenomenological methods in his execution of FLP. We show that without
such methods, FLP’s attempt to locate neurological correlates of conscious experience
is not yet adequate. We demonstrate this by analyzing Gallagher’s critique of cognitive
neuropsychologist Christopher Frith’s functional explanation of schizophrenic
symptoms. In ‘‘constraining’’ Gallagher’s FLP program, we discuss what genetic
phenomenological method is and why FLP ought to embrace it. We also indicate what
types of structures a genetically modified FLP will consider, and how such an approach
would affect the manner in which potential neurological correlates of conscious
experience are conceptually understood and experimentally investigated.
Keywords Phenomenology � Cognitive science � Schizophrenia �Thought-insertion
1 Introduction
Merleau-Ponty wrote in the Phenomenology of Perception that ‘‘until phenome-
nology becomes genetic phenomenology, unhelpful reversions to causal thought and
naturalism will remain justified.’’1 We believe that Merleau-Ponty’s statement has
B. T. Heiner (&) � K. P. Whyte
Department of Philosophy, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY 11794, USA
e-mail: [email protected]
K. P. Whyte
e-mail: [email protected]
1 Merleau-Ponty (2002, p. 145).
123
Cont Philos Rev (2008) 41:179–193
DOI 10.1007/s11007-008-9081-x
unexplored implications for recent interdisciplinary collaborations that blend
phenomenology and cognitive science.2 In this paper, we examine Shaun
Gallagher’s project of ‘‘naturalizing’’ phenomenology with the cognitive sciences,
which is referred to as front-loaded phenomenology (FLP).3 Gallagher’s FLP
program demonstrates successfully how phenomenological investigations can
conceptually guide and constrain functional explanations of cognition devised by
cognitive scientists (cf. Sect. 2). We argue that, in his execution of FLP, Gallagher
does not consider genetic phenomenological method. Consequently, his phenom-
enological analyses do not account for the significant role that certain social and
ecological relationships play in the formation of cognitive processes.
We will make the case for our argument by analyzing Gallagher’s critique4 of the
comparator model devised by cognitive neuropsychologist Christopher Frith,5
which the latter puts forth as an explanation of positive symptoms in schizophrenia.
In his critique of Frith’s account, which he uses to set up his own explanatory
account, Gallagher draws on Husserl’s 1905 lectures on the structure of time-
consciousness.6 We will show that an appeal to Husserl’s model of time-
consciousness is not sufficient for resolving all of the phenomenological problems
that Gallagher identifies in Frith’s functional account. We will then claim that
resolution of the left-over problems is only possible using a genetic phenomeno-
logical method; specifically, their resolution requires an attention to the social-
historical embeddedness of pre-reflective structures of cognition, which a ‘‘regres-
sive,’’ genetic phenomenology provides.7
If our criticism is correct, then it is imperative that collaborations between
phenomenology and cognitive science appeal to genetic phenomenology as a source
of constraint. We use the word ‘‘imperative’’ advisedly here because, as we will
suggest in our conclusions, genetic phenomenology is not only more adequate to the
task of providing a rigorous account of embodied and embedded cognition, it also
2 For positive proposals in this area not directly dealt with in this paper, see Petitot et al. (1999),
Thompson (2007), Varela et al. (1991), Varela and Shear (1999). The most prominent detractor in this
area is Dennett (1991; 2001, http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/pubpage.htm).3 Gallagher (1997, 2003, 2005), Gallagher and Varela (2001).4 Gallagher (2005). Hereafter cited parenthetically as HB.5 Frith (1992).6 Husserl (1999a).7 It is important to point out the host of terminology used in the phenomenological literature to indicate
the ‘‘lower-level,’’ precognitive structures of intentional experience. Husserl, in his later work, described
this dimension of experience with the terms ‘‘passive synthesis,’’ ‘‘operative intentionality’’ [fungierendeIntentionalitat], and ‘‘drive-intentionality’’ [Triebintentionalitat]. Heidegger speaks of ‘‘understanding’’
[Verstehen] and ‘‘circumspection’’ [Umsicht]. Merleau-Ponty builds on and departs from these accounts
in his descriptions of the ‘‘pre-predicative’’ or ‘‘pre-objective’’ realm of experience, using expressions
such as ‘‘operative intentionality,’’ ‘‘intentional arc,’’ ‘‘motor intentionality,’’ ‘‘body schema,’’ and
‘‘original intentionality.’’ Steinbock speaks of the background of precognitive motivation as an affectively
‘‘saturated intentionality.’’ Gallagher draws from this tradition when he describes what he calls the
‘‘prenoetic,’’ ‘‘prereflective’’ structure of experience. There are, of course, important differences between
these respective analyses, but each attempts to describe the precognitive intentional background out of
which cognitive, reflective, object-directed intentional experience emerges. It is this background to which
we refer with the expression ‘‘pre-reflective.’’ See Heidegger (1962), Husserl (1967, 2001), Merleau-
Ponty (2002), and Steinbock (1999).
