The Case Against Cognitive Phenomenology

The goal of this chapter is to mount a critique of the claim that cognitive content (that is, the kind of content possessed by our concepts and thoughts) makes a constitutive contribution to the phenomenal properties of our mental lives. The authors defend the view that phenomenal consciousness is exclusively experiential (or nonconceptual) in character. The chapter begins with a discussion of the general question of cognitive phenomenology, before turning to the main focus, which is the alleged contribution that concepts make to the phenomenology of visual experience. The chapter closes by sketching how the argument might be extended into the domain of non‐perceptual thought.