Heidegger's Dissolution of an Old Problem: Phenomenal Consciousness and the Phenomenological Approach

Contemporary philosophy of mind has made it a habit to conceptualize consciousness according to a certain distinction which has deep philosophical roots, roots that cannot be properly accounted for in a vacuum, but rather must be understood in a certain context. Consciousness is a confusing word which lexical devices fail to demystify. The 'definition' provided by the International Dictionary of Psychology manifests the confusion aptly.[1] The word consciousness can be taken to mean many things, but the distinction is offered (in part) to make clear our conception of it. Essentially, it holds that there is phenomenal consciousness and there is access (or psychological) consciousness. David Chalmers, in The Conscious Mind: In Search for a Fundamental Theory, takes phenomenal consciousness to be

"The concept of mind as conscious experience, and of a mental state as a consciously experienced mental state...on the phenomenal concept, mind is characterized by the way it feels; on the psychological concept, mind is characterized by what it does."[2]

The phenomenal conception of consciousness has to do with the way in which it is presented to the subject consciously undergoing a given mental state. Frequently, Chalmers makes claims such as 'there is a certain way it is like to experience such and such, even though the same such and such could have been experienced in another way.' I think a great deal of it has to do with attenuation: the conscious shifting of attention from one set of features to another alters the phenomenological way in which that object is entertained. The problem with this possibility, it is held, is that it flies in the face of cognitive theories of the mind, in which mental activity is syntactically driven according to local processes. Functionalism, according to Chalmers and others critical of cognitive science as it purports to understand consciousness, leads to the philosophically disturbing possibility that one could be functionally identical to another, in terms of cognitive input and functional output, but nevertheless lack this basic and 'intrinsic' feature of consciousness (namely, that consciousness feels a certain way if and when it is directed in the form of judgments).

Central to this distinction is the assumption that one can freely separate functionality from phenomenology. In certain respects, it is appropriate to talk this way about our 'mental' experiences, and by that I mean experiences both as they are experienced for the one who experiences them and as the subject matter relevant to the empirical study of the mind (and now, it is presumed, brain). At some level, phenomenal consciousness seems subjective. It is related to the way in which things are for someone, and the way in which things are for someone obviously hinges on how one takes things to mean, under a given context. Then again, amidst other situations, one may wish to discuss the functionality of a certain state of mentality, that is, one may wish to express what purpose a given mental ability can fulfill. For instance, the mode of memory could be accounted for as: the functionality of the state (mode) of memory is to retrieve previous experiences. The fact that the name of a candidate for paradigm in cognitive science is Massive Modularity Thesis speaks for the explanatory utility of talking about the mind in terms of function or mode. With this way of talking, the distinction between a phenomenological appreciation of the mind and a functional account is comfortably made.

Of course, Chalmers goes on to paint some initial sketches of a theory of mind (and specifically consciousness, appreciated in terms of the above distinction) which he maintains is both intelligible in scientific discourse (and by that I mean the kind of discourse used in cognitive science, and more generally, in physicalist science) and appreciative of the phenomenal mysteries of consciousness (i.e. "how is it that I am conscious of the taste of chocolate in this way and not that way"). Essentially, Chalmers thinks it is possible to articulate theories of consciousness which do not oppose the functional accounts of mental phenomena provided by cognitive science, but which have something to say about the basis or nature of 'the phenomenal mind.'

In what follows, I expose the notion of phenomenal consciousness to insights provided by Heidegger's articulation of a certain sort of intentionality. The first section will involve an appreciation of Heidegger's project in Being and Time by way of distinguishing it from the conventional treatments he was in opposition to. Specifically, I wish to delineate Heidegger's project from Brentano's and Husserl's, especially as it relates to intentionality. Next, an assessment of Heidegger's notion of practical intentionality, explicated in terms of the present-at-hand, will yield an important insight into the relationship that obtains between intentionality and phenomenology. In the third section, it will be shown that the phenomenal presentation of consciousness is restricted to the intentionality dictated by what is accessible in a given activity or concern. The last section will involve a more sophisticated articulation of Chalmers' use of phenomenal consciousness, in terms of a specific sort of judgment. Subsequently, the notion of phenomenal consciousness will be shown to rely on a false distinction. Most importantly, it will be presented that Heidegger's insights into practical intentionality does much for the dissolution of the so-called 'hard problem of consciousness,' but it is a dissolution which is not at all reductive.

I: Heidegger versus the old school

My examination of Heidegger's philosophy is restricted to certain passages in section one Being and Time. There are two reasons for this. One, the scope of Heidegger's concern in Being and Time and elsewhere is simply too vast and rich to interpret precisely and usefully in one sitting. Two, I see Heidegger's use of terms changing significantly from the beginning of his philosophic career to the end. My own interpretation must take him in certain ways, and the deviations in employment of terms seem too significant to warrant not restricting my own treatment of Heidegger, especially as I am presently concerned with his philosophy.

In any event, what is of chief importance in Heidegger's philosophy is the realization and subsequent explanation of the fact that intentionality and phenomenology cannot be distinguished in the way our conceptual schemas seem to indicate. In actuality, Heidegger explicitly stays away from the use of 'intentionality' since it carries certain conceptual and metaphysical baggage which is part of the very scholastic and medieval tradition he is in opposition to. Thus, it would seem odd for one to invoke the term in the way I have, but in what follows I will attempt to make precise my intended use of it.

Heidegger's main concern in Being and Time is to offer a kind of questioning (and answering) of the meaning of Being which is not encumbered by the metaphysical preconceptions of previous metaphysicians. Heidegger may best be understood in terms of what he tries not to do. Appreciating what Heidegger is up against at the conceptual level will allow for a more sincere acknowledgement of the play of intentionality and phenomenology which I think is crucial to the prospects of a novel science of mind. Thus, an appreciation of the conception of intentionality as provided by Heidegger's teacher, Edmund Husserl, can shed some light upon what in Heidegger is relevant to phenomenal consciousness insofar as it is taken that Heidegger opposes the Husserlian conception of intentionality.

Husserl's view was influenced by the logician and philosopher of language Gottlieb Frege and the philosopher and psychologist Franz Brentano. Husserl can be seen as conceiving of Fregean linguistics in terms of Brentano's intentionality, and using the relevant conceptual schemas to fuel his conception of phenomenology. I'll explain just what I mean.

Frege held that language acts can be understood via the notions of sense and reference. Reference was held to be that which an expression denotes. Thus, the reference of the expression, "I read Heidegger's book today" is, simply enough, the one who read Heidegger's book on that day which was designated by the "today" of the expression, and that person designated by the "I." Reference relates to the object of the utterance. Sense was held to be the meaning of the expression, in the sense of the mode of presentation which the sentence took in utterance or comprehension. Beyond this, the notion of sense is not very explicable, given that "the way an expression is presented to S" is highly contingent in a number of ways, including but not limited to the kind of discourse S is engaged in, as well as S's presuppositions which are relevant to that which the expression is about. From Franz Brentano Husserl adopted the idea that consciousness should be appreciated for via its directedness towards something. That is, Husserl adopted the view that one's conscious states are always directed towards something. This directedness of consciousness Brentano called intentionality.[3]

Given these contributions, Heidegger's mentor structured an account of phenomenology in terms of the conscious act, the noema, and the intended object. Thus, in very simple terms, Husserl characterized the 'aboutness' of mental states in terms of (a) the state of consciousness which is always directed in virtue of a given topic, (b) the meaning of that directedness, or rather how it is that directedness is meaningful to the expression which manifests it, and (c) the object of intentionality, or rather the referent of the conscious act. With this framework, Husserl attempted to pursue a science of phenomenology which he thought able to 'get to' the intentional objects as they are experienced in mental states. Notice how close this characterization resembles Chalmers' characterization of phenomenal consciousness provided above. Both may be said to fall in accordance with the following logically formal construal:

If x(p) is a phenomenal state of consciousness, then there is a way it is like to be in the state of x such that the (p) is manifest to S in the way it is.

For purposes of discussion call this the 'subject-mode-object' model.[4] It is this structuralizing of phenomenology in terms of the linguistic and intentional frameworks that Heidegger's philosophy opposes. And in this opposition is where the contributions to a novel understanding of the mind will emerge.