180 B. T. Heiner, K. P. Whyte
123
introduces important ethical constraints on the field of cognitive science, especially
with respect to the domain of psychopathology.
2 Constraining cognitive science with phenomenology
One proposal for collaboration between phenomenology and cognitive science
advocates that the two disciplines ‘‘mutually constrain’’ one another. According to
this principle of mutual constraint, cognitive scientific explanatory models and
phenomenological descriptions aim to ‘‘constrain’’ each another so as to avoid
incompatibility or contradiction. We focus on how Gallagher conceives the
phenomenological contribution to this enterprise of mutual constraint, i.e. how
phenomenology is equipped to correct certain drawbacks of explanatory models
produced by cognitive science. Gallagher and Varela describe this phenomenolog-
ical contribution in the following way:
[C]ognitive explanations [do not] have to identify physical processes that are
isomorphic with phenomenological data; but at a minimum, if a cognitive
explanation implies or requires a phenomenological correlation that is unlikely
or impossible, some negotiation has to take place between the two levels of
description.8
Phenomenological data refers to the subjective content of firsthand experience.9
Phenomenological descriptions are intended to capture this subjective content.
Phenomenologists employ descriptive methods in order to suspend ordinary
attitudes about what this subjective content might be. The result of using a sound
method is that attention is shifted away from what one experiences, toward how one
experiences it. In other words, phenomenological methods aim at describing lived
experience so as to understand the underlying conditions that make it possible.
The interdisciplinary enterprise of ‘‘naturalizing’’ phenomenology sees reason for
concern if a functional explanation (explanatory model) is inconsistent with the
underlying conditions of subjective experience disclosed by phenomenological
methods. This is not to say that functional explanations must be constrained so as to
mirror phenomenological descriptions. Rather, the goal is for the two levels of
analysis to be sufficiently compatible so that functional explanations avoid outright
inconsistency with how experience is lived. Phenomenological constraint can
establish terms of negotiation to render functional explanations more congruent withlived experience.
Rendering functional explanations more consistent with phenomenological data
will contribute to changing the ways in which empirical research programs are
designed. Cognitive scientists design experiments based on their assumptions about
the cognitive processes they are investigating. If these assumptions are at least
partially based on functional explanations, then the changes made to these
explanations due to phenomenological constraints will alter the types of
8 Gallagher and Varela (2001, p. 21).9 Petitot et al. (1999, p. 7).
Project of ‘‘naturalizing’’ phenomenology 181
123
experiments that are designed to better understand cognition. Gallagher’s FLP
program emphasizes the way that conceptually clarified phenomenological insights
can be ‘‘front-loaded’’ into the design of experiments, operating as a partial analytic
framework for experimentation.10 We see our project as contributing to this
collaborative enterprise, first by clarifying its methodological and ethical terms,
which will be the focus of the present article, but also by pursuing unexplored
directions of interdisciplinary research, which will be the subject of future
collaborative work.
3 Explaining positive symptoms of schizophrenia
3.1 Frith’s comparator model
Gallagher’s constraint of Christopher Frith’s work on positive symptoms of
schizophrenia is an important demonstration of FLP.11 The nature of schizophrenia
remains rather unclear in psychopathology due to difficulties in classifying a core
set of symptoms that invariably belong to it. Frith believes that the neurological
basis of schizophrenia can be uncovered by isolating individual symptoms and then
searching for the brain structures that directly bring about their manifestation. By
isolating individual symptoms, Frith attempts to provide functional explanations of
the cognitive processes that underlie them. If the explanations are correct, Frith
wagers that they could then be mapped onto the neurological mechanisms that are
(causally) responsible for their instantiation. He draws a distinction between
positive (i.e., experiential) symptoms and negative (i.e., behavioral) symptoms.12
Thought-insertion is a positive symptom that involves a disruption of self-
awareness. Patients who experience thought-insertion report that their thoughts are
controlled, guided, or spoken by someone or something other than themselves. On
Frith’s account, thought-insertion results from a breakdown in cognitive self-
monitoring processes. The role of self-monitoring processes is to keep track of how
one is related to one’s thoughts. Every time one thinks, according to this account,
one normally attributes the origin of that thought to oneself. Thus, each thought (i.e.,
representation) is accompanied by a ‘‘metarepresentation.’’ A metarepresentation is
a second-order reflection ‘‘upon how we represent the world and our thoughts;’’ it
provides us with awareness both that we are experiencing the thought and that we
are its cause.13 Frith claims that thought-insertion manifests when we fail to have a
metarepresentation that attributes our own agency to the origin of the thought.14
10 Gallagher (2003).11 Frith’s approach differs from prior approaches to mental disorder insofar as he shifts the focus of study
away from particular diagnostic categories (e.g., schizophrenia, posttraumatic stress disorder, depression)
and moves it toward the study of specific pathological symptoms (e.g., delusions of control,
hypervigilance, hypoarousal), which may manifest themselves across diagnostic categories.12 Frith (1992, pp. 9–13).13 Ibid., p. 116.14 Ibid.
