3.1.Sensory Restrictivism

The standard restrictivist response to phenomenal contrast arguments is to argue that non-cognitive elements do suffice to explain the phenomenal difference. This line of argumentation does not deny that there is a phenomenal contrast; rather, it denies that this contrast requires us to posit a distinctive cognitive phenomenology. As presented above, one prominent position within restrictivism claims that the phenomenology of conscious thought is to be accounted for with only one type of non-cognitive phenomenology, namely, sensory phenomenology. This strategy claims that in the phenomenal contrast in cognitive experiences like understanding, for example, some variation and difference among sensory elements suffices to explain the contrast. A proponent of this kind of reductionism is Jesse Prinz, whose general theory of phenomenal consciousness implies a restrictivist view on cognitive phenomenology.

Following ^{Jackendoff (2007}, ²⁰¹²⁾, ^{Prinz (2002}, ²⁰⁰⁵, ²⁰¹²⁾ has extensively argued for a general theory of consciousness according to which consciousness arises at the intermediate level of perceptual systems, where feature integration takes place and attention mechanisms are involved⁸, that is, with attended intermediate-level representations, or AIRs. It is an intermediate level between the low-level stage that responds to local stimulus features without integration and the high-level perceptual stage that abstracts away details from the previous one. According to this theory, the neural correlates of perceptual consciousness are thus restricted to brain areas that implement this perceptual processing. The strategy here is to think that an account of perceptual experiences will give a general account of consciousness, so that the following conclusion serves as a slogan for the view: all consciousness is perceptual consciousness.⁹

Prinz’s argumentative strategy regarding specific cognitive phenomenology is mainly negative, as he tries to account for the cases in favour of cognitive phenomenology with the resources of his perceptual view of consciousness¹⁰. He argues that conscious thought “feels like” something (there is a phenomenology), but not that it feels differently than sensory activity (all phenomenology is in fact sensory experience). He then tries to accommodate the phenomenal contrast between cases of understanding and not understanding something, and similar ones, to differences in sensory elements, such as different associated mental images or inner speech or differences in the focus of attention.

If we focus on Prinz’s theory of AIRs, we can see that the problems for his sensory view can arise in all those domains that outstrip the intermediate level. This is the case with high-level perceptual representations, perceptual constancies, the experience of presence in absence, motor actions, and emotions. If some of these domains exhibit a distinctive phenomenology, then Prinz’s theory is undermined¹¹. Regardless of whether these cases succeed, I will focus on two main problems: the role of attention and the role of phenomenal character.¹²

Firstly, one available strategy for Prinz is to claim that what account for the phenomenal contrast are changes and shifts in attention. When we use concepts to categorize certain things, or when we see, for example, the ambiguous image of the duck/rabbit (see ^{Wittgenstein 1953}) as a duck or as a rabbit, the phenomenal difference may be explained by appealing to shifts in our attention to certain features of the figure in question (^{Prinz 2011, p. 183}). The question is thus: can these shifts in attention explain the phenomenal difference in the understanding case? It is difficult to see how in this case attention can be distributed differently in each instance so as to account for the phenomenal contrast. When we don’t understand a sentence we are reading, do we focus more on the individual words, as opposed to focusing more on the whole sentence when we understand what we are reading? Certainly this can happen and attention surely affects phenomenology, but the point is that it is doubtful that this difference in attention distribution over the written words is what accounts for the phenomenal difference between understanding something you read and not understanding it or at least it seems difficult to match this difference with the phenomenal difference we experience between understanding and not understanding, something the sensory restrictivist does not deny-. We have to be aware of the fact that this first objection is not committed to the idea that attention and understanding or reading comprehension are not relevantly related (which they are: ^{Stern and Shalev 2013}); it only discusses the claim that attention distribution over the written words, in this case, is what accounts for the phenomenal difference when understanding something. If we also take the case of counting in an old versus a new currency in the period after 2000 in the countries of the Eurozone, we face the same kind of difficulties. How are attention mechanisms to account for the phenomenal difference? It seems that no matter how hard you try to focus attentively on a price in one currency or in the other, or even in the calculation of the equivalence, attention cannot explain the phenomenal contrast.

