The Nature of Cognition

Abstract

In the first chapter, the idea of the “given” as the starting-point of a systematic exploration of the relationship between mind and world was examined, and the notion of a variety of “standpoints” upon which to view the given was partly clarified. We noted the enormous complexity of the process of consciousness, and suggested that it is extraordinarily difficult, if not impossible, to describe its phenomenal features and its contents in an unambiguous manner, as Husserl had hoped might be achieved. Phenomenology requires that we first work our way back to the ground of the possibility of any natural standpoint of any persons in a prelinguistic realm in which all human intercourse with a world begins. It is upon that standpoint where, for Husserl, the constitution of the intentional object is to be found, or, for Scheler, the phenomenologically “pure” facts are to be found. In our descriptions of the phenomena we find there, we must beware of reifying any of our descriptive concepts, or of attempting to explain the given in terms of what is not yet, or only inadequately, given. Philosophy cannot begin with metaphysics, that is, we must not attempt to resolve such issues as the nature of a conscious state and its relation to the mind; whether conscious states exist in some sense; whether all mental sates are conscious, and if not, in what sense they may be called “mental;” or whether the mind is a kind of substance that “contains” mind as matter may be thought to “support” properties. We must also not posit consciousness as opposed to the world, or suppose it to be, in a Cartesian manner, in some sense outside the world. Such issues as these make up what is called the philosophy of mind, which seeks to resolve semantical conundrums that are possible only based on a prior intentional encounter with the phenomenal facts of the case; and it is a reencounter with these facts that Scheler wishes to achieve. Our analysis must, as always, refer itself to the phenomenological givens. We must learn to see what is, rather than speculate upon what must be, or what the structures of our language may incline us to say about the given.