182 B. T. Heiner, K. P. Whyte
123
According to Frith, self-monitoring processes can be explained by positing the
existence of a comparator mechanism. A comparator is a feed-forward mechanism.
Every time we intend to think, before thought occurs, a message gets sent to the
comparator that anticipates the intended thought. In receiving this message, the
comparator both anticipates the intended thought and predicts the states of affairs
that would arise if that thought were to occur. Let us call this latter the predictive
state. When the thought occurs, the comparator matches the predictive state with the
actual state that one is experiencing. If there is enough parity between the predictive
and actual, then the comparator makes it possible to attribute the origin of the
thought to oneself. The comparator mechanism gives rise to the metarepresentation
that we are the origin of our thoughts. If thought-insertion can be understood as a
failure to generate a metarepresentation that attributes agency to our thoughts, Frith
reasons, then it must be caused by a breakdown in the comparator mechanism that
underlies metarepresentations of attribution.15
Gallagher points out that Frith’s comparator model of thought-insertion
corresponds to a phenomenologically informed conceptual distinction regarding
cognitive experience. In the course of everyday experience, most of one’s thoughts
are accompanied by a sense of agency and a sense of ownership. The sense of
agency is the felt awareness that one initiates or causes one’s thoughts.16 The sense
of ownership is the felt awareness that one is undergoing or living-through one’s
thoughts. Thought-insertion could be understood, according to this distinction, as
thinking that is accompanied by a sense of ownership but that lacks an
accompanying sense of agency. On Frith’s analysis, one’s sense of agency arises
from a metarepresentation that attributes causal agency for one’s thoughts to
oneself. This metarepresentation arises from the functioning of a comparator
mechanism that matches actual and predictive states in light of one’s intention to
think. Thought-insertion, in which the sense of agency is absent, results from a
malfunction of this comparator mechanism.
3.2 Five phenomenological problems with the comparator model
In How the Body Shapes the Mind, Gallagher identifies five phenomenological
problems with Frith’s comparator model. We will rehearse each of these five
criticisms in order to prepare the way for our own discussion of Gallagher’s FLP
program.
(1) The metarepresentation problem. Frith’s assumption that self-monitoring
operates entirely at the level of second-order reflection, or ‘‘metarepresenta-
tion,’’ is phenomenologically untenable. The sense of agency that one has for
one’s thoughts does not arise from reflecting on those thoughts as one thinks
them, i.e., from a second-order reflection that is extrinsic to the thoughts
themselves. Rather, the sense of agency is intrinsic to first-order thought itself.
15 Our account of the comparator model is informed by the discussion in Synofzik et al. (2007).16 ‘‘Agency’’ is meant here in a minimal phenomenological, not sociological, sense. With regard to
thought, it consists simply in an awareness of what I am thinking, and an awareness of who is doing the
thinking. Cf. Overgaard and Grunbaum (2007).
Project of ‘‘naturalizing’’ phenomenology 183
123
Awareness that we are the agents causing our thoughts does not only arise via
reflection. In fact, Gallagher argues, senses of agency and ownership are
distinct from and, indeed, serve as the basis for the second-order attributionsof agency and ownership for which Frith gives an account (HB 173–174, n. 1).
Thought-insertion ought to be understood as a disruption of the pre-reflective
structure of self-awareness, not a problem involving metarepresentation.
(2) The problem of unbidden thoughts. The comparator model fails to account for
the fact that each of us in our everyday experience has unbidden thoughts for
which we maintain a sense of ownership but lack a sense of agency.
Ownership without agency is as everyday as the tune that we cannot get out of
our heads, or the unwanted memory of an embarrassing experience that we
cannot stop rehearsing in our minds and that even persistently intrudes upon
our present thoughts and intentional projects. When one experiences such
unbidden thoughts, one does not attribute them to someone else, as
schizophrenics might when they experience inserted thoughts. This suggests
that ‘‘lack of a sense of agency’’ is merely a necessary, but not sufficient,
condition for the experience of thought-insertion in schizophrenia.
