Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book discusses the moderate concept of phenomenology that relies on Husserl’s idea of phenomenological psychology. It also discusses the models of explanation applied in cognitive science as well as the project of mechanistic integration. The book considers the functional hypothesis and put forward a new functional interpretation of phenomenology. It argues that models to test phenomenological theories. Moreover, dynamical-mechanistic models and simulations can reveal features of the target phenomenon inaccessible to apprehension via phenomenological method, and thus, they can be seen as extensions of the phenomenological toolkit. Neuroscientists measure the activity of the working brain, connectivity, and the biochemistry of the neural cells and detect events and patterns of neural synchronization, yet they often lack the resources to give them mental interpretations.