France to Luc Delannoy and others... Pitting the "physical" against the "phenomenal" may not be useful here, unless your use of "phenomenal" differs from the realist uses of the concept that are more familiar to me. Under the angloamerican philosophy of idealist realism and its naturalist pragmatism it posits that all things in the world which are felt or sensed or known are done so as phenomena, and then such things must be sensed only as phenomenal objects that really exist. All objects therefore merely "seem" to be as they are via the use of moderating signs in the quasi mind or mind and there by a process of interpretation, all of which is due to the say sensory limits of biotic organisms in their ability to feel or sense or know. The umbrella hence is metaphysical or phenomenal under which falls stuff as the mystical or phanerical (phantoms and fantasies), and the material of physical, and the mental or psychical. Within this scheme the physical is as phenomenal as is the psychical. If some phenomenal object is felt sensed other than one that is concretely actual, or if some "menal" thing is felt sensed other than one that is really phenomenal, then that stuff is felt sensed via iconic signs that act analogously. Nothing in the world hence can be sensed directly, but must be interpreted indirectly by the moderation of phenomenal objects acting as signs. This approach suggests for example that any pain consciously felt is seemingly what it is, whether the existent phenomenal object given uncontrolled to sense as pain is abstractly possible or concretely actual or discretely agreeable. Now, if francoeuropean phenomenology differs from angloamerican phenomenology in some substantive way from this position, it would be illuminating to flesh it out.
Geoff partly wrote: In the somewhat unusual situation of someone who has had a limb amputated, consciousness may register rather strong experience (pain) which appears to be located in the amputated limb. This is an exceptional, but reliable, observation suggesting that there is not an absolute association between neuronal events and consciousness (and I'm defining it). i.e events in the amputated limb - I accept that the registering of pain in consciousness is a neuronal event, at some level of analysis, but, in the brain, not the limb. Luc partly wrote... Amputated limb "belongs" to the phenomenological body not the "physical body" as the brain does. This phenomenological body "is" indeed in the brain. There is no "events in the amputated limb". Geoff partly wrote... "The phenomenological body is in the brain." Hmm. Then, if you experience a traumatic fall from a few stories up, and the medics ask you if you're in pain, and if so, where, you answer: "My head hurts. That's all." Might not be too helpful in diagnosing a broken leg.