(3) The selectivity problem. The comparator model cannot account for the
selective or episodic nature of positive symptoms. If a single mechanism of
this kind underlies the experiential sense of agency, then a breakdown in its
causal function would entail that all subsequent thoughts and actions lack a
sense of agency. However, this is not the case with schizophrenia: patients do
not experience all of their thoughts as inserted, only some. Thought-insertion
and other positive symptoms manifest themselves selectively or episodically,
not ubiquitously. The malfunction of a single comparator mechanism cannot
account for this.17
(4) The specificity problem. The comparator model cannot account for the
specificity of positive symptoms. Positive symptoms of schizophrenia, such as
thought-insertion, do not happen in a vacuum: just as they do not manifest
themselves ubiquitously, they also do not manifest themselves indiscrimi-
nately. Rather, as clinical cases indicate, positive symptoms tend to occur in
relation to specific contexts and contents of experience. In other words, amidst
the ‘‘agentive’’ inconsistency of schizophrenic experience, inserted thoughts
are often characterized by a semantic consistency. ‘‘Such specificity phenom-
ena,’’ Gallagher points out, ‘‘seem to have a semantic and experiential
consistency and complexity that cannot be adequately explained by the
disruption of subpersonal mechanisms alone’’ (HB 186).
(5) The globality problem. This problem is based in part on some of the important
elements of (3) and (4). Schizophrenia is global and heterogeneous in
character; it involves difficulties in both cognition and action—difficulties that
17If, in the case of the schizophrenic, one of these comparator mechanisms goes wrong or is put out
of operation, why do not all thoughts seem alien? […] Why is it that a subject can have a sense of
agency for one thought, but not for the other? Quite obviously the phenomenology here needs to
constrain the cognitive explanation (HB, p. 185).
184 B. T. Heiner, K. P. Whyte
123
manifest themselves both in selective and specific contexts and in association
with particular and consistent cognitive contents. By analyzing this experi-
ential condition in terms of discrete symptoms, underlied by discrete
(computational) cognitive processes, and caused by discrete subpersonal,
neurological mechanisms, Frith presupposes that schizophrenia is explainable
in isolation from the intentional content and intersubjective context of
experience—a presupposition for which he provides no evidence. It is highly
unlikely that such a complex experiential condition is reducible to the isolated
dysfunction of one comparator mechanism that, as Gallagher points out, is
‘‘neurologically ill-defined’’ (HB 186).
Each of these criticisms indicate that Frith’s comparator model is too static; it
fails to account for the temporal structure of experience. It abstracts thoughts
from the temporal flow that structures how one experiences them, i.e. the
relation to previous thoughts and memories, anticipation of thoughts and
experiences to come, etc. This point provides the motivation for Gallagher to
offer an alternative, phenomenologically informed explanatory model that
accounts for the senses of agency and ownership in terms of the pre-reflective
temporal structure of experience. Gallagher presents Husserl’s 1905 account of
the intentionality of time-consciousness as such an alternative, which is both
more adequate to the lived experience of what Frith calls ‘‘self-monitoring,’’
and more consistent with the schizophrenic experience of thought-insertion as
clinically reported.
3.3 Schizophrenia and the phenomenology of time-consciousness
Gallagher draws on two important structural features of Husserl’s account of the
intentionality of time-consciousness: retention and protention. Retention is the
structure of experience thanks to which one owes the sense of temporal continuity in
one’s firsthand experience. Retention links together the ‘I’ corresponding to one’s
just-past experience and the ‘I’ corresponding to one’s present experience; it also
links together the content corresponding to one’s just-past experience and the
content corresponding to one’s present experience.18 This linkage is what Husserl
refers to as the double intentionality of retention.19 The two components of this
double intentionality are longitudinal intentionality (Langsintentionalitat) and
transverse intentionality (Querintentionalitat).Longitudinal intentionality is directed toward the past phases of consciousness; it
provides for the intentional unification and experienced continuity of those past
phases of consciousness and the stream of consciousness currently being experi-
enced. For example (switching briefly to the first-person for clarity), if I am
speaking a sentence, it is in virtue of this longitudinal aspect of retention that I
maintain the sense that I am the one who has just spoken, that the words spoken are
part of my stream of consciousness. Longitudinal intentionality is responsible for the
18 Husserl sometimes refers to these ‘‘immanent contents’’ as ‘‘primal sensations’’ to distinguish them
from transcendent objects. Cf. Husserl (1999a, Sects. 7–9, 40–45).19 Husserl (1999a, Sect. 39)
Project of ‘‘naturalizing’’ phenomenology 185
123
enduring unity and continuity of the for-structure of experience. Without it, I would
not experience the appearances of just-past and present experience as appearances
for me.
Transverse intentionality is directed toward the contents of just-past experience.