Secondly, I will present a problem that needs some more discussion. It seems reasonable to say that our experience of thinking can be partly distinguished from other kinds of experiences (perceptual, emotional, etc.) on the basis of the experience itself. This means that just by way of undergoing a certain mental episode, by experiencing it, we are in a position to at least distinguish it from another kind of mental episode. Thus, if asked whether you are seeing an ice cream or whether you are thinking about it, your response seems to be immediately available to you on the basis of your current experience and its phenomenal character. The proposal of sensory phenomenal aspects does not seem to serve for distinguishing experiences of thinking from sensory or emotional ones on the basis of immediate experience. The point is that if the phenomenal character of perception and thought is of the same kind, namely, sensory, then there is no way, on the basis of experience, to distinguish between a perceptual experience and a conscious thought¹³. For example, if we see an ice cream and if we consider whether this ice cream is too expensive (in the absence of the visual perception of the ice cream), and in both cases we have the same kind of phenomenal elements (a certain image, for example), then the mere experiential character cannot differentiate between the two mental episodes.¹⁴

A question that needs to be defended in this objection is the following: why am I claiming that it is on the basis of the phenomenal character of the experiences that we may tell them apart? I am supposing that the distinction between both kinds of mental episodes is immediately given in experience, and phenomenal character seems to be a good candidate for such a position. By “immediacy” I understand that such an operation of distinguishing is produced without need for conscious reasoning and is not based on behavioural evidence (more on this in the discussion below).

The proponent of sensory restrictivism has six possible replies to this objection, as far as I can see. I will examine them in detail in what follows. The first possible reply is to argue that there might still be differences in the images and verbal speech of both episodes that can account for the phenomenal difference between the two. In response, we can say that the most we have are some sensory differences between a visual perception and the mere entertainment of a proposition, so we are left with nothing else that makes us aware that we are undergoing a visual experience (and not thinking about it), or considering whether the ice cream is expensive. The point here is that the only kind of phenomenal character involved in both episodes is the sensory kind, and this leaves unanswered the question of how the sensory kind is able to distinguish between these two experiences.

A second possible reply claims that sensory phenomenology is typified in a way that can do the job, so that the sensory elements of cognitive episodes are different from those involved in visual perception. If this were so, this restrictivist view has a way to account for the phenomenal contrast without supposing the existence of cognitive phenomenology. We might envisage several ways of cashing out this strategy. One way is to show that there is a complex combination of sensory elements in the case of thought that helps us to distinguish it from the seeing experience. But why should we suppose that this complex combination of sensory elements is present when we think and not when we see? In fact, things seem to be the other way around: visual experiences are richer in sensory elements than our experiences of thinking, where the sensory elements can be accompaniments but do not have the pervasive presence they have in visual experiences. Perhaps then, it is precisely this richness of the sensory elements in perception that gives the sensory reductionist a way out: sensory perceptual aspects are richer than sensory cognitive aspects and the subject is able to introspectively distinguish between both kinds of experiences on this basis. We do not find an explicit endorsement of such a claim in Prinz, but this certainly would help a restrictivist like him and seems a promising view to endorse. I think, however, that this response is also problematic, as it implies that ineffable aspects such as vividness or richness are able by themselves to “tell us” whether a given experience is perceptual or cognitive in kind. Indeed, this reply is in tension with the empiricist view of concepts that Prinz endorses (2002), according to which concepts are copies of perceptual representations and, arguably, the difference between the richness of the sensory phenomenology in perception and in cognition should be a matter of degree rather than a clear-cut distinction between perception and thought. If it is a matter of degree, however, then it is not clear that the richness and vividness of either phenomenology can serve as criteria for identifying one kind of experience and excluding another, since the movement from perception to cognition (regarding phenomenology) will be a matter of degree. Focusing on sensory phenomenology, at which point does perception end and cognition begin? There does not seem to be a straightforwardly satisfying answer to this question available to sensory restrictivists.

A third possible reply, related to the previous point, can claim that other elements different from phenomenal character are responsible for our being able to distinguish both kinds of experiences. One version claims that it is by virtue of some inferential sub-personal mechanism that we can immediately distinguish between our occurrent perceptual experience and a cognitive one (in the way that ^{Nichols and Stich 2003}, or ^{Cassam 2011} propose), and so we do not need to think that it is the phenomenal character that does the work. With respect to this, one might think that even if there is such a sub-personal mechanism, it has to have some effect or “show up” somehow at the level of experience. And if the difference shows up in the experience then it will make a phenomenal difference. Thus, regardless of the cause (the sub-personal mechanism) of our capacity to distinguish both kinds of mental states, if this distinction shows up in experience, then there is a phenomenal difference, and we can say it is through this that we come to know that we are having a thought and not a visual experience. However, whether the subpersonal mechanism account provides a satisfactory view of our capacity to discern between cognitive and perceptual episodes on the basis of immediate experience remains an empirical question insofar as the functioning and existence of such mechanism would have to be empirically proved for this case.

Another version of this reply might adduce that perhaps we can distinguish between both kinds of experiences by virtue of being aware of their distinct kinds of contents: perception represents more fine-grained contents and thought more course-grained and abstract contents, for instance. If so, there is no need to appeal to different kinds of sensory phenomenology, but rather the content itself of such experiences does the job. In response, notice that if sensory restrictivism follows that path, then it seems that it will be accepting an element in experience that outstrips sensory aspects, which would undermine the view itself. For ^{Prinz (2011, p. 176)}, any content that goes beyond sensory appearance has no direct impact on experience and, thus, on phenomenology. The difference between fine-grained and course-grained contents, in this case, would be something that is not experienced, and so the appeal to such kinds of contents is not available to a sensory restrictivist like Prinz.

A fourth possible reply to the objection of the limitations of sensory phenomenology as regards explaining the distinction between visual and cognitive episodes on the basis of immediate experience is to deny the assumption of my objection and so to claim that there is no way to experientially and immediately distinguish between visual and cognitive experiences. But consider the consequences that this denial would have: merely thinking of an approaching tiger may not produce any bodily movement to escape, whereas visually perceiving that a tiger is approaching you would cause you to run in the opposite direction, at least in normal circumstances. If you were not able to immediately distinguish between undergoing an experience of thinking about a tiger or seeing one on the basis of your experience, this would surely be a major handicap for your life. And it seems implausible to claim that the phenomenal character of experience is so “incapable” as to be unable to provide this minimal information about the kind of mental state we are in, even if it is untrustworthy and subject to error.

A fifth reply available to sensory restrictivism is to say that the view is committed to being unable to differentiate between the perceptual and the cognitive episode, but that this would be the case only at the very moment of the experience. However, if we take a longer period of time then we obtain different inferential roles for distinguishing both episodes. This seems like an ad hoc solution to the problem presented, for how do we know what period of time has to elapse? How is the period of time to be established? Phenomenologically, it seems that we are able to differentiate between an experience of thinking and a perceptual experience without waiting a certain period of time, and we can do this on the simple basis of experience.

A sixth possible rejoinder to my objection is that I am not carefully distinguishing perception from imaging, and that once we recognize that perception does not reduce to imaging, i.e., to having certain images, then the sensory reductionist can account for the difference between the experiences of visual perception and thought by claiming that in thought, the sensory elements we have are mental images, while in visual perception, the sensory elements involved are not mental images, but colours, shapes, etc., as belonging to certain external objects. Both sensory components are different enough so as to provide the subject with a basis for telling apart thoughts from visual perceptions. This rejoinder could have some success were it not the case that endorsing it would give rise to another problem, namely, that thought (with sensory imagistic accompaniments) would not be distinguishable from other kinds of mental episodes different from perception that also involve images, like certain emotions or feelings. If someone is afraid of walking in the dark, for example, this person might have mental images accompanying (or perhaps partly constitutive of) the feeling of fear. If we take such an example, then the proponent of sensory reductionism would be committed to saying that we cannot distinguish this feeling of fear from, for instance, a thought about how fearful dark nights are, also involving such mental images. Therefore, even if this sixth rejoinder to my objection seems more plausible, I have pointed out that it entails further consequences regarding the ability to distinguish a feeling from a thought, for example, on the basis of experience, and this does not appear to be a desirable result for any account.

Now, to sum up: in this section I have highlighted two problems that the proponent of sensory restrictivism encounters. On the one hand, there is the implausibility of appealing to changes in attention in order to explain the phenomenal contrast in understanding and, on the other hand, there is the inability of this view to account for the fact that we can distinguish between different kinds of mental states (visual perceptual experiences from thought experiences, for example) on the basis of immediate experience. Regarding this second problem, I have considered six possible replies and have provided answers to them.

Before turning to the second kind of restrictivism, let me dispel a methodological worry that might have arisen so far. It has not been my intention to show that the discussion presented exhausts the resources available for the sensory restrictivist or that the view has to be ruled out by the existence of such problems. Perhaps a battery of counterexamples would never completely refute a position; nevertheless they would contribute to presenting sensory restrictivism as a view that many authors would be embarrassed to defend further.

3.2.Accompanying States

The second restrictivist strategy is accompanying states: the phenomenology of conscious thought is to be accounted for by a disjunction of different non-cognitive types of phenomenal states. In comparison with sensory restrictivism, this strategy might seem more compelling, as it allows for more options, and thus has more chances to succeed.

^{Lormand (1996)} was the first to dispute ^{Goldman’s (1993)} revival of the cognitive phenomenology debate in a reductionist way. He contends that propositional attitudes are only accompanied by associated states, and it is these states and not the propositional attitude itself that have the qualitative character (^{Lormand 1996, pp. 246-247}). He proposes the qualitative quartet as the legitimate bearers of phenomenal character. The quartet is composed of the following kinds of mental states: (i) conscious perceptual representations, such as tastings and visual experiences, (ii) conscious bodily sensations, such as pains, tickles and itches, (iii) conscious imaginings, such as those of one’s own actions or perceptions, (iv) conscious streams (or trains) of thought, as in thinking “in words” or “in images”.

This strategy is exhausted by these four kinds of states. A proposal along these lines is presented by ^{Tye and Wright (2011)}. It is similar to Lormand’s in almost all respects, with the difference that they add (without any explicit reason) other kinds of states, that is, primary emotional experiences, such as feeling anger or fear, and the experience of effort:

from a phenomenological perspective, thinking a thought is much like running a sentence through one’s head and/or (in some cases) having a mental image in mind together with (in some cases) an emotional/bodily response and a feeling of effort if the thought is complex or difficult to grasp. (2011, p. 329)

In what follows, I shall explore this kind of accompanying-states view.

If we come back to the cases that motivate cognitive phenomenology views and the phenomenal contrast, we can add the idea that the phenomenal contrast strategy can be complemented by the presentation of singular cases in which, if there is experience or phenomenal character, the sensory or non-cognitive elements do not seem to suffice to explain it. A particularly interesting case, due to its being at the limit, is the case of what can be called pure abstract thought. Is pure abstract thought possible? If it is possible to consciously entertain a pure abstract thought without any of the mentioned accompanying states being present, then this would be a counterexample for the accompanying-states view. What would its proponents say in those cases? They would probably deny that there is any phenomenology involved in such cases, were it possible. Some authors, like ^{Robinson (2005)}, have taken cases in which there is no possible sensory-imagistic accompaniment as evidence for the claim that there is no cognitive phenomenology. This holds, however, only if one operates with a sense of phenomenal character restricted by definition to the sensory domain or to sensory-like elements. But if we recognize a certain experience and phenomenal consciousness when consciously thinking (as the accompanying-states view actually does), then what would it mean to consciously entertain a pure abstract thought without phenomenal character?¹⁵ It is worth noticing that the problem for accompanying states that I am trying to put forward does not presuppose the existence of pure abstract thought in isolation from all sensory experiences whatsoever, so the view may be compatible with the claim that pure abstract thought is founded or grounded, for example, in sensory and perceptual experiences, in the sense that some kind of sensory or perceptual experience has had to occur at some point for the pure abstract thought to be possible¹⁶. But this does not imply that these sensory and perceptual experiences, or elements of them, are present when the pure abstract thought occurs or that they give the pure abstract thought its phenomenal character. This last issue is what is at stake. Let us now consider this: if there are pure abstract thoughts, then the following possibilities emerge (in relation to non-pure abstract thoughts):

All these possibilities are conceptual possibilities. Among the possibilities open in 1, (1a) seems to be more reasonable: if there is no cognitive phenomenology in pure abstract thought, then I do not see why there should be this kind of phenomenal character in the non-pure abstract thoughts and other kind of thoughts. If this were so, the extreme case of pure abstract thought is not very helpful for our analysis. Among the possibilities open by 2, (2b) is quite difficult to defend, because it attributes cognitive phenomenology only to pure abstract thought and not to all the other cases, but then this alleged kind of cognitive phenomenology of pure abstract thought would just appear in this extreme case, which seems not very plausible. One reason why I think it is reasonable to discard (1b) and (2b) is the appeal to a certain phenomenal continuity in conscious thought, the idea that there is no radical change in cognitive phenomenology among different kinds of thought (pure and non-pure). The phenomenal continuity claim has been used as applied to our mental lives, from sensory perception to perceptual perception or thought (^{Klausen 2008}). Whether or not this claim stands for the whole mental domain, here we just need phenomenal continuity to hold between the two cognitive cases of pure and non-pure abstract thought as a motivation to dispel (1b) and (2b). Both options would deny the phenomenal continuity claim, but in different ways. As for (1b), the difference between pure and non-pure abstract thought would amount to the subject ceasing to be phenomenally conscious in pure abstract thought, while she is phenomenally conscious in all other cognitive cases, which is a very strange result. And as for (2b), the way of defeating the phenomenal continuity claim is by saying that the subject begins to be cognitively phenomenally conscious just in pure-abstract thought, which also seems very ad hoc. It seems reasonable, therefore, to confine ourselves to the following two possibilities:

Thus, it seems that if we can find evidence for the extreme case of pure abstract thought, we would have evidence for (2a) and, with this, we would have made a problematic case for the accompanying states view (and also for sensory restrictivism as far as it needs the presence of sensory elements of the cognitive state). Moreover, this would help us to avoid a certain skepticism on the dialectics between defenders of accompanying states and defenders of cognitive phenomenology, in which the appeal to concrete cases does not seem able to solve the question (^{Jorba 2011}). The difficult task is precisely to find evidence for these extreme cases, given that in most of our conscious thinking, the presence of images, inner speech and other accompaniments is so pervasive (^{Klinger and Cox 1987-1988}; ^{Hurlburt and Heavy 2006}). There have been arguments for the plausibility of what I have been calling “pure abstract thought” by appealing to thought-experiments (^{Kriegel 2015}) and by considering a specific kind of phenomenal contrast argument (^{Chudnoff 2015}a, ^{Chudnoff 2015b}). However, my aim here will be to point to and discuss some empirical evidence that can provide a case for pure abstract thought.

In the scarce empirical research directly investigating our topic, we find some experiments that aim to support the existence of unsymbolized thinking.¹⁸ With the Descriptive Experience Sampling (DES) method, ^{Hurlburt and Akhter (2008)} defend the thesis of the existence of an explicit, differentiated thought experience that does not include the experience of words, images or any other symbols. They argue that it is one of the five most common features of inner experience, together with inner speech, inner seeing, feelings, and sensory awareness. They do not seek to show that it is omnipresent, but that it exists as experience. In their work, they acknowledge that

despite its high frequency of occurrence across many individuals, and despite (or perhaps because of) its potentially substantial theoretical importance, many people, including many professional students of consciousness, believe that a thinking experience that does not involve symbols is impossible; in fact, such phenomena are rarely discussed. (2008, p. 1365)

They attribute this lack of attention to, among other things, the prejudice of scientists and philosophers that all thinking must be in words. Their aim is to contribute empirically to highlighting and describing different kinds of inner experiences. They show the presence of unsymbolized thinking mainly through an interview they perform with subjects after some days of sampling in which the latter annotate what was going on in their experiences when a random beep sounds in their daily environments. From the sampling experience they focus on some extracts from the reports of the subjects, like these:¹⁹

