Editing Thought (section)

===Phenomenology===
[[Phenomenology (philosophy)|Phenomenology]] is the science of the structure and contents of [[experience]].<ref>{{cite web |last1=Smith |first1=David Woodruff |title=Phenomenology: 1. What is Phenomenology? |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/phenomenology/#WhatPhen |website=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University |access-date=20 September 2021 |date=2018}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Smith |first1=Joel |title=Phenomenology |url=https://iep.utm.edu/phenom/ |website=Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy |access-date=10 October 2021}}</ref> The term "cognitive phenomenology" refers to the experiential character of thinking or what it feels like to think.<ref name="Breyer"/><ref name="HansenCognitive"/><ref name="Kriegel">{{cite book |last1=Kriegel |first1=Uriah |title=Phenomenology of Thinking |date=2015 |location=London and New York |publisher=Routledge |pages=25–43 |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/KRITCO-10 |chapter=The Character of Cognitive Phenomenology}}</ref><ref name="Crowell"/><ref name="Carruthers">{{cite book |last1=Carruthers |first1=Peter |last2=Veillet |first2=Bénédicte |title=Cognitive Phenomenology |date=2011 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-957993-8 |url=https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199579938.001.0001/acprof-9780199579938-chapter-2 |chapter=The Case Against Cognitive Phenomenology}}</ref> Some theorists claim that there is no distinctive cognitive phenomenology. On such a view, the experience of thinking is just one form of sensory experience.<ref name="Carruthers"/><ref name="Prinz"/><ref name="Levine"/> According to one version, thinking just involves hearing a voice internally.<ref name="Prinz"/> According to another, there is no experience of thinking apart from the indirect effects thinking has on sensory experience.<ref name="Breyer"/><ref name="HansenCognitive"/> A weaker version of such an approach allows that thinking may have a distinct phenomenology but contends that thinking still depends on sensory experience because it cannot occur on its own. On this view, sensory contents constitute the foundation from which thinking may arise.<ref name="Breyer"/><ref name="Prinz">{{cite book |last1=Prinz |first1=Jesse J. |title=Cognitive Phenomenology |date=2011 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-957993-8 |url=https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199579938.001.0001/acprof-9780199579938-chapter-8 |chapter=The Sensory Basis of Cognitive Phenomenology 1}}</ref><ref name="Levine">{{cite book |last1=Levine |first1=Joseph |title=Cognitive Phenomenology |date=2011 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-957993-8 |url=https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199579938.001.0001/acprof-9780199579938-chapter-5 |chapter=On the Phenomenology of Thought}}</ref>

An often-cited [[thought experiment]] in favor of the existence of a distinctive cognitive phenomenology involves two persons listening to a radio broadcast in French, one who understands French and the other who does not.<ref name="Breyer"/><ref name="HansenCognitive"/><ref name="Kriegel"/><ref>{{cite book |last1=Siewert |first1=Charles |title=Cognitive Phenomenology |date=2011 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-957993-8 |url=https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199579938.001.0001/acprof-9780199579938-chapter-11 |chapter=Phenomenal Thought}}</ref> The idea behind this example is that both listeners hear the same sounds and therefore have the same non-cognitive experience. In order to explain the difference, a distinctive cognitive phenomenology has to be posited: only the experience of the first person has this additional cognitive character since it is accompanied by a thought that corresponds to the meaning of what is said.<ref name="Breyer"/><ref name="HansenCognitive">{{cite web |last1=Hansen |first1=Mette Kristine |title=Cognitive Phenomenology |url=https://iep.utm.edu/cog-phen/ |website=Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy |access-date=17 October 2021}}</ref><ref name="Kriegel"/><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Pitt |first1=David |title=The Phenomenology of Cognition: Or What Is It Like to Think That P? |journal=Philosophy and Phenomenological Research |date=2004 |volume=69 |issue=1 |pages=1–36 |doi=10.1111/j.1933-1592.2004.tb00382.x |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/PITWII}}</ref> Other arguments for the experience of thinking focus on the direct introspective access to thinking or on the thinker's knowledge of their own thoughts.<ref name="Breyer"/><ref name="HansenCognitive"/><ref name="Kriegel"/>

Phenomenologists are also concerned with the characteristic features of the experience of thinking. Making a judgment is one of the prototypical forms of cognitive phenomenology.<ref name="Kriegel"/><ref>{{cite book |last1=Smith |first1=David Woodruff |title=Cognitive Phenomenology |date=2011 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-957993-8 |url=https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199579938.001.0001/acprof-9780199579938-chapter-15 |chapter=The Phenomenology of Consciously Thinking}}</ref> It involves epistemic agency, in which a proposition is entertained, evidence for and against it is considered, and, based on this reasoning, the proposition is either affirmed or rejected.<ref name="Kriegel"/> It is sometimes argued that the experience of truth is central to thinking, i.e. that thinking aims at representing how the world is.<ref name="Crowell"/><ref name="HansenCognitive"/> It shares this feature with perception but differs from it in the way how it represents the world: without the use of sensory contents.<ref name="Crowell"/>