It is responsible for unifying the states of affairs that have just-past with one’s
presently experienced states of affairs. Using the same example, the transverse
intentionality of retention underlies the sense that the words presently being uttered
are intentionally and coherently unified with the sense of the words just spoken,
allowing for a sentence to be experienced as a meaningful whole and not as an
isolated set of discrete and unintelligible parts. Transverse intentionality provides
for the unity and continuity of the of-structure of experience. Without it, the
appearances of just-past experience and those of present experience would not be
coherently unified. So retention provides for the intentional unification of just-past
and present lived experiences together with the contents of those experiences.
Protention is the structure of experience that provides the sense of expectancy for
what is to come, which Husserl calls ‘‘primal anticipation.’’ This sense of
expectancy can assume various degrees of determination, ranging from the nearly
completely determinate (e.g. in the case of the coming note of a familiar melody) to
the almost totally indeterminate (e.g., as Gallagher puts it, ‘‘the most general sense
of ‘something (without specification) has to happen next’’’ [HB 192]). Protention is
also what allows for the experience of surprise. If I am listening to a live
performance of a familiar melody and the performer hits the wrong note, the
perceptual surprise or disappointment that I experience stems from, and implicitly
points back to, a (formerly ‘‘empty’’) sense of expectation that is presently
experienced as ‘‘unfulfilled.’’
Gallagher suggests, going beyond Husserl’s early account,20 that there is
something like a double intentionality involved in protention as well. So in addition
to the anticipatory sense of the future contents of experience that protention
provides (i.e. transverse intentionality), Gallagher argues that protention also has a
longitudinal intentionality thanks to which I have an anticipatory sense that the
future contents of experience will be experiences for me.21
Together, retention and protention are constitutive of the pre-reflective structure
of consciousness, generating its flow-structure and its unity. In this way, the
longitudinal aspects of retention and protention, Gallagher argues, are necessary
conditions for the pre-reflective senses of ownership and agency respectively (HB190, 193). By giving me a pre-reflective sense that I am the one undergoing my just-
20 Husserl’s early works on time focus on retention and give very little attention to the temporal aspect of
protention, relegating the latter the status of a symmetrical adjunct of retention. His later works develop a
more elaborate account of protention, as in, for example, Analyses Concerning Passive and ActiveSynthesis. For a discussion of protention in the development of Husserl’s theory of time-consciousness,
see Rodemeyer (2003).21
[M]y anticipatory sense of the next note of the melody, or of where the sentence is heading, or that
I will continue to think, is also, implicitly, an anticipatory sense that these will be experiences forme, or that I will be the one listening, speaking, or thinking. In effect, protention also has what
Husserl calls a longitudinal aspect—it involves a projective sense, not only for what is about to
happen, but of what I am about to do or experience (HB, p. 193).
186 B. T. Heiner, K. P. Whyte
123
past experiences, that they are part of my stream of consciousness, retention
underlies the sense of ownership. By putting me out ahead of my thoughts and
actions and providing me with a sense of where my thought stream is headed in itsvery making, as it is unfolding, by giving me the sense that the contents of my
thoughts are being generated in and by my own stream of consciousness, protention
underlies the sense of agency (HB 193–194).
4 From dynamic phenomenology to genetic phenomenology
After rehearsing Husserl’s account of the pre-reflective temporal structure
underlying the flow of experience, Gallagher offers Husserl’s time-consciousness
model as a more adequate account of thought-insertion than Frith’s comparator
model. Given the relationship between protention and retention previously outlined,
Gallagher argues that protentional breakdown is a more plausible explanation of
thought-insertion.
Protention normally puts me in the forefront of my thoughts and allows me to
take them up as my own product, as they develop. Lacking protention,
thoughts would seem to impose themselves upon me. […] Without protention,
whatever intention I may have, whatever sense I would have of where my
thoughts will be going, or whatever sense I have of where I will be going with
them, or where I will them to go, is disrupted. […] Thus, without protention, in
cases of both intended thought and of unintended thinking, thinking will occur
within the stream of consciousness that is not experienced in the making, but is
nonetheless captured by a retentional structure that continues to function and,
in its longitudinal function, to provide a sense of ownership for that stream. I
will experience what is actually my own thinking as thinking that is not
generated by me, a thinking that is already made or preformed for me, as if I
were a receptor of thought. (HB 194–195, original emphasis)
Inserted thoughts, on this account, are experienced as coming from an alien or
external source because one lacks a protentional sense of anticipation for their
direction and content. One retains the sense that one is undergoing the thoughts, and
thus a sense of ownership, but one loses the anticipatory sense in virtue of which the
thoughts are experienced as they develop in one’s own stream of consciousness: one
has no sense of agency for them.
Does the account of protentional breakdown resolve the five phenomenological
problems that Gallagher posed (cf. Sect. 3.2 above)? The model of protentional
breakdown sidesteps the metarepresentation problem, i.e., Frith’s phenomenolog-
ically false idea that self-monitoring is a matter of second-order reflection. Self-
awareness is built into the pre-reflective structure of time-consciousness, provided
for by its longitudinal intentionality. On this account, the senses of agency and
ownership do not require a ‘‘metarepresentation,’’ because they are intrinsic to the
temporal structure of first-order thought itself. Protentional breakdown can account
for the loss of a sense of agency at the first-order level of experience.
Project of ‘‘naturalizing’’ phenomenology 187
123
The time-consciousness model can account for the phenomenological difference
between unbidden thoughts and thought-insertion, something Frith’s comparator
mechanism model cannot do. Both unbidden thoughts and thought-insertion involve
a sense of ownership but an absence of a sense of agency. However, inserted
thoughts are experienced as being generated by some alien agency, whereas
unbidden thoughts are experienced as being both of and for me. According to the
temporal model, in the experience of unbidden thoughts, in which the structure of
protention is intact, even though one lacks a sense of agency, one still maintains a
pre-reflective sense that such thoughts are coming from one’s own stream of
consciousness rather than from some alien source. Although one lacks a determinatesense of the direction of unbidden trains of thought, one still feels that they are
leading somewhere. Protention provides some kind of expectancy for them, even if
it is completely indeterminate (HB 194). Such an indeterminate sense of expectancy
is absent in the case of thought-insertion, in which protentional functioning breaks
down.
Gallagher’s alternative, phenomenologically constrained, explanatory model
does not address all of his criticisms. Although it resolves the first two, as we have
shown, we see no evidence that it resolves the selectivity, specificity, and globality
problems. One reason for this, we argue, is that the dynamic method of
phenomenology that Gallagher employs—which takes the temporal ongoingness
of experience into account—is not equipped to deal with the selectivity, specificity,
and globality problems.22 These three aspects of experience are not only constituted
by the pre-reflective temporal structure of experience, they are shaped by one’sembodiment, one’s situatedness in an environment, and one’s habitually sedimentedhistory. Why does one have this thought rather than another? Why do certain
thoughts arise repeatedly in one’s experience? What distinguishes one’s thoughts
from those of others? What makes certain thoughts more affectively charged than
others? These issues, which pertain to the selectivity, specificity, and globality of
one’s cognitive experience, in part receive their sense from how one’s experience is
shaped by the affectively and intersubjectively structured environments in which
one lives. The formal account of time-consciousness that Gallagher offers abstracts
from the specificity of conscious experience; it methodically abstracts from what we
call genetic structures: the specific contents as well as the concrete affective,
intersubjective, and habitual constituents of experience.
The model of time-consciousness that Gallagher proposes is strictly formal and
abstract. As Husserl scholars and the later Husserl himself pointed out, the
conception of time from the 1905 lectures is predominantly formal, being
methodologically abstracted from any reference to embodiment, affectivity, or
intersubjectivity.23 The experience of the lived present that this static model
describes, as Varela and Depraz argue, is that of ‘‘a bodiless subject with no
incarnated habitus in its phylogenetic past, with no roots in the social community in
22 On the difference between static, dynamic, and genetic methods in phenomenology, cf. Behnke
(2004). On the difference between static and genetic methods, cf. Husserl (1967, Appendix II; 1999b,
pp. 65–68, 75–81; 2001, pp. 624–648), Welton (2000, Chaps. 7–9), and Steinbock (1995, Chap. 2).23 See Husserl (2001, pp. 170–174), Steinbock (1995, pp. 34–41), and Varela and Depraz (2005,
pp. 63–64).
188 B. T. Heiner, K. P. Whyte
123
which it has grown, untraversed by recollections that would inhabit it’’ and in which
the ‘‘emotional component [of time-consciousness] is relegated to a secondary
place, a mere accompaniment, without a constitutional role.’’24 It is for this reason
that Anthony Steinbock claims that Husserl’s 1905 investigations of time-
consciousness are not by themselves genetic in the strict sense, but rather they
constitute, at best, a ‘‘transitional’’ analysis between static and genetic phenome-
nology.25 We make a parallel assessment of the model of time-consciousness that
Gallagher puts forth as a plausible account of schizophrenic thought-insertion.