II: Heideggerean contributions from phenomenology in general and practical intentionality

Now that some groundwork has been laid, at least in the sense of the groundwork which Heidegger opposes, the discussion can move to what one can draw from Heidegger's philosophy in reflecting on the central distinction of consciousness in the philosophy of mind. This requires first that adequate briefing of Heidegger's version of phenomenology, as distinct from Husserl's.

Heidegger's articulation of the signification of phenomenology is not distinct with Husserl's, at least with respect to the goals of inquiry:

"Thus phenomenology means 'to let that which shows itself be seen from itself in the very way in which it show itself from itself.' This is the formal meaning of that branch of research which calls itself 'phenomenology'. But here we are expressing nothing else than the maxim formulated above: To the things themselves."[5]

For both Husserl and Heidegger, the objective of phenomenology is 'to get at the things themselves', as they are experienced (as I mentioned in the previous section). However, Heidegger goes further and perceives the theoretical and conceptual implications of the formal meaning of the term 'phenomenology,' as well as its appropriate application, and the way in which its applicability affects its effective explanation. Phenomenology, as a kind of discourse, is distinct from other discourses in that "phenomenology neither designates the objects of its researches, nor characterizes the subject-matter thus comprised."[6] Furthermore, the method by which phenomenology partakes in description is unique in that phenomenological description signifies a prohibitive demonstration, not the kind of assertive description which typify scientific disciplines and conventional philosophical systems of thought.

Most importantly, Heidegger goes on to connect Being with phenomenology. His argument can be invoked again given the meaning of phenomenology. If phenomenological description is a kind of prohibitive demonstration, and if it is a sort of discourse which neither restricts what it takes itself to be about, nor fixes the constituents of its subject-matter, then phenomenology yields something unrestricted by designation (and thus undesignated) but demonstrative of 'thinghood,' or "what is to be 'described.' It is necessary that Heidegger's employment of the notion of thinghood is not confused with the notion of the intentional object theorized by Brentano and reproduced in Husserl's theory.

To be blunt, the yield of phenomenology promises essential ontology: the Being of entities, that is, "[that which] proximally and for the most part does not show itself at all...but at the same time it is something that belongs to what thus shows itself."[7] Heidegger's philosophizing about phenomenology leads him to the conclusion that phenomenology is, as the formal characterization attributes, a kind of thinking designed to appreciate the content of experience as it is experienced. However, in acknowledging that phenomenology describes insofar as it is discloses prohibitively, the manner in which things are taken up at all is also at stake. Briefly then, Heidegger's phenomenological method in Being and Time enables one to experience both the way in which particular things are taken up as they are in particular contexts, as well as the way in which particular things, taken up as they are, could even be potentially taken up that way in the first place. One can think of the phenomenological investigation into Being as a twofold process of yielding the experiences of this or that themselves, as well as the potentiality for ever experiencing them in this or that way at all.

Heidegger begins the two-fold discussion by appealing first to that which is ready-to-hand, which can be understood as practical intentionality: that which is meaningful to someone in a given circumstance. He writes,

"The peculiarity of what is proximally ready-to-hand is that, in its readiness-to hand, it must, as it were, withdraw in order to be ready-to-hand quite authentically. That which our everyday dealings proximally dwell is not the tools themselves. On the contrary, that with which we concern ourselves primarily is the work."

The above characterization can be seen in its apparent opposition to the traditional schema of intentionality Heidegger's contemporaries invoked. What is meaningful, what is intentional to a given person in an everyday experience of the world, is not instantiated by the subject-mode-object model. In fact, the intentionality of practicality is not something at all subsumable under a logical or formal consideration. The meaning of a hammer, if it is ready-to-hand (that is, available for the use we come to associate with it), is not explained via recourse to the Husserlian model of intentionality.