They acknowledge the difference in expressions in all these statements, even though they preserve the same meaning²⁰. It seems to be a mark of unsymbolized thought that the reports vary so much and subjects are less confident about them than in cases where inner speech is involved, where subjects are more confident of the exact words used in their thinking. A second aspect that, according to these authors, points to this phenomenon is that the subject appears to be helpless, powerless in the face of her own observation of her experience, by conveying expressions like: “I know this sounds weird, and I don’t think it’s really possible, but you asked me to tell you exactly what is in my experience and this is it. Sorry if it didn’t conform to your expectations, but this is what I was thinking” (^{Hurlburt and Akhter 2008, p. 1366}). A third indicator is that although the interviewers give her the chance to provide less controversial descriptions of her experience by asking her whether it was in words or in pictures or images, etc., she sticks to her description. Fourth, the use of “I wonder” to introduce the description of their thoughts is a mark of unsymbolized thought, but the researchers recognize that this cannot be a rule, given that many wonderings may in fact involve images and inner speech, and other cases of unsymbolized thought might not be introduced by “I wonder” in the reports (perhaps merely an “I am thinking”). So this is a clue rather than a rule for the presence of this phenomenon.²¹

Once these indicators have been clarified, Hurlburt and Akhter present in more detail what exactly unsymbolized thinking is. The first point they suggest is that it is a complete phenomenon on its own, so that it is not a part or something unfinished, vague, deficient, or implied by some other phenomenon. It stands at the same level as inner speech and other well-known phenomena. Second, it is a way of experiencing that is directly apprehensible without need for inferences. Third, it is experienced as thinking, and not as a feeling, not as an intention, nor as an intimation or a bodily event. Fourth, the content of the thinking is explicit: subjects easily report what they are thinking; and, fifth, this content is differentiated, that is, it is not vague or general. Sixth, and significantly, they claim that the content of the thought is directly in experience; it is not the case that the mere “title” of the thought is experienced and the rest is not conscious, or that the unsymbolized thought is a precursor of the symbolic one. Seventh, this phenomenon presents itself all at once as a unit (without rhythm or cadence, neither unfolding nor sequentially). Thus there is no separation between the subject and the predicate of the thought, even if it can be said that it has this structure (and this contrasts with thinking when there is inner speech). Eighth and finally, unsymbolized thought does not include the experience of words, images or any other symbols. Subjects that experience it as a main phenomenon do not “say to themselves” some words, nor hear any words, nor see any words, or experience words in some other modality.

It is notable that, unlike in other phenomenological empirical studies of experience, unsymbolized thinking is not something the researchers set out with the aim of eliciting from the subjects, but it is something that emerges when they start with no target concept and carefully ask subjects to describe randomly selected everyday experiences. Unsymbolized thinking appears then in the end of the research and not at the starting point. If the presence of such a phenomenon can be established empirically in this way, then it seems that we have evidence of an experience that the accompanying-states view has to accept as having cognitive phenomenology, precisely because they do not deny that there is an experience when consciously thinking; they just deny that this experience has cognitive phenomenal character. The case of unsymbolized thinking can thus be interpreted as that in which there is an experience in the absence of any sensory material.²²

However, the DES method has not gone unquestioned. There is of course resistance to accepting these results, and ^{Carruthers (1996)} considers Hurlburt’s reports of unsymbolized thinking and raises objections to them. He accepts that people sometimes do think without images or words, but denies that such thoughts are conscious. Relying on the reports of ^{Nisbett and Wilson’s 1977}, the main point of his criticism is that subjects’ reports are not in fact based on direct observation of the phenomena but they are rather a self-interpretation of their thinking. Therefore they are confused about their reports. ^{Tye and Wright (2011, p. 335)} also note the difficulty in suggesting that the alleged unsymbolized thoughts are cases in which the subject may indeed not be thinking at all. Now it seems that the (old and) pervasive problems of the interpretation of introspective reports can have a substantial effect on the empirical results Hurlburt and colleagues put forward on unsymbolized thinking.

