Husserl Stud (2009) 25:159168

DOI 10.1007/s10743-009-9057-7

Thompson, Evan. Mind in Life: Biology,

Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007,
568 pp., $49.95 (hardcover), ISBN 9780674025110

Dan Zahavi

Received: 18 January 2009 / Accepted: 23 January 2009 / Published online: 13 February 2009
Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009

In 1991 Francisco Varela, Evan Thompson, and Eleanor Rosch published The
Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience. The book was an
important milestone. It criticized mainstream computationalist and cognitivist
tendencies in cognitive science by arguing persuasively that the scientific study of
the mind could not continue to ignore the experiential and embodied dimensions of
human cognition. In outlining an alternative it drew on various sources, including
Varela and Maturanas work on autopoiesis, Buddhism, and phenomenology. The
latter tradition was by and large defined through the work of Merleau-Ponty, who
was heralded as somebody who in his first major work, The Structure of Behavior,
argued for the mutual illumination among a phenomenology of direct lived
experience, psychology and neurophysiology (Varela et al. 1991, p. 15). Husserl,
by contrast, was quickly dismissed as a Cartesian, a representationalist and
methodological solipsist who ignored the embodied and consensual aspect of
experience (Varela et al. 1991, pp. 1617, 68).
The Embodied Mind was quite influential, and what back then might have
appeared visionary has these days become far more mainstream. It is today
commonplace to speak of embodied cognition, and it has recently even become
fashionable to characterize cognition in terms of 4Es: embodied, embedded,
enactive and extended. In such discussions, The Embodied Mind is almost
invariably listed as one of the core references.
There is much of merit in Evan Thompsons new book, Mind in Life: Biology,
Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind, a book that can be seen as a follow-up
on his earlier book. But one very noticeable featurea feature that should be of
particular interest to readers of this journalis the remarkable change of appraisal
when it comes to Husserlian phenomenology. Whereas The Embodied Mind

D. Zahavi (&)
Center for Subjectivity Research, University of Copenhagen, Njalsgade 140-142, 2300 Copenhagen,
Denmark
e-mail: dza@hum.ku.dk

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basically gave voice to, and repeated, a widespread caricature, Mind in Life presents
a far more nuanced and well-informed interpretation, one that relies not only on the
authors increased familiarity with Husserls own writings but also on his careful
reading of much recent Husserl scholarship. Indeed, although Merleau-Ponty
continues to play an important role, Husserl has gained a central position. This is
readily visible in Thompsons extensive discussion of, and reliance on, such notions
as static, genetic and generative phenomenology, epoche, phenomenological
reduction, constitution, intentionality and life-world. The change in question is so
noticeable that Thompson finds reason to offer an explanation himself. As he points
out in a brief appendix entitled Husserl and Cognitive Science, he simply doesnt
subscribe to the earlier Husserl-interpretation any longer. He has come to realize
that Husserlian phenomenology contains far more resources for a productive cross-
fertilization with cognitive science and Buddhist thought than he initially thought.
As he explains, when he co-authored The Embodied Mind not only did he have
limited knowledge of Husserls own writings and of the relevant secondary
literature; his interpretation was also influenced by Heideggers uncharitable
reading of Husserl, as well as by the quite influential and dismissive criticism that
Dreyfus gave voice to in the volume Husserl, Intentionality and Cognitive Science.
And as Thompson concludes, although Dreyfus should be credited for having
brought Husserl into the purview of cognitive science, it is urgent to go beyond his
interpretation and to reevaluate Husserls relationship to cognitive science on the
basis of a thorough assessment of his lifes work (p. 416).

1 Embodied Dynamicism and Naturalized Phenomenology

In his introduction, Thompson starts out by outlining and discussing some of the
prevailing options in cognitive science, including cognitivism, connectionism and
what he labels embodied dynamicism. Whereas classical cognitivism viewed the
mind as a digital computer and located it inside the skull, and connectionism saw it
as a neural network, embodied dynamicism, the most recent proposal, sees the mind
as an embodied dynamic system in the world (p. 4) and explicitly criticizes the
disembodied approach to cognition favored by the two other options. Whereas the
more orthodox approaches in cognitive science have persistently ignored
the subjective and experiential dimension of consciousness, Thompsons ambition
is to show that a special trend within embodied dynamicism labeled the enactive
approach can make real progress when it comes to bridging the apparent gap
between the neurophysiological processes that we can describe and analyze
scientifically from a third-person perspective and the experiences that we are all
familiar with from a first-person perspective.
To assess Thompsons proposal fully, however, it has to be seen in light of the
recent debate concerning the possibility of naturalizing phenomenology (cf. Varela
1996, 1997; Gallagher 1997, 2003; Gallagher and Zahavi 2008; Petitot et al. 1999;
Lutz and Thompson 2003; Zahavi 2004).
On one interpretation, a naturalization of phenomenology entails the attempt to
integrate phenomenology into an explanatory framework where every acceptable

