I argue that in order to solve the main difficulties confronted by the classical versions of the causal theory of action, it is necessary no just to make room for intentions, considered as irreducible to complexes of beliefs and desires, but also to distinguish among several types of intentions. I present a three-tiered theory of intentions that distinguishes among future-directed intentions, present-directed intentions and motor intentions. I characterize each kind of intention in terms of its functions, its type of content, (...) its dynamics and the rationality and time constraints that bear on it. I then try to show how the difficulties encountered by the causal theory can be solved within this new framework. 1. (shrink)

There is a view on consciousness that has strong intuitive appeal and empirical support: the intermediate-level theory of consciousness, proposed mainly by Ray Jackendoff and by Jesse Prinz. This theory identifies a specific “intermediate” level of representation as the basis of human phenomenal consciousness, which sits between high-level non-perspectival thought processes and low-level disjointed feature-detection processes in the perceptual and cognitive processing hierarchy. In this article, we show that the claim that consciousness arises at an intermediate-level is true of some (...) cognitive systems, but only in virtue of specific constraints on their active interactions with the environment. We provide ecological reasons for why certain processing levels in a cognitive hierarchy are privileged with respect to consciousness. We do this from the perspective of a prediction-error minimization model of perception and cognition, relying especially on the notion of active inference: the privileged level for consciousness depends on the specific dispositions of an organism concerned with inferring its policies for action. Such a level is indeed intermediate for humans, but this depends on the spatiotemporal resolution of the typical actions that a human organism can normally perform. Thus, intermediateness is not an essential feature of consciousness. In organisms with different action dispositions the privileged level or levels may differ as well. (shrink)

This paper offers a framework for consciousness of internal reality. Recent PET experiments are reviewed, showing partial overlap of cortical activation during self-produced actions and actions observed from other people. This overlap suggests that representations for actions may be shared by several individuals, a situation which creates a potential problem for correctly attributing an action to its agent. The neural conditions for correct agency judgments are thus assigned a key role in self/other distinction and self-consciousness. A series of behavioral experiments (...) that demonstrate, in normal subjects, the poor monitoring of action-related signals and the difficulty in recognizing self-produced actions are described. In patients presenting delusions, this difficulty dramatically increases and actions become systematically misattributed. These results point to schizophrenia and related disorders as a paradigmatic alteration of a ''Who?'' system for self-consciousness. (shrink)