Again, there is no subject positing a conscious awareness of a hammer with such and such a use; the hammer, as the intentional object, does not 'kick back' with some affirmation of the subjects intended use of it. Rather, what is intentional about the situation is not the hammer, or the combination of the hammer and its use by the individual, but rather the work which a skilled hammer-user engages in. The engagement here parallels the potentiality for the user to understand and 'take up' the hammer as a hammer, thereby neglecting other 'properties' of the hammer in its use. The role of phenomenology here is simply to acknowledge that what is meaningful about the situation is the way in which the user of the hammer proceeds to use it as a hammer for hammer-type work.[8]

The moral to draw from this example of Heidegger's practical intentionality is that phenomenology and intentionality, that is, the way in which something (phenomenal) is meaningful to someone (intentional), is frequently the result of active engagement which is stipulated by a certain local interest. A local interest may be that I need to get to class. The significance of my Being, in its localization, is taken up phenomenally as me getting to class. Thus, perceptual 'objects' relevant to the completion of that goal, namely the door that I need to open to get to class, do nothing to explain the intentional state I currently am engaged in. In fact, the way in which my intentions are present to me ('the mode of presentation') are only distinguishable as intentions on the basis of me (phenomenally) taking the door as a door, and not some perceptual object which relates to the abstract conglomeration of wood which is built in a certain shape and uniquely fastened in this or that way. In the practical sense, phenomenal consciousness cannot be separated from the intentionality which makes it purposeful. I may be phenomenally conscious of a given door, but if the circumstances are practical, what is phenomenal to me is phenomenal only the basis of my intention to use it in a certain way. Contrary to Chalmers' characterization of phenomenal consciousness, there is absolutely nothing mysterious going on so long as my concerns are exhausted by the activity I am engaged in. The framework of my mind is not a framework exhausted by functional attributes: I have no cognitive rule which posits that "if x, then y" where x is "get to class" and y is "open the door." Rather, it is simply the simultaneous ignorance of extraneous features not pertinent to the goal and the understanding of what shows and becomes pertinent for the local goal, as I am going about the completion of the goal. The statement in italics will be developed further in the next section.

III: Purposeful Accessibility and the Phenomenal Mind

Practical intentionality, explicated in terms of the ready-to-hand, is a point of departure from conventional thoughts on the nature of intentionality: conventionally, what is meaningful is what is conditioned according to a paradigmatic philosophical system, for instance Cartesian skepticism, Husserl's model of intentionality, or the Platonic forms. For Descartes, the 'aboutness' of any given mental state was possible because of 'cogito ergo sum,' the first metaphysical certainty which also instantiated the principle of clarity and distinctness. Mental 'aboutness' was the result of the ego perceiving this or that, and if it did so clearly and distinctly, one could be said to be certain in only the time in which the thought is entertained. Descartes moves from the certainty of his own mental states, to the principle of clarity and distinctness, to God, and finally to the practical world of the physical world. Thus, for Descartes and most other epistemologists, practical intentionality is an afterthought to the metaphysical theorization which justifies it.

Heidegger reverses the relationship between practical meaning and theoretical meaning. Our theories of meaning are only justified in that they are grounded in what is practically meaningful. Moreover, practical intentionality is always parallel to the way in which such and such is experienced, that is, it is always parallel to the phenomenological. There is always a way it is like to experience meaning, but absent some meaningful experience, phenomenology cannot obtain. This is an important insight, and one that will provide some implications for another direction cognitive science and the philosophy of mind could go in. In fact, what Dasein takes up as practical is more basic and primary than any other kind of theorization. Indeed, activities which were formerly taken as theoretical must answer always to what is experienced as this or that in the world. For instance, the activity of city-planning, which includes the use of mathematics, among other conceptual tools, is still grounded in terms of the circumspection which "thematizes" space for the purpose of construction, and in doing so "space already comes into view in a certain way." Moreover, one's perceptual attunement to the kind of space relevant to city-planning cannot be explained in any form of the traditional model. However, when practical intentionality is unavailable, the phenomenology of space itself changes. Heidegger posits,

"When space is discovered non-circumspectively by just looking at it, the environmental regions get neutralized to pure dimensions. Places-and indeed the whole circumspectively oriented totality of places belonging to equipment ready-to-hand-get reduced to a multiplicity of positions for random Things. The spatiality of what is ready-to-hand within-the-world loses its involvement-character, and so does the ready-to-hand. The world loses its specific aroundness; the environment becomes the world Nature. The 'world', as a totality of equipment ready-to-hand, becomes spatialized to a context of extended Things which are just present-at-hand and no more. The homogenous space of Nature shows itself only when the entities we encounter are discovered in such a way that the worldly character of the ready-to-hand gets specifically deprived of its worldhood."[9]