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property is made continuous with the properties admitted by natural science (cf. Roy
et al. 1999, pp. 12). On such a reading, a naturalization of phenomenology is one
that will eventually make phenomenology part of, or at least an extension of, natural
science. This proposal de facto denies the legitimacy of methods and questions that
are unique to philosophy. It wants to replace the transcendental clarification that
phenomenology offers with an explanatory account.
On another (more cautious) interpretation, phenomenology studies phenomena
(including body-awareness, attention, intentionality, social cognition, perception
and recollection) that are also open to empirical investigation, and, as it is claimed,
insofar as phenomenology concerns itself with such phenomena it should also be
informed by the best available scientific knowledge. On this reading, a naturalized
phenomenology is simply a phenomenology that is informed by, and engages in a
fruitful exchange and collaboration with, empirical science. The phenomenological
credo To the things themselves calls for us to let our experience guide our
theories. We should pay attention to the way in which we experience reality.
Empirical scientists might not pay much attention to the formal structure of
phenomenality, but as empirical researchers they do in fact pay quite a lot of
attention to concrete phenomena and might consequently be less apt to underes-
timate the richness, complexity, and variety of phenomena than the standard arm-
chair philosopher.
One way to appraise Thompsons proposal is to see it as being situated somewhere
in between these two options. On his view, it is not only possible but also necessary to
pursue phenomenology and experimental science as mutually constraining and
enlightening projects. For Thompson, phenomenology shouldnt just provide a
careful description and analysis of experience; it should also understand and interpret
its own investigations in the light of the empirical exploration of the life of the mind.
But according to Thompson, phenomenology is certainly also in a position to teach
something to the sciences of mind. If our aim is to have a comprehensive
understanding of the mind, then focusing narrowly on the nature of the sub-personal
events that underlie experience without considering the qualities of the experience
itself will just not take us very far (p. 273). In that sense, a careful description of the
explanandum is an obvious requisite. More radically, however, Thompson also claims
that a naturalization of phenomenology will lead to a renewed understanding of the
nature of both life and mind (p. 14). Indeed, on his view, phenomenology provides a
way of observing and describing natural phenomena that bring out features which
would otherwise remain invisible to science; features such as selfhood, normativity,
subjectivity, intentionality, and temporality. Thus, one of the decisive ambitions of
Mind in Life is precisely to show how phenomenology might enable us to appreciate
the inner life of biological systems (p. 358).
For an initial idea of what Thompson has in mind, a useful and obvious point of
comparison is Merleau-Pontys discussion in The Structure of Behavior. In that
early work, Merleau-Ponty directly engaged with various scientists of his time,
including Pavlov, Freud, Koffka, Piaget, Watson, and Wallon. The last sub-chapter
of the book carries the heading Is There Not a Truth in Naturalism? It contains a
criticism of Kantian transcendental philosophy, and on the very final page of the
book Merleau-Ponty calls for a redefinition of transcendental philosophy that makes

