Phenomenology as Proto-Computationalism: Do the Prolegomena Indicate a Computational Reading of the Logical Investigations?

Abstract

τότε ἐπιστάµεθα ὅταν τὴν αἰτίαν εἰδῶµεν -Aristotle, Posterior Analytics (71b31-2). IntroductionEver since Hubert Dreyfus and Harrison Hall presented Husserl, Intentionality, and Cognitive Science (1982), the question of the relation of phenomenology to cognitive science has been, if not answered, at least discussed. Dreyfus tried to answer this question in terms of the work of Jerry Fodor. From a Husserlian "point of view," Dreyfus contended, "Fodor is rediscovering a very important discipline: the phenomenological theory of cognition, which Hume and Kant saw dimly and which Husserl brought into its own" ( 15). This answer, however, proved to be very unpopular (though see Pokropski 2020), and was immediately rejected by Husserlians, both before (McIntyre, 1986) and after (Brown, 1990; Woodruff Smith, 1995, 342) the discovery of the potential of neural networks as an explanatory apparatus for cognitive phenomena (Rumelhart and McClelland, 1986;Smolensky, 1991).In light of the newfound promise of multilayer networks, and without heeding the warnings of the rediscoverer of phenomenological cognition (Fodor & Pylyshyn, 1988), the journal Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences was born. The guiding framework for the journal was established by the work of Varela, Thompson, and

Pluralist neurophenomenology: a reply to Lopes

“…These texts focus on such topics as formal grammar and the constitution of mathematics and logic. 19 Analyses of the ideas in these texts using symbolic computational theories are in (Lopes, 2020(Lopes, , 2022. Of course, Husserl did not think he was contradicting himself in conducting these different studies, so we have historical evidence that phenomenology can be pursued in a pluralist framework.…”

“…Recently the effort to sympathetically link Husserl to classical AI has been revitalized by Lopes (2020Lopes ( , 2022. In fact, Lopes argues that Husserl actually discovered the computational theory of mind.…”

Natralization without associationist reduction: a brief rebuttal to Yoshimi

“…Now, since the whole idea of Turing/Husserl machines is that the rules governing the syntax of the machine are independent of the associative-causal history of the system (i.e. not based on a mechanism of association); and since this is the only explanatory framework available in the whole of cognitive science that avoids psychologism (which otherwise plagues every associationist approach), it follows that the symbolic "thought-machine" is the only candidate for a causally explanatory basis of phenomenology that avoids psychologism (Lopes, 2022).…”