Abstract

In this dissertation I defend the view that phenomenology has an important role to play in the naturalistic sciences of the mind. Phenomenological properties are real, causally efficacious features of the mind, but these properties are not always immediately discernible by common sense. Thus we require phenomenology to reveal these properties, the knowledge of which will contribute to our understanding of our mental lives. ;Contemporary, naturalistic theorists tend to either hope for a reductive or an eliminative account of consciousness or, if they accept the reality and irreducibility of consciousness, remain mostly silent about the methodological implications of this irreducibility. The goal of this dissertation is to show the necessity of a transformation in our approach toward the investigation of consciousness. The widespread acceptance of the importance of phenomenological accounts for cognitive science would certainly signal a change from the dominant attitude of hope that we will ultimately explain away the subjective character of experience. But we should also recognize that the phenomenology that could make positive contributions to cognitive science is not to be understood in terms of the rather monolithic procedure endorsed by Husserl. Naturalizing phenomenology will require an expansion of our conceptions of phenomenological methodology and confirmation. Only after phenomenology evolves beyond the procedure of personal reflection on experience will it qualify for inclusion as an important contributor to the sciences of the mind