Conscious Thinking and Cognitive Phenomenology

This book explores conscious thought from a philosophical perspective, addressing the issue of cognitive phenomenology—the phenomenal character of thought episodes—and its relations to other aspects of conscious thought. This book was first published as a special issue of Philosophical Explorations.

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This book concerns the nature and character of conscious thinking from a philosophical perspective. One main aspect of conscious thinking addressed by the contributors is the phenomenal character involved in undergoing an episode of thinking or, in other words, the question of what it is like to think a certain thought, what has been called ‘cognitive phenomenology’. This contested phenomenal character constitutes a form of phenomenal consciousness that needs clarification and further consideration within consciousness studies, cognitive psychology and philosophy.

The present volume brings together chapters on the topic that contribute to clarify the notions and questions involved in the discussion, expanding the scope of the debate on cognitive phenomenology to other relevant aspects of conscious thinking and related domains. Several different topics are treated in the book, such as the relation of cognitive phenomenology with rationality, with the self, with attention or with the notion of cognitive access, as well as consideration of particular kinds of experiences of recognition and the so-called ‘aha’ experiences.

The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Philosophical Explorations.