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Marbach1984 2 PDF
Marbach1984 2 PDF
Summary
The theory of so-called ‘mental images’, which is put forward again in contemporary cogni-
tive psychology, is criticized by way of elaborating the distinctly different intentional structures
of the mental activities of ‘remembering something’ and ‘representing something pictorially’ (by
means of a painting, photo, sculpture, etc.). It is suggested that psychology in its concept and
theory formation could use profitably phenomenological-descriptive analyses of the different
forms of intentionality as exemplified in the paper.
Resume
La thkorie des ((images mentales D reprise par la psychologie cognitive contemporaine est cri-
tiquee et opposee aux structures intentionnelles ctse souvenir de quelque chosea ou (( se represen-
ter quelque chose A l’aide d’une image)) (peinture, photographie, sculpture, etc.). L’auteur mon-
tre que la formation des concepts et des theories en psychologie peut aussi tirer parti des analyses
ph6nomCnologiques descriptives des differents modes d’intentionnalit6, telles que celles qu’il pre-
sente ici.
Zusammenfassung
In Gegeniiberstellung der intentionalen Strukturen von ‘sich an etwas erinnern’ bzw. ‘sich
etwas mittels eines Bildes vorstellen’ (Gemlilde, Photo, Skulptur, etc.) wird die Theorie der sog.
‘geistigen Bilder’, wie sie in der zeitgenossischen kognitiven Psychologie wieder auflebt, kritisiert.
Es wird nahegelegt, dass phlnomenologisch-deskriptive Analysen verschiedener Weisen der
Intentionalitat, wie sie hier vorgefilhrt werden, auch der psychologischen Begriffs- und Theorie-
bildung zugute kommen konnten.
that out of actual taking cognizance comes habitual knowledge (Kenntnis), as perma-
nent mental possession (fortdauernder geistiger Besitz) which, even when no actual
experience is directed towards it, is nevertheless available (verfugbar) and can be
retrieved again (herausgeholt) like from a storage room (Vorratskammer) and be pro-
cessed into a network (verarbeitet zur Verknilpfung) with other such acquisitions
(Erwerben).
As might be guessed at this point, part of the present preoccupation with the
relationship between phenomenology and cognitive psychology is simply this:
Cannot phenomenological analysis of intentional implications and modifica-
tions help clear the way to asking the appropriate questions concerning mental
processing? In any case, Norman’s questions just quoted are questions a phe-
nomenologist may ask as well.
Within the limits of this paper, the question of the so-called representation
by mental images as a form of internal representation of information about
the world shall be examined. It is my impression that a number of cognitive
psychologists are more or less explicitly assuming some similarity between
“ordinary images” or “physical images”, such as reflections, photographs,
television displays, realistic paintings etc., on the one hand, and so-called
“mental images” or “mental pictures” on the other (see, e.g., Rey, 1981,
Husserliana IX, p , 434; see also p. 637: “gleichsam in der Vorratskammer beiseite
gestellt. . .”.
Husserliana IX, p. 434: “neues und vie1 hiiheres Thema”.
E.g., Norman, 1976, pp. 157ff.; Lindsay and Norman, 1977, pp. 381ff.; Kosslyn, 1980;
Schank, 1982; etc.
LOC.cit., p. 157, emphasismine.
On Using Intentionality in Empirical Phenomenology: the Problem of ‘Mental Images’ 21 3
p. 118; Dennett, 1981, p. 129). For example, Kosslyn (1980), who is much
aware of the fact that images are not simply perceived in the way pictures are
perceived, likes to talk, nevertheless, of mental images as “quasi-pictorial
representations” or as “spatial, picture-like images most people report expe-
riencing” (e.g., p. 29). Accordingly, he discusses “the ‘privileged properties’
that images possess by virtue of the way they depict information” (p. 33).
More precisely, then, I would like to proceed as follows: First, I will make
a few remarks on using a ‘notation’ in order to present concisely descriptive
results of the phenomenological act-analysis. My argument then consists in
showing (1) that the mental activities of remembering something and of
picturing something, i.e. of making use of some ‘image’, exhibit distinctly dif-
ferent intentional structures; (2) that when picturing something does play a
role in the activity of remembering, the basic intentional structure of
remembering is presupposed anyway. My goal, thus, is to propose an alterna-
tive possibility of interpreting the phenomena of representation by means of
so-called ‘mental images’; namely to give an account that saves what the
construct of the ‘mental image’ is presumably meant to achieve, but ‘explains’
the function attributed to it in such a way that there is no need to assume any-
thing like mental images ‘to do the job’. (Maybe it should be added that, on
this view, this does not mean that a so-called propositional or abstract repre-
sentation alone would do.)