One of the characteristic features often ascribed to thinking and judging is that they are predicative experiences, in contrast to the [[pre-predicative experience]] found in immediate perception.<ref name="Dastur">{{cite book |last1=Dastur |first1=Françoise |last2=Vallier |first2=Robert |title=Questions of Phenomenology |date=2017 |publisher=Fordham University Press |isbn=978-0-8232-3373-1 |url=https://www.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.5422/fordham/9780823233731.001.0001/upso-9780823233731-chapter-003 |chapter=The Problem of Pre-Predicative Experience: Husserl|doi=10.5422/fordham/9780823233731.001.0001 |s2cid=148619048 }}</ref><ref name="Staiti">{{cite book |last1=Staiti |first1=Andrea |editor1-first=Dan |editor1-last=Zahavi |title=Pre-Predicative Experience and Life-World |date= 2018 |doi=10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198755340.013.12 |isbn=978-0-19-875534-0 |url=https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198755340.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780198755340-e-12 |language=en}}</ref> On such a view, various aspects of perceptual experience resemble judgments without being judgments in the strict sense.<ref name="Breyer"/><ref name="Diaz">{{cite journal |last1=Diaz |first1=Emiliano |title=Transcendental Anticipation: A Reconsideration of Husserl's Type and Kant's Schemata |journal=Husserl Studies |date=2020 |volume=36 |issue=1 |pages=1–23 |doi=10.1007/s10743-019-09249-3 |s2cid=203547989 |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/DIATAA-4}}</ref><ref name="Doyon"/> For example, the perceptual experience of the front of a house brings with it various expectations about aspects of the house not directly seen, like the size and shape of its other sides. This process is sometimes referred to as [[apperception]].<ref name="Breyer"/><ref name="Diaz"/> These expectations resemble judgments and can be wrong. This would be the case when it turns out upon walking around the "house" that it is no house at all but only a front facade of a house with nothing behind it. In this case, the perceptual expectations are frustrated and the perceiver is surprised.<ref name="Breyer"/> There is disagreement as to whether these pre-predicative aspects of regular perception should be understood as a form of cognitive phenomenology involving thinking.<ref name="Breyer"/> This issue is also important for understanding the relation between thought and language. The reason for this is that the pre-predicative expectations do not depend on language, which is sometimes taken as an example for non-linguistic thought.<ref name="Breyer"/> Various theorists have argued that pre-predicative experience is more basic or fundamental since predicative experience is in some sense built on top of it and therefore depends on it.<ref name="Doyon">{{cite book |last1=Doyon |first1=Maxime |title=Phenomenology of Thinking |date=2015 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-315-69773-4 |url=https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781315697734-10/structure-intentional-experience-husserl-heidegger-maxime-doyon?context=ubx |chapter=The "As-Structure" of Intentional Experience in Husserl and Heidegger|pages=122–139 |doi=10.4324/9781315697734-10 }}</ref><ref name="Dastur"/><ref name="Staiti"/>

Another way how phenomenologists have tried to distinguish the experience of thinking from other types of experiences is in relation to ''empty intentions'' in contrast to ''intuitive intentions''.<ref name="Hopp">{{cite book |last1=Hopp |first1=Walter |title=Phenomenology of Thinking |date=2015 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-315-69773-4 |url=https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781315697734-6/empty-intentions-phenomenological-character-defense-inclusivism-walter-hopp |chapter=Empty Intentions and Phenomenological Character: A Defense of Inclusivism|pages=50–67 |doi=10.4324/9781315697734-6 }}</ref><ref name="Spear">{{cite web |last1=Spear |first1=Andrew D. |title=Husserl, Edmund: Intentionality and Intentional Content: 2ai Act-Character |url=https://iep.utm.edu/huss-int/#SSH2ai |website=Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy |access-date=26 October 2021}}</ref> In this context, "intention" means that some kind of object is experienced. In ''intuitive intentions'', the object is presented through sensory contents. ''Empty intentions'', on the other hand, present their object in a more abstract manner without the help of sensory contents.<ref name="Hopp"/><ref name="Breyer"/><ref name="Spear"/> So when perceiving a sunset, it is presented through sensory contents. The same sunset can also be presented non-intuitively when merely thinking about it without the help of sensory contents.<ref name="Spear"/> In these cases, the same properties are ascribed to objects. The difference between these modes of presentation concerns not what properties are ascribed to the presented object but how the object is presented.<ref name="Hopp"/> Because of this commonality, it is possible for representations belonging to different modes to overlap or to diverge.<ref name="Crowell"/> For example, when searching one's glasses one may think to oneself that one left them on the kitchen table. This empty intention of the glasses lying on the kitchen table are then intuitively fulfilled when one sees them lying there upon arriving in the kitchen. This way, a perception can confirm or refute a thought depending on whether the empty intuitions are later fulfilled or not.<ref name="Crowell"/><ref name="Spear"/>