In fact, Hurlburt and Akhter acknowledge that this self-interpretation is possible and indeed has occurred when subjects gave reports about inner speech, which they confused with some other phenomena (unsymbolized thought, sensory awareness or some other complex experience), and is more frequent when subjects report inner speech and images than in unsymbolized thought cases. This is because of the distress some subjects initially experience when reporting unsymbolized thinking (^{Hurlburt and Akhter 2008, p. 1371}). They further suggest that if the argument from Carruthers holds, and the state is not conscious, it holds across the board and might be levelled against all introspective reports of inner speech, visual imagery, and so on. But this does not seem a very good result for all experiments involving reports of first-person experience, which nevertheless are common in scientific studies of consciousness. Indeed, they add that if Carruthers’ claim were true, it remains unexplained why subjects would hit upon unsymbolized thinking when searching for a plausible self-interpretation and also believing (as a presupposition) that all thinking occurs in words. Thus, we are facing an asymmetry: “It is thus easy to imagine a person giving an inner-speech explanation for an unsymbolized experience, but it is not at all easy to imagine a person giving an unsymbolized thinking explanation for a verbal (or absent) experience” (^{Hurlburt and Akhter 2008, p. 1371}).

With respect to this, one of the features of the method is that the researchers are aware of this danger and they carefully study the differences between the actual experience and what subjects think or say about it. The way to do this is by having different descriptions of sampled experiences and careful interviews in which the investigator and the subject go deeper into the description of the experience. Moreover, a feature of the method that they think can meet Carruthers’ challenge is that subjects are asked to write down their experiences quickly after the sound of the beep; afterwards, in the interview, triggered-by-the-beep thoughts and the like are left out. Their method is therefore not a brute appeal to introspective reports or armchair introspection (which they certainly attribute to Carruthers’ view)²³, but rather requires subsequent work on these reports and on various sampled experiences.

A further objection ^{Tye and Wright (2011, p. 335)} offer and which, to my knowledge, remains unanswered, is that the subjects’ inability to provide any consistent description of the content of such thoughts does not entail that they had no associated imagery. The first reason for this is that having one’s attention drawn to the noise of the beeper and to the task of recording one’s experiences may have a masking effect, thus undermining the ability of the subject to access imagistic vehicles for their previous thought’s contents. And the second reason is that it should not be surprising that this inability is present, given that it could stem from the non-linguistic nature of imagery. However, notice the two following things. With respect to the second reason, it is true that the non-linguistic nature of the imagery can explain why subjects do not provide consistent descriptions of the contents of their thoughts, but Hurlburt and Akhter’s point is rather that the subjects show this inability once it is clear that there are neither images nor inner speech present in their cognitive experience. Indeed, and with respect to the first reason, if there is a masking effect that prevents the subject from having access to the images, then we need a reason to think that this effect is in place in these cases and not in the cases where imagistic thoughts are reported, where the subjects clearly report the presence of images without problems.²⁴ Besides, there is a second problem that Hurlburt himself mentioned in a conference as a response to this kind of objection²⁵. He argued that if the masking effect didn’t allow subjects to access imagistic vehicles, then all subjects would report having unsymbolized thinking, given that the beeper would have masking effect in all subjects, at least sometimes. But there are people that do not report unsymbolized thinking at all. If this is so, then, how can the masking hypothesis explain the fact that some people do not experience unsymbolized thinking?

Actually, Hurlburt and Akhter do not claim that every occurrence of thinking occurs in the absence of imagery, and consistently admit that imagery is present in a lot of cases, but still they provide reasons to believe in the existence of this particular experience: the resistance of the subject to describing her experience as containing images or the lack of confidence in the spelling out of the thought in words despite, in other cases, being able to say directly that there were images or simply report the words produced in inner speech.

The above arguments lead me to believe that the experience of unsymbolized thinking presents an important empirical counterexample to both kinds of restrictivism. I have reviewed some of the discussion regarding the DES method and the existence of unsymbolized thinking and I have also answered Tye and Wright’s objection that subjects’ inability to provide any consistent description of the content of such thoughts does not entail that they had no associated imagery. At this point, then, I think restrictivists would need something more than what they have adduced so far in order to dispense with such a challenge.