David Rosenthal explains conscious mentality in terms of two independent, though complementary, theories—the higher-order thought (“HOT”) theory of consciousness and quality-space theory (“QST”) about mental qualities. It is natural to understand this combination of views as constituting a kind of representationalism about experience—that is, a version of the view that an experience’s conscious character is identical with certain of its representational properties. At times, however, Rosenthal seems to resist this characterization of his view. We explore here whether and to what (...) extent it makes sense to construe Rosenthal’s views as representationalist. Our goal is not merely terminological—discerning how best to use the expression ‘representationalism’. Rather, we argue that understanding Rosenthal’s account as a kind of representationalism permits us not only to make sense of broader debates within the philosophy of mind, but also to extend and clarify aspects of the view itself. (shrink)

The problem of higher-order misrepresentation poses a dilemma for the higher-order theory of consciousness. The two ways of conceiving of the theory each run into a different difficulty raised by the problem of misrepresentation. If the theory is conceived relationally, i.e., conceived so as the higher-order state causes or makes a first-order state conscious, then the theory faces a problem raised by Block concerning the implausibility of non-existent conscious states. If conceived non-relationally, i.e., conceived in such a way as it (...) is the higher-order state itself which is the conscious state, then consideration of Neander’s original misrepresentation problem, that this seems to make the first-order state a spