Against Phenomenal Parsimony, A Plea for Bodily Feelings

International audienceSeveral authors deny that the senses of agency and of bodily ownership have distinctive phenomenology. This is in line with a general principle of phenomenal parsimony, according to which one should not posit additional phenomenal properties in one's mental ontology when one can explain them by appealing to other properties. The crucial question is then to determine what reasons there can be to enrich our phenomenal ontology. This debate has recently turned to cognitive science to find answers. Those who defend a liberal or rich view of phenomenology have taken pathological disorders and illusions as evidence in favor of the existence of a distinctive phenomenology, but even in these borderline cases there is room for interpretation, and where the liberals see feelings, the proponents of a more conservative view see cognitive attitudes. The argument then becomes an inference to the best explanation. But whose side offers the best explanation