*
Regarding the phenomenological analysis of the mental workings of
remembering and picturing, I propose to rely on a ‘notation’. By so doing, I
hope to ease somewhat the notorious difficulty of communicating phenome-
nological results in precise language. After having worked out a few ele-
mentary notations concerning the ‘phenomenologicalform ’ of mental activi-
ties, I suddenly remembered that there was Frege’s Begriffsschrift(1879) and I
anticipated that, perhaps, some clues regarding the usage of notations could
be found there. Well, fully aware of the different goals of Frege’s work mod-
elled after arithmetics, and convinced, with Husserl (cf. e.g., Ideas I, § 71),
that “something like establishing a mathematics of the phenomena”, i.e. the
activities of consciousness, would be a mistaken enterprise, I nevertheless
hope to be entitled to say in the sense of Frege that the notations I am propos-
ing will help “avoid misunderstandings by others and at the same time mis-
takes in one’s own thinking”. * Using the notations, I also aim at “expressing
Frege, 1882b, quoted from Angelelli (Ed.), 1964, p. 106: “Missverstandnisse bei Andern
und zugleich Fehler im eignen Denken zu vermeiden” (English translation mine).
214 Eduard Marbach
a content by means of written signs in a way that is more precise and easier to
survey than it would be possible by means of words”. In the particular con-
text of analyzing the intricacies of intentional implications and modifications,
as they occur in mental representations, the notations help to separate clearly
the individual moments and yet to make their phenomenological, i.e. inten-
tional, relations readily visible. lo
Taking as the basic indication of the meaning of intentionality the expres-
sion “consciousness of something”, it can easily be seen that there is the pos-
sibility to say, in a first approximation, things like the following, with respect
to intentional implications and modifications: the intentionality of some
consciousness may be characterized as “consciousness of consciousness of
something”, or as “consciousness of consciousness of consciousness of some-
thing”, e.g., in remembering a picture that was described in a novel I have
read.
In the notations for such complex activities, on the one hand, letters will
be used to stand for the activities of consciousness, and other letters for the
corresponding intentional correlate(s). As regards the correlates whose par-
ticular content can be left indeterminate, basically the letters x, y, z will serve.
For the notation of the activities themselves, ‘English-bound’ abbreviations
shall be used, namely strings of letters (triplets) based on the English verbs
corresponding to the activities in question: thus, e.g., PER for perceiving,
REM for remembering, IMA for imagining, PIC for picturing (imaging), etc.
Such triplets, once chosen, must retain their meaning in the same context.
They stand for a real or imagined individual example belonging to the kind of
activity that is subjected to the analysis.
On the other hand, different types of parentheses and brackets wilI be
used. In order to establish the theme of the reflective analysis which, at first, is
introduced by an ordinary language expression, a pair of curly brackets { }
will serve, indicating that the question ‘what is it?’ is asked with respect to the
expression contained within these brackets. In the course of the reflective
analysis proper, the following conventions will be observed: (1) In order to
indicate the fundamental intentional relation to something that is inherent to
an activity of consciousness qua “consciousness of something”, a pair of ( )-
parentheses will be used: thus, e.g., (PER)x, (REM)x, etc. (2) In order to
indicate modifications of the performance of an activity of consciousness as
9 Frege, I882a, quoted from Angelelli (Ed.), 1964, p. 97: “einen Inhalt durch geschriebene
Zeichen in genauerer und iibersichtlicherer Weise zum Ausdruck bringen, als es durch Worte
mdglich ist” (English translation mine). - See also, e.g., Kung, 1967, pp. 180ff.
lo Cf. Frege, 1882a, p. 104: “So werden die einzelnen Inhalte von einander deutlich getrennt
und doch in ihren logischen Beziehungenleicht ubersehbar” (English translation mine).
On Using Intentionalityin Empirical Phenomenology: the Problem of ‘Mental images’ 2 15
See,e.g.,Husse~liunuXXIII,Nr.14(1911 or 1912);Kern(1975),@48ff.
l2 See Kern (1975), especially 5 48, for a presentation of such ‘intentional correlations’. in
Husserl’stexts they are time and again at stake and forcefully brought to the fore, but not always
explained with sufficient clarity. - Regarding the notion of ‘logicalimplication’, see, e.g., Quine
& Ullian (1978).
l 3 E.g., Husserliunu IX, S. 8, S. 36 f., et passim.
