The paper argues that phenomenal intentionality—the idea that intentional states have a special kind of conscious feel—does not exist. The author claims that advocates mistakenly apply the concept of "what it is like" (WIL) to intentional states in the same way as to sensory states, but this application is asymmetrical and invalid. While agreeing that consciousness must be involved in intentionality, the author contends that the arguments for phenomenal intentionality fail due to this asymmetry. Instead, the paper proposes that there is a phenomenology of intentionality—a conscious experience associated with intentional states—but not a distinct phenomenal intentionality. The argument is grounded in a critical overview of recent philosophy of mind.
Two contrasting philosophical accounts of the stream of consciousness are examined. William James views each momentary state of consciousness as a complex, unitary awareness that simultaneously instantiates many features and takes multiple objects; emotion, on this view, pervades and colors the entire state. Brian O'Shaughnessy instead proposes that the basic unit of the stream is the attention, a psychic space occupied by several simultaneous experiences; emotion here is one distinct experience among others, interacting with them by limiting their number and intensity. The two theorists also differ on how non-inferential self-awareness of one's own conscious states is achieved.