Building A Science Of Experience Neurophenomenology And Related Disciplines

Context . More than 20 years ago Varela initiated a research program to advance in the scientific study of consciousness, neurophenomenology. > Problem . Has Varela's neurophenomenology, the solution to the "hard problem," been successful? Which issues remain unresolved, and why? > Method . This introduction sketches the progress that has been made since then and links it to the contributions to this special issue. > Results . Instead of a unified research field, today we find a variety of different interpretations and implementations of neurophenomenology. We argue that neurophenomenology needs to give additional attention to its experiential dimension by addressing first-person methods' specific challenges and by rethinking the relationship between the frameworks of the first-and third-person approaches.