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it pay heed to the real world (Merleau-Ponty 1963, p. 224). Thus, rather than making
us choose between either an external scientific explanation or an internal
phenomenological reflectiona choice that would rip asunder the living relation
between consciousness and natureMerleau-Ponty asks us to reconsider the very
opposition and to search for a dimension that is beyond both objectivism and
subjectivism.
What is interesting and important is that Merleau-Ponty did not conceive of the
relation between transcendental phenomenology and empirical science as a question
of how to apply already established phenomenological insights to empirical issues.
It wasnt simply a question of how phenomenology might constrain positive
science. On the contrary, Merleau-Pontys idea was that phenomenology itself can
be changed and modified through its dialogue with the empirical sciences. In fact, it
needs this confrontation if it is to develop in the right way. This is a view that
Thompson shares, though Thompsons accountand that is obviously one of the
fascinating characteristics of Mind in Lifeis informed by the most recent advances
in science.
But how would Thompson respond to Husserls well known anti-naturalism? In
the long essay from 19101911, Philosophy as Rigorous Science, Husserl
described naturalism as a fundamentally flawed philosophy (Hua XXV, p. 41), and
he explicitly contrasted his own phenomenology of consciousness with a natural
scientific account of consciousness (Hua XXV, p. 17). Both disciplines investigated
consciousness, but according to Husserl they did so in utterly different manners.
Why did Husserl oppose the attempt to implement a thorough naturalistic account of
consciousness? One reason was that naturalism on his view was incapable of doing
full justice to consciousness. Not only had itin the shape of experimental
psychologylost sight of (subjective) consciousness (Hua XXV, p. 104), but even
more importantly, naturalism treated consciousness as a real occurrent entity in the
world. But for Husserl this was unacceptable since consciousness, rather than
merely being an object in the world, was also a subject for the world, i.e., a
necessary condition of possibility for any entity to appear as an object in the way it
did and with the meaning it had.
Thompson is, of course, not unaware of this criticism. He attempts to tackle it in
different ways. First of all, he points out that one of Husserls reasons for opposing
naturalism was that he considered its reductionism incompatible with the essential
difference between the mental and physical. In response, Thompson emphasizes that
the naturalism he favors is of a non-reductive kind, indeed one of his points is
precisely that phenomenology and biology are on equal footing. He also argues that
our best contemporary scientific understanding of (physical and biological) nature
differs rather markedly from the view that Husserl was criticizingnature is no
longer seen simply as an assemblage of externally juxtaposed objectsand that part
of Husserls motive for embracing an anti-naturalism has for this reason simply
been superseded by more recent developments in science (p. 357). Most
significantly, however, Thompson shares Husserls opposition to objectivism and
sees his own project as one that fully respects the transcendental status of
consciousness and conceives of it as a condition of possibility for the disclosure of
any object (p. 86). For Husserl, objectivity is not something pre-existing, but

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something constituted, and Thompson explicitly argues that this fundamental insight
is one that the enactive approach shares. According to the latter theory, cognition is
not a faithful representation occurring between two separate and independent
entities, mind and world. On the contrary, rather than being something inside the
brain or inside the body, cognition is viewed as something that cuts across the divide
between body, brain, and environment. Rather than seeing the world of the
cognitive being as an external realm that is represented (mirrored) internally in the
brain, the enactive approach views it as a cognitive domain that is enacted, i.e.,
brought about or constituted by the coupling of the living organism with its
environment (p. 154).

2 Continuity Between Life and Mind

A core concept at work in Thompsons account is the concept of self-organization or

autopoiesis. Thompson argues that living organisms have a different, emergent,
form of individuality and unity than physical being. Already at the metabolic level,
living organisms preserve their identity through material changes, and in that sense
one might speak of their self-identity in terms of an invariant dynamic pattern
(p. 75). As Thompson puts it, to exist as an individual means to be not only
numerically distinct from other things but to be a self-pole in a dynamic relationship
with that which is other (p. 153). Even at the minimal cellular level, living
organisms maintain their own identities by differentiating themselves from their
surroundings (p. 149). Thompson emphasizes that this differentiation between self
and world, this boundary between inside and outside, should not be conflated with
independence or separation. The identity and individuality of the organism is one
that is established in constant exchange with, assimilation of, and accommodation to
the world (p. 150).
In chapter 6, the central thesis concerning the deep continuity between life and
mind is articulated in five propositions (p. 158):
1. Life = autopoiesis and cognition
2. Autopoiesis entails the emergence of a bodily self
3. Emergence of a self entails emergence of a world
4. Emergence of self and world = sense-making
5. Sense-making = enaction.
Although Thompson concedes that there are distinctive differences between
human and animal cognition, he nevertheless defines cognition broadly in terms of
the meaning that stimuli have for the organism, a meaning that emerges from its
dynamically self-organizing sensorimotor activity. As he also writes, Cognition
is behavior or conduct in relation to meaning and norms that the system itself
enacts or brings forth on the basis of its autonomy (p. 159). Ultimately,
Thompson is prepared to speak of cognition, self-organization, sense-making and
intentionality already at the bacterial level (p. 159). In that sense, he certainly
thinks that intentionality has its natural roots. By contrastand this would be one
point of disagreement between the present proposal and the one espoused by