The following implications can be drawn from the above, which is merely an example of what is really at stake: (a) the intentional character of space, but also anything that one is meaningfully related to, cannot be separated from the way in which entities relevant to the current pursuit are taken in experience; furthermore, (b) if one does not yield to circumspection, in which entities are phenomenally presented according to their accessibility for a purpose, then the way in which those entities within a certain environmental space are presented in experience becomes a multiplicity, as opposed to a unity, or what was traditionally taken to be a conscious act, in which the mind is directed at this or that kind of thing, but not others. Thus, a condensed form of (a) and (b) could read: mental engagement characterizes intentionality insofar as phenomenological presentation falls in accord with the purposefully accessible.

There is much else that one could draw from both parts of Being and Time, but as I restricted my interpretation to part one, as I feel that it is the most relevant to the kind of phenomenology contemporary philosophy of mind is interested in, it is now appropriate to discuss some intriguing ramifications implicit in what has thus far been presented.

IV: Ramifications and the Dissolution of a False Distinction

The interpretation I have put forth thus far has focused on Heidegger's notion of intentionality in the practical world, and how the directedness of meaning parallels purposeful accessibility. The end of the last section illustrated that, without the directedness of one's mind towards this or that thing, as that thing is relevant to purposeful activity and/or involvement in the world, then the phenomenological becomes multiplicity, not unity. Reviewing Chalmers' characterization of the phenomenal mind appropriates the Heideggerean import of the discussion: whenever Chalmers invokes the term "phenomenal consciousness," he uses it in the context of the mind undergoing a judgment pertaining to this or that intended thing. The judgment could relate to a tree, the fact that consciousness is mysterious, or that functionalism cannot explain why a tree is meaningful in this way but not another way. Chalmers presents what he means by phenomenal judgments when he maintains that

"One can also make more detailed judgments about conscious experiences. One can note that one is experiencing a particularly vivid shad of purple, or that a pain has an all-consuming quality, or even that a green after-image is the third such after-image one has had today."[10]

And he further explains phenomenal judgments as: "...judgments in the vicinity of consciousness I call phenomenal judgments, not because they are phenomenal states themselves, but because they are concerned with phenomenology or with its objects."[11] Finally, Chalmers posits that "Consciousness is conceptually independent of what goes into the explanation of our claims and judgments about consciousness."[12] In every case, Chalmers' explanation involves the conception of phenomenal consciousness (or phenomenal judgments) in terms of intentional objects that signify not that x is an x, but rather that x is experienced in the x-like way. For Chalmers, the objects of phenomenal consciousness are the way in which something is experienced. Thus, Chalmers' explicates the phenomenal mind in terms of a conscious judgment which is objectively related to phenomenology.

But Heidegger's philosophy lead to the realization that phenomenology is tied up intentionality just in case one is engaged in the world in this or that way, a way in which things are experienced according to what is accessibility for this or that involvement. One cannot distinguish the phenomenal mind from the mind which is intentionally relegated in this or that activity, in fact that they are interwoven at all suggests that meaning and the way it is presented are two sides of the same coin, insofar as intentionality parallels phenomenology in context of this or that activity. One cannot theorize or arrive at an explanation of the phenomenal mind as distinct from what is intentionally relevant to it, because theorization always involves strict conceptual characterization. And conceptual characterization is an activity which involves a certain vocabulary, a certain way in which one should approach phenomena, and certain paradigmatic resources for characterizing the relevant phenomena. If one wanted to 'get to' phenomenal consciousness, one would need to be phenomenally attuned to the multiplicity of his or her environment, but that would mean one would have to secede from directing his or her mind in any specific way at all. But phenomenological multiplicity excludes the notion of consciousness, because consciousness is always directed at this or that thing; one is not conscious of the multiplicity of a desk, one is conscious of a desk according to the background of activity in the environment which necessitates that the desk be interpreted as a desk. "Consciousness of desk" cannot obtain if the phenomenology of the desk is multiply realized: the way in which the desk is taken in consciousness is singularly driven according to the features of the desk which are relevant to the attenuation to the desk, as a desk.

