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Shahidi Khah H. A phenomenological approach to the mind with emphasis on intentionality. Advances in Cognitive Sciences 2025; 26 (4) :44-54
URL: http://icssjournal.ir/article-1-1784-en.html

Phenomenology is a well-known trend in continental philosophy founded by Husserl. Recently, some philosophers such as Dan Zahavi and Shaun Gallagher have extended this approach to the philosophy of mind and cognitive sciences. Cognitive scientists and analytical philosophers often examine the human mind from a third-person perspective and transfer mental states to behavior, brain interactions, and function. However, an aspect of the mind remainsthat cannot be accessed by the experimental method and the third perspective. Phenomenology has much to say about subjective conscious experience and examines it from a first-person perspective, object’s meaning for the subject. Phenomenologists attach extensive importance to intentionality as the main feature of consciousness through which mental states are connected with the external world. They oppose the explanations of reductionists from  intentionality, such as causational explanation. According to phenomenologists, the fact that we can think about objects that do not exist in the external world is a decisive argument against those who have reduced intentionality to causation. Phenomenologists also disagree with the representational approach regardingintentionality. It is unclear why knowing an internal object leads to understanding an external object when these two objects are completely different from each other. We cannot get out of the realm of our consciousness and mind and compare our inner object with the outer object.