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Sheets-Johnstone in her book, The Primacy of MovementThompson is not

prepared to speak of microbial consciousness or sentience. Sentience entails a felt
presence of ones own body and world (Sheets-Johnstone 1999, p. 161, 221).
Although bacteria possess autopoietic selfhood, they lack phenomenal selfhood or
subjectivity. Nevertheless, insofar as an organism is self-organizing, things will
have significance or valence for it, and this means that, it qua living being
embodies a kind of interiority. Consequently, even at the bacterial level one can
distinguish an internal identity and an outside world. This interiority of life is a
precursor to the interiority of consciousness (which should be viewed as a
structure of engagement with the world). On Thompsons account, life and mind
thus share a set of basic organizational properties. The properties distinctive of
mind are an enriched version of those fundamental to life. Mind is life-like and
life is mind-like (p. 128). Thus, Thompsons general idea is that by articulating a
biologically based conception of cognition that gives a natural place to the
significance things have for an organism, one might join biology to subjectivity
and phenomenology, where other theories are left with an explanatory gap.
Given what has been said so far, it should come as no surprise that Thompson
questions the standard formulation of the explanatory gap and the hard problem of
consciousness (as formulated by Chalmers). In his view, the problem presupposes a
radical discontinuity between life and consciousness and is consequently ill posed
and ultimately unsolvable (pp. 223225). We will have no chance of uniting mind
and nature unless we work to redefine both sides and view consciousness as
fundamentally embodied. Rather than seeing the challenge as consisting in
explaining how consciousness can arise from inanimate objects, a more meaningful
and useful approach is to examine the relation between a living body and a lived
(minded) body (p. 237). Thus rather than framing the problem of consciousness in
terms of the mind-body problem, Thompson suggests that we conceive of it as a
bodybody problem instead.

3 Mutual Constraints and Mutual Enlightenment

Thompson insists that phenomenology and cognitive (neuro)science stand in a

relation of mutual constraint and mutual enlightenment. Phenomenological analysis
can help clarify the conceptual relation between accounts of experience at the
personal level and accounts of cognitive and neural processes at the sub-personal
level (p. 269). This is exemplified in the third part of the book through a number of
concrete cases, including analyses of perceptual intentionality and pre-reflective
body-awareness, mental imagery, time-consciousness, emotions, and empathy.
My own favorite is Thompsons analysis of mental imagery and his discussion of
the debate between pictorialists and descriptionalists. Pictorialists and description-
alists share the view that mental imagery seems subjectively to be a question of
inspecting a mental picture using the minds eye. But they disagree about whether
the sub-personal mental representations used in visual problem solving are depictive
or propositional in form (p. 269). By drawing on Husserls and Sartres
investigations of imagination and pictorial intentionality, Thompson basically

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argues that both sides in the contemporary debate misdescribe the explanandum and
more generally misunderstand the nature of pictorial consciousness.
In another chapter Thompson presents and defends the project of neurophenome-
nology that was initially developed by Varela. The basic aim of neurophenomenology is
to generate new data by incorporating phenomenological forms of investigation into the
experimental protocols of neuroscientific research on consciousness (p. 339). More
specifically the idea is to train experimental subjects to gain greater intimacy with their
own experiences. Through practice and sustained attentiveness the experimental
subjects can learn to bring into focus dimensions and aspects of consciousness that are
normally not attended to, thereby making them describable in more accurate ways.
These first-person data can then constrain and facilitate the analysis and interpretation of
the correlated neuro-physiological processes.
Finally, to just mention one further example, in one of the last chapters of the
book Thompson convincingly argues that a satisfactory account of social cognition
must distinguish different levels of empathy. He then cashes out such distinctions by
appealing both to classical phenomenological accounts as well as to more recent
empirical findings in the fields of social neuroscience, developmental psychology,
and cognitive linguistics. According to Thompson, we first have to distinguish
spontaneous and involuntary forms of sensorimotor and affective coupling. These
forms of empathy not only allow one to experience another as a living bodily
subject like oneself, they also allow for affective resonance where two or more
individuals affect each others emotional states. Secondly, we have a kind of
empathy that takes place through imaginary transposition or perspective-taking,
where one mentally transposes oneself into the place of the other. A third form of
empathy is a form of reiterative empathy, where I understand you as an other who
sees me as an other, and where I consequently have the possibility of seeing myself
from your perspective (pp. 393398). A fourth and final form of empathy is one that
allows us to see the other as a being who deserves concern and respect, i.e., as a
person in the moral sense (p. 401).