A dynamic phenomenological approach is unable to adequately address the
problem of the specific nature of schizophrenic symptoms, because it makes use of a
model of time-consciousness that is resolutely unspecific. This method does not
consider the specific genetic structures within which positive symptoms of
schizophrenia necessarily arise. Gallagher takes the conceptual idealizations of
protention, retention, and their correlative senses of agency and ownership, and
seeks to ‘‘cash them out in terms of neurological processes’’ (HB 190). He leaves
behind the problem of the specificity of positive symptoms, which he had previously
acknowledged could not be adequately explained by the disruption of subpersonal
mechanisms alone (cf. Sect. 3.2 above), and instead suggests that cashing out
retentional and protentional processes in terms of neurological processes is
sufficient to explain positive symptoms, i.e., that it will permit us to understand
‘‘the neurological mechanisms responsible for symptoms of schizophrenia’’ (HB204, our emphasis). In our view, this exemplifies the way that the project of
‘‘naturalizing’’ phenomenology (i.e., locating neurological correlates to phenomenal
structures) encounters irresolvable difficulties if it does not account for cognitive
experience (schizophrenic or otherwise) in terms of genetic structures.
This is why we strongly concur with Merleau-Ponty that reversions to causal
thought and naturalism are unjustified until phenomenology becomes genetic. If one
seeks to explain positive symptoms of schizophrenia by exclusively using methods
that abstract from the affective, intersubjective, and habitual constituents of
experience, one presupposes that such genetic structures play no constitutive role in
the formation of such symptoms. However, the selectivity, specificity, and globality
of schizophrenic symptoms all point to the constitutive role of genetic structures. If
it is assumed that neurological systems underlie these phenomenal structures, then
in order to give rise to the selectivity, specificity, and globality of experience
(schizophrenic or otherwise) they must be plastic, adaptive, and constitutively
interrelated with the existential features of the subject’s environment. To even
consider the causal nature of such neurophysiological systems, we first need a
phenomenological method that can describe the specifically genetic structures that
shape experience pre-reflectively. Such a method will develop the analysis of time-
consciousness beyond ‘‘conceptual idealization’’ by genetically modifying it.26 This
24 Varela and Depraz (2005, pp. 63–64).25 Steinbock (1995, p. 40).26 In bringing the resources of genetic phenomenology to bear on our understanding of neurophysi-
ological systems, as Evan Thompson argues, ‘‘the very idea of nature is transformed. The physicalist
conception of nature as an objective reduction base for the phenomenal no longer holds sway, and instead
nature is reexamined from a phenomenological angle’’ (Thompson, 2007, p. 359).
Project of ‘‘naturalizing’’ phenomenology 189
123
path of inquiry takes the formal description of protention and retention as one that
must itself be ‘‘described constitutively.’’27
The genetically modified FLP program that we are proposing would forestall the
‘‘putting-into-play’’ of the validity of natural causation in order to fill out the formal
model of time-consciousness through a genetic phenomenology of what Husserl
calls ‘‘primordial phenomena,’’ such as motivation, apperception, and affective
association.28 Genetic phenomenology investigates how the sense of a present
cognition relies upon the past institution of sense, how the sedimentations of past
experience can be reawakened through the affective force of the present.29 Genetic
method attempts to describe the structure of present experience insofar as it is
saturated by an interrelational history.
In order to resolve the selectivity, specificity, and globality problems, we argue, one
would have to experimentally investigate positive schizophrenic symptoms with a
careful eye turned toward their phenomenological genesis. One would have to engage
in a regressive inquiry into their semantic and intentional consistencies in order to
uncover the possibly stable links they maintain with the past experiences of the
subject. Consequently, experiments would be designed with regard to the genetic
structures within which these symptoms arise. A front-loaded genetic phenomenology
can contribute indispensable conceptual tools for orientating this kind of empirical
inquiry. It would do so by beginning from the premise that the genetic structures of
embodiment, social-historical situatedness, and habitual sedimentation play a
constitutive role in cognition, including the cognitive symptom of thought-insertion.
This premise is not only evidenced by phenomenological investigations, it is also
suggested by the clinical reports of subjects who experience inserted thoughts.
Front-loading experimental research on thought-insertion—as well as other
disorders of self-reference—with genetic insights would expand interdisciplinary
collaborations between phenomenology and cognitive science in two ways. First, it
would contribute to the project of showing why explanatory models like the
comparator model require constraint and reformulation. Second, it would deepen
existing research in phenomenology and cognitive science on the pre-reflective,
embodied structures of cognition by expanding the notion of the pre-reflective to
include aspects of social existence—what we elsewhere call pre-reflectivesociality.30 This latter expansion is important because it provides an opening in
which social theories of cognition can be placed in dialogue with the collaborations
between phenomenology and cognitive science. By social theories we refer broadly
to work in phenomenology and other disciplines that is usually not understood as
being relevant to studies of cognition in the natural sciences. Examples of these
theories range from the Frantz Fanon’s phenomenological psychology of racialized
embodiment to Iris Marion Young’s phenomenological descriptions of the lived,
embodied experiences of women.31
27 Husserl (2001, p. 479).28 Husserl (2001).29 Steinbock (1995, pp. 40–41).30 See our forthcoming article, ‘‘Exploring Allostasis and Pre-reflective Sociality.’’31 See, for example, Fanon (1967) and Young (2005).