216 Eduard Marbach
cially on the question of the functional role of the mental image. First of all,
notice the following point concerning the method of reflection itself. Gener-
ally speaking, I can reflect only on a mental activity that is not now per-
formed but which I now represent to myself in order to investigate what it
consists in. In ordinary language, it makes sense to say, in more or less embel-
lished ways according to the circumstances, something like, e.g., ‘I remember
having read the novel’, ‘I remember having seen x’, ‘I remember having
remembered x’, ‘1imagine seeing x’, etc., etc. Expressions such as these which
contain two verbs (at least), in such a way that one is stating by what mental
activity (e.g., remembering) the speaker is referring to another mental activity
(e.g., seeing), are indicative of the very fact of intentional implication and
modification that provides us with the basis for asking the reflectively-
oriented question proper. l 4
For example, on the basis of REM REM x, i.e. I remember having re-
membered x, I establish the theme of the reflective analysis: REM { REM x} ,
i.e. what is it to remember x? or: what does remembering x consist in ? or:
what does it mean to remember x? Generally speaking, the analysis aims at
making explicit what is ‘anonymously functioning’ in the performance of
mental activities.
Thus: {REM x}: what is it?
(1) (REM)x. This first step simply indicates explicitly the fact of being
intentionally directed towards, or being conscious of, x.
Now, on the basis of any example of remembering, the reflective analysis
points out that remembering x is not an immediate awareness of x, such as
perceiving x; rather, in the most simple case already, involving only a past per-
ceiving of something (seeing, hearing, touching, etc.; thus excluding language
and other activities of signifying something), we get the following form:
(2a) (REM )x
i.e.: I remember x: the act consisting in, more concretely:
(2b) (REM [(PER)x])x
i.e.: I remember x by means of representing, or reproducing, a past
perceiving of x.
This notation can be said to stand for the most elementary kind of thepheno-
menological form of remembering x (2b).
This basic notation could be amplified by a number of indices referring to
phenomena such as the time-consciousness involved in remembering, the
l4 Kern (1975) points out the shortcomings of the traditional view of ‘reflection qua inner
perception’ and makes available a new account of reflection on acts of consciousness that was
much needed for a phenomenological philosophy (cf. in particular $0 44-46; $0 7-9; $ 5 23-24;
$9 48-50; 00 5.5-58).
On Using Intentionality in Empirical Phenomenology: the Problem of ‘Mental images’ 217
This statement requires some comment. The notation should help indicate the
following points in particular. In picturing x, I am not ‘simply’ directed
towards the absent x by means of representing, or reproducing, a past
experience of x, the whole experience being thereby caught up in the temporal
flux of my awarenesses. Instead, in picturing x, something stable that I can
perceive is involved: (PER)y. I am not interested, however, in the thing y that
is given to me in the present, here and now, e.g., hanging on the wall. Rather,
this thing y only serves to represent x. It only lends itself to be the ‘carrier’, or
the vehicle, for the appearance of x. But the y alone that I perceive is not
itself the representation of x. It is just, in our example, a physical thing, a
piece of canvas or of marble, say. As such it could be put to any service for
which a physical thing of the sort could be used. In order to make it useful for
picturing x, however, it must be bound to an activity of representing x:
(PIC ). In the notation, the horizontal line is meant to indicate just
(PER) Y
this function of ‘being carrier’. The thing y considered in its function of being
the ‘carrier’, or vehicle, can thus be noted as 7. As this ‘binding’ happens
(logically, not temporally speaking, though in the activity of creating some-
thing pictorial the transition from, e.g., a ‘mere stroke of pencil’ on a sheet of
paper to a line representing some outline of an object can sometimes be iden-
tified empirically), a new object, % I 6 , or to talk with the necessary precision, a
Y
double objectivity (doppelte Gegenstandlichkeit, Husserl, e.g., 1905) becomes
at once the correlate of this activity: x, and -5, that is, x as it appears in the pic-
Y
l6 At the Conference in Biel, I used the letter z in order to designate this ‘new object’. At
present, I prefer to use the expression -5 instead. Its main advantage is to make more readily
< ..
visible’ the necessary connection of the &real ‘z’ with the vehicle y.
On Using Intentionality in Empirical Phenomenology: the Problem of ‘Mental Images’ 219
See, e.g., Rock (1975), p. 149: “The picture takes on the appearance of the object it repre-
sents”.
220 Eduard Marbach
l8 Another kind of ‘dropping out’ of the -5 is given in so-called ‘trompe l’oeil’ art, the
essence of which consists precisely in inviting thz viewer to take what appears for real, i.e. to
create an illusion of reality (see, e.g., Gombrich, 1977).