4 Conclusion

I am, as might already be apparent, sympathetic towards large parts of Thompsons

enterprise. However, given the ambitious scope of the book and the many topics it
covers, there are obviously many questions one could raise and many issues that call
for further exploration and analysis. Let me end by briefly raising two questions.
1. As we have seen, Thompson puts much emphasis on the idea that the relation
between phenomenology and empirical science is one of mutual constraints and
mutual enlightenment. Presumably, most phenomenologists would heartily embrace
the view that phenomenology can be of value to cognitive science, neuroscience,
and biology and, more generally, to any empirical investigation of the mind.
However, Thompson evidently wants the influence to go both ways, i.e., it is also a
question of letting phenomenology profit fromand be challenged byempirical
findings. Indeed, Thompson explicitly argues that neuroscientific analyses can
provoke revisions and refinements of the phenomenological accounts (p. 340). That

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is, the idea is not merely that they can complement, but rather that they can also help
us improve and refine, the classical phenomenological analyses. Were this not to
happen, the often repeated claim regarding mutual enlightenment would start to
sound somewhat vacuous. But how can analyses pertaining to various sub-personal
processes and mechanisms possibly influence and enrich phenomenological
accounts that attempt to do justice to the first-person perspective and seek to
understand the experience in terms of the meaning it has for the subject?
Here is one simple suggestion: Let us assume that our initial phenomenological
description presents us with what appears to be a simple and unified phenomenon.
When studying the neural correlates of this phenomenon, we discover that two quite
distinct mechanisms are involved; mechanisms that are normally correlated with
distinctive experiential phenomena, say, perception and memory. This discovery
might motivate us to return to our initial phenomenological description in order to
see whether the phenomenon in question is indeed as simple as we thought. Perhaps
a more careful analysis will reveal that it harbors a concealed complexity.
(Obviously, one might also consider the reverse case, where the phenomenological
analysis presents us with what appears to be two distinct phenomena and where
subsequent neuroscientific findings suggest a striking overlap, unity, or even
identity). However, it is very important to emphasize that the discovery of a
significant complexity on the sub-personal levelto stick to this simple example
cannot by itself force us to refine or revise our phenomenological description. It can
only serve as motivation for further inquiry. There is no straightforward
isomorphism between the sub-personal and personal level, and ultimately the only
way to justify a claim concerning a complexity on the phenomenological level is by
cashing it out in experiential terms.
In any case, given that the slogan regarding reciprocal constraints and
enlightenment is of central concern to Thompson, one naturally expects him to
provide a careful demonstration of how neuroscientific findings can lead to a
refinement and revision of standard phenomenological analyses. But insofar as the
book explicitly deals with the relation between phenomenology and (neuro)science,
the focus is by and large on how phenomenological distinctions and considerations
can be of use to various empirical disciplines. Very little detail concerning the
reverse influence is provided. Indeed, on the occasion where Thompson undertakes
to spell out what is meant by reciprocal constraints and specifically mentions the
requirement that neuroscientific findings can provoke revisions and refinements of
the phenomenological accounts (p. 340), he merely adds a note stating that
preliminary examples of this can be found in neurophenomenological studies of
epilepsy and pain (p. 474). These results are not discussed in any further details in
the book, and I find it somewhat surprising and also slightly disappointing that
Thompson doesnt provide any examples of his own and fails to engage in a more
extensive discussion of this important issue.
2. As already mentioned, Thompson wishes to preserve the transcendental status
of consciousness. Consciousness is, as he writes, a condition of possibility for there
being any appearance at all (p. 240). He obviously finds this stance compatible with
the kind of naturalism that he endorses. What remains unclear to me, however, is
how deeply committed to transcendental thought Thompson is. How far is he

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prepared to go? Does he for instance endorse some kind of compatibility between
empirical realism and transcendental idealism? It is clear that he rejects objectivism
and regards objectivity as something constituted. But when, for instance, he stresses
the co-emergence of self and world, how radically is this to be understood?
Thompson evidently wishes to take natural history seriously. But on his view what
status should we ascribe to our theories regarding, say, geochronology and the early
history of our planet prior to the emergence of biological life? There is, of course, a
long debate in phenomenologyparticularly in the secondary literature regarding
how to appraise Husserls, Heideggers, and Merleau-Pontys positions on the
realism-idealism question. To better understand Thompsons view on the compat-
ibility of naturalism and transcendental phenomenology it would have been helpful
had he addressed some of these issues more explicitly.
What remains clear, however, is that Thompson is committed to the idea that a
naturalization of phenomenology entails a re-examination of the usual concept of
naturalization and a revision of the classical dichotomy between the empirical and
the transcendental. Thus, on his view, a naturalization of phenomenology not only
entails a modification (rather than an abandonment) of transcendental philosophy,
but also a rethinking of the concept of naturea rethinking that might ultimately
lead to a transformation of natural science itself. Regardless of how theoretically
fascinating such a proposal might seem, it should be obvious that the task is
daunting and that there is still a long way to go. But Thompsons book is an
important step in the right direction. It should be mandatory reading for anybody
interested in the topic of naturalized phenomenology or in attaining a better
understanding of how recent developments in cognitive science and philosophy of
mind converge with views found in phenomenology.

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