Indeed, failing to be involved in a specific way means failing to be conscious, since consciousness is directional. One cannot explain the way in which consciousness is realized as consciousness independently from a given activity, say writing or watching television, or speaking with a friend. In those cases, phenomenal consciousness is already exhausted by intentionality, in the 'aboutness' of the mind, since any state that is conscious is a state directed towards something. Heidegger's notion of practical intentionality, of Dasein as Being-in-the-world, is the only kind of intentionality in which consciousness could participate, since consciousness is accessible to only that which is meaningful, and both what is meaningful and the way in which it is meaningful are restricted to the activity one is engaged in, then it follows that at any level, phenomenal consciousness is pertinent to the activity of the one who is conscious. Chalmers cannot make the distinction of phenomenal consciousness versus other sorts of consciousness, since consciousness itself already presupposes intentionality in the Heideggerean sense of practical intentionality; absent an accessible activity, one is not phenomenally conscious at all, since consciousness cannot obtain in a phenomenological multiplicity. When one is amidst phenomenological multiplicity, one knows not what to be conscious of, since intentionality is contingent on directed activity. Heidegger develops phenomenological multiplicity later on, and the related notions of human comportment in general, but throughout Being and Time it is stressed that Dasein is and for the most part concerned with [or conscious of] its activity in the world. My assessment of the notion of phenomenal consciousness has thus tried to show that phenomenal consciousness is reducible to practical intentionality, in terms of the ready-to-hand and the activity one is engaged in within a certain context, such as city-planning or walking in the park. There is thus no mystery to the way in which consciousness is presented, since it is presented in terms of the way the subject is active in the world which is his environment. Roughly speaking, one's phenomenal consciousness of a tree is reducible to one's engagement with the tree as conditioned by what sorts of involvements and expectations the current activity necessitates.[13] Thus explaining what Chalmers takes to be phenomenal consciousness would involve an explanation of the affect of the way in which one was engaged with the object one was conscious of, and the practical intentionality of that involvement. Heidegger's phenomenological endeavor thus can be used in this respect to demystify what amounts to be a false distinction in the first place. In that way, the hard-problem of consciousness, a theoretical obstacle born out of the Cartesian model of intentionality, is not really so mystifying a mystery after all.

Works Cited

Chalmers, David (1996), The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory, New York: Oxford University Press.

Heidegger, Martin (1962), Being and Time. Translated by Macqurrie, John and Edward Robinson, San Francisco: Harper Collins Publishers Inc.

[1] The International Dictionary of Psychology characterizes consciousness as "the having of perceptions, thoughts, and feelings; awareness. The term is impossible to define except in terms that are unintelligible without a grasp of what consciousness means. Many fall into the trap of confusing consciousness with self-consciousness-to be conscious it is only necessary to be aware of the external world. Consciousness is a fascinating but elusive phenomenon: it is impossible to specify what it is, what it does, or why it evolved. Nothing worth reading has been written about it."

[2] Chalmers, 11

[3] Brentano explicates his notion of intentionality in "Intentional Inexistence."

[4] It is somewhat irrelevant, but I could not fail to notice the striking resemblance between the subject-mode-object model and the computational mode of the mind, namely the input-mode-output model. I highly doubt such resemblance is coincidental.

[5] Heidegger, BT 34-35

[6] Heidegger, BT 35

[7] Heidegger, BT 35

[8] One particular passage which manifests this point sufficiently is when Heidegger writes, "The less we just stare at the hammer-thing, and the more we seize hold of it and use it, the more primordial does our relationship to it become, and the more unveiledly is it encountered as that which it is-as equipment." Heidegger, BT 95

[9] Heidegger, BT 112-113

[10] Chalmers, 179

[11] Chalmers, 177

[12] Chalmers 49

[13] Of course my treatment of phenomenal consciousness here is not meant to indicate that all phenomenology is reducible to practical intentionality: as Heidegger articulates in Being and Time, the phenomenal world is the world of possibilities, and in no way is phenomenology restricted to consciousness, in any sense of the word. I only meant to show that the notion of phenomenal consciousness is restricted to (what amounts to) practical intentionality, since one can only be conscious of that which was already meaningful, so to speak. And that the intentional character of consciousness is manifested as familiarity and accessibility, two notions present in Heidegger's treatment of practical intentionality and the ready-to-hand.