On Using Intentionality in Empirical Phenomenology: the Problem of ‘Mental Images’ 221
As I see it, a plausible account of such cases would be to show that their
more complex phenomenological form is in fact a possible variation of the
basic form of REM x, presupposing this very form for the establishment of
the objective reference to the x in question. Let me briefly elaborate on this
point. It is essential to notice that when I am seeing as it were again not x
itseK but an image of it, -X, I nevertheless see it as it were again, with or with-
Y
out belief, from some point of view, in some orientation to me, at some dis-
tance, etc. In my mind I establish a point of view from which the component
(PER)y is functioning, i.e. the perceiving-as-it-were of the vehicle y which
‘carries’ the appearance of the image -$.Thus, in REM PIC x the basic form
of remembering qua representing a past perceiving of something must be at
work with regard to the vehicle of the image:
In this form the intentional moment of (PER)y is modified such that, analyti-
cally separated from the concrete activity of REM PIC x, it can be noted as
follows:
(REM [(PER)Yl)Y
i.e., the basic form of REM x (see p. 218 above).
At any moment, then, in REM PIC x I can focus my attention onto the picture
y which is, e.g., hanging on a wall that I am seeing again as it were as well. Or,
in other instances, the ‘locus’ of the vehicle y may be indeterminate, the -$
may merely be ‘hovering’ somewhere ahead of me, so that I could not say
‘where’ it is located. I would only know that it is surely not ‘inside my head’
since, in the original experience of PIC x, the intentional moment of (PER)y
had as its correlate some physical object (a piece of canvas, paper, marble, or
the like) in the outside world, and there is no reason to assume that this object
somehow sneaked inside my head in the meantime. Instead, in the case of
indeterminacy as to the location of the appearing image -$, it would be ‘hover-
ing’ in a space-time of its own which I could not (perhaps only momentarily
not) bring into a coherent connection with the real world (past, present, or
future), so that it would be given merely as the correlate of the activity of
REM PIC x, etc.
222 Eduard Marbach
2o The noemata, clearly, are not such representations. Consciousness is not ‘directed
towards’ or ‘consciousness of’ noemata, but of the objects, events, etc. themselves (see, e.g., also
Fallesddl(l982)).
224 Eduard Marbach
sense that the question of the relationship between phenomenology and a cog-
nitivist theory of the mind should be ‘revisited’. To focus the attention, let me
put it bluntly: whereas in the phenomenological account of mental ‘process-
ing’ a case was made for a multiplication of activities of consciousness, in cog-
nitivists’ theoretical accounts I sense a multiplication of contents, i.e. of
representationalentities, calling for Ockham’s razor.
Let us stick to the example of representation by mental images. One imme-
diately gets a feeling for what I am aiming at from a statement by St. M. Koss-
lyn, no doubt one of the leading cognitive scientists in the field of imagery
research. In a short section of his important ‘summa’, Image and Mind
(1980)21, entitled “On Pretheoretical and Metatheoretical Commitments”,
Kosslyn writes:
After all, what could be more of a ‘re-presentation’ than a mental image? And to the
extent that our results indicate that mental images are bona fide psychological entities,
they also vindicate the entire representational approach in the broader sweep of things
(p. 472).
And in concluding the central chapter in which “The Core Theory” itself is
outlined, Kosslyn remarks:
It seems clear that there is nothing mystical or unscientific about the concept of a ‘men-
tal image’, given that we can model image processing on a computer (p. 173).
The plausibility of the view that takes mental images qua representational
entities or contents into account in theorizing about mental processing seems
thus to rest, first, on the common sense notion as it is expressed in ordinary
language (Frege’s “language of life”) and, no doubt, often transpires in
people’s reports about their internal events, their so-called “experience of
imagery”; second, and more importantly, it rests on the quite successful mod-
elling of such processing involving representational images. In Kosslyn’s case,
as he reports, “the catalyst that truly launched” his project
was the idea that images are like displays a computer can generate on a cathode-ray
tube. On this view, images are ‘surface representations’ that are generated from more
abstract underlying representations (loc. cit., p. viii, et passim).
Obviously, the attitude of investigating the mental phenomena is very dif-
ferent from the phenomenological stance. It can be said to be an objective
study in the sense of any other objective science. In this attitude, quite natur-
ally, and legitimately, the cognizing subject is turned itself into an object
among others. Cognition, cognitive activities such as perceiving, remember-
ing, imaging, picturing, thinking, etc., become mental processes whose func-
tional capacities will be investigated, using methods of the empirical theory
formation. Furthermore, they will, if possible, be modelled because of the
obvious advantages a model of some processes has for the understanding and
further investigation. 22 So far, so good.
Trouble, though, originates from the following consideration. Unlike
other objective sciences (such as physics, chemistry, etc.) that deal with
objects and events (the x-side in the notations used earlier in this paper) with-
out thereby making claims about the subjective activities involved in the very
fact of having an objective world ‘in front of us’ to begin with, unlike such
sciences, cognitive psychology and science deal with an object of a very par-
ticular kind. The object they study is one that, in the pre-scientific attitude, or
in real life, is always also the subject, having and taking initiatives in its activi-
ties, cognitive ones and others. And phenomenology, qua analysis of
consciousness, i.e. mental activities, is precisely the discipline that attempts to
establish sufficiently firm insights into these mental activities as such. It is
forming concepts of ‘what it is’, i.e. what the subjective experience consists
in, to remember something, to imagine something, etc., etc. (see p. 213ff.). It
therefore seems to me that despite the partly differently oriented questions
cognitive psychologists and phenomenologists are asking, relying thereby on
different methods of investigation, there should arise no conflict between
models and phenomenological accounts regarding the ‘mental’ qua mental
activity, or subjective experience - or else something, somewhere, has gone
wrong.
Briefly indicating this point concretely, the following can be said. In the
cognitivist’s theoretical perspective, the subjective experience of imagery is
something to be explained in terms of underlying psychological processing. As
Kosslyn puts it:
This experience must arise as a consequence of some psychological processes (op. cit.,
p. 21, emphasis mine).
Rightly, I think, Kosslyn holds that phenomenology is the discipline in charge
of studying subjective experience. And, from the point of view of his
approach, consistently so, the relationship between cognitive psychology and
phenomenology goes as follows:
The study of phenomenology is a legitimate enterprise in its own right, and any theory
that serves to illuminate phenomenological issues achieves added value (p. 2 1).
If so, his cognitive theory, bringing about the construct of mental imagery,
would illuminate the phenomenological issue of people’s “experience of
imagery” which is said to be “undeniable” by advocates as much as by
detractors of mental imagery as an explanatory construct within a cognitive
22 See, e.g., Kosslyn (1980), pp. 136ff.: “TheTheory and the General Model”.
226 Eduard Marbach
theory of the mind.23 In Kosslyn’s theory, images have two major compo-
nents. There is the “surface representation” which he specifies in the follow-
ing terms:
(It) is a quasi-pictorial representation that occurs in a spatial medium: this representa-
tion depicts an object or scene and underlies the experience of imagery.
And there is the “deep representation”, that is:
the information in long-term memory that is used to generate a surface representa-
tion.
Re-enters the phenomenologist who thinks he knows ‘what subjective
experience consists in’. Personally, I have always sympathized with Kosslyn’s
attempt to establish the right, and even the indispensability, of mental repre-
sentations that have to do with the phenomenon of so-called imagery. In phe-
nomenology, however, as discussed earlier in this paper, the representational
contents that seem unavoidable with the hypothetical construct inspired by the
CRT-metaphor, simply disappear from the functional account of what we
experience in so-called imagery. Thus, I am inclined to apply phenomenology
to empirical cognitive psychology and to give a bona fide phenomenological
interpretation of the so-called mental images (the “bona fide psychological
entities”) in terms of the intentionality which is anonymously functioning in
such experiences of mentally representing something that is not itself present.
As we have seen, no ‘images’ qua ‘depicting’, ‘ethereal’, ‘internal’, ‘repre-
sentational’, etc., ‘entities’, or contents, play a functional role in such a
descriptive phenomenological account. Instead, the analysis describes mental
activities that are intentionally structured as such and such, establishing clear-
cut differences between our subjective experiences of, say, mentally represent-
ing some object or scene in their absence, and mentally representing these
things by means of some depicting ‘format’, be it ‘internal’ or external.
In short, then, I believe phenomenologists have reason to suspect results
about mental processing, brought about in cognitive psychology and science,
as scientifically unsound, i f and to the extent that they are in conflict with
well-established results about the intentional structures of mental activities. A
good research strategy would thus seem to be one of knowing, as precisely as
possible, what a particular mental activity consists in, before undertaking
research and model-building concerning the highly complex problems of
storage aspects of knowledge in long-term memory, and the ways of generat-
ing representations of knowledge for use in active memory.
will be reminded that there is more than one way of looking at the exciting
relationship between Husserlian phenomenology and present-day cognitive
science. 25 26
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