190 B. T. Heiner, K. P. Whyte
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These sorts of genetic phenomenological investigations, when front-loaded into
experimental research, would lead toward significantly different naturalistic
inquiries. By understanding the structure of present cognitive experience in terms
of its lived-bodily, social-historical, and affective history, a genetic FLP programwould also encourage cognitive scientists to consider neurophysiology within agenetic framework, i.e., as a dynamic system with a social and ecological history.Examples of this sort of approach to neurophysiology can be drawn from
contemporary neuroscientific research on neuro- and phenotypic plasticity, some of
which analyzes the way that certain disruptive or stressful social-environmental
features of existence (e.g., bereavement, divorce, war, migration, industrialization,
incarceration) are associated with broad patterns of human morbidity.32
Finally, a genetic FLP program could introduce important ethical constraints on
phenomenology and cognitive science. We have two such constraints in mind, both
of which we will outline only in broadly suggestive terms. First, there is an
unjustified assumption that pathological symptoms ought to be automatically
labeled as breakdowns or abnormalities. The very term pathological is problematic
in this sense. Some phenomenologists and cognitive scientists are primed to explore
such symptoms as breakdowns in what are presumed to be normal neurological
functions. This assumption excludes the consideration of problematic social and
ecological relationships that cannot only play a role in shaping lived experience, but
can also effect neurophysiological systems. Disability Studies scholars have
criticized the assumption of abnormality used by some phenomenologists and
cognitive scientists precisely because the latter two have not paid attention to the
relationship between sociality and the rituals by which knowledge of disability and
normality is produced.33 Why are positive symptoms, for example, automatically
assumed to be rooted in some sort of breakdown? It could prove to be the case that
such symptoms are not breakdowns at all, but rather are quite regulated responses to
exacting social and ecological features of embedded, embodied experience.34 A
genetic approach to the study of cognition would guarantee that these important
32 See, for example, Sterling and Eyer (1988), Sterling (2004), and Sapolsky (1998). In our forthcoming
article, ‘‘Exploring Allostasis and Pre-reflective Sociality,’’ we interface genetic phenomenological
insights about the social aspects of embodiment, drawn from such figures as Frantz Fanon and Iris Marion
Young, with ‘‘allostatic’’ explanatory models in neurophysiology.33 See, for example, Davis (2006). For a genetic phenomenological investigation of normality and
abnormality, see Steinbock (1995, Chaps. 8–10).34 The work of French philosopher of science Georges Canguilhem on the historicity of conceptions of
normality and pathology is important in this regard. The following passage from his book The Normaland the Pathological exhibits an attunement to just the sort of genetic structures we have been discussing.
In general, any one act of a normal subject must not be related to an analogous act of a sick person
without understanding the sense and value of the pathological act for the possibilities of existenceof the modified organism. […] It seems very artificial to break up disease into symptoms or to
consider its complications in the abstract. What is a symptom without context or background?
What is a complication separated from what it complicates? When an isolated symptom or a
functional mechanism is termed pathological, one forgets that what makes them so is their inner
relation in the indivisible totality of individual behavior. (Canguilhem 1991, pp. 86–88, our
emphasis)
Project of ‘‘naturalizing’’ phenomenology 191
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considerations regarding research ethics and disability are not forgotten in the
course of analysis and experimental design.
Second, oftentimes larger ethical considerations regarding the political environ-
ment are not included in phenomenological and cognitive scientific research on
cognition. When mental or physiological disorder is conceived within an analytic
framework that abstracts from genetic structures such as social-historical situated-
ness, and habitual and affective sedimentation, certain possible causal explanations
(and hence possibilities of therapeutic intervention) go systemically unexplored.
The considerations we have in mind are social and political in nature. For example,
some research explores the very real empirical possibility that ultimate causal
responsibility for particular disorders resides in certain social arrangements, rather
than in discrete neurological mechanisms. Just as essential hypertension and type II
diabetes have, for example, been demonstrated to be more closely correlated with
chronically unsatisfactory social interactions than with dysfunctions in lower-level
neurophysiological mechanisms,35 thought-insertion and other disorders of self-
reference may prove to be more closely correlated with the chronic hypervigilance
that attends existence in a hostile social environment than with a breakdown in a
‘‘comparator’’ or ‘‘protentional’’ mechanism.36 Genetic FLP could provide a link
that allows for cross-disciplinary dialogue with these approaches to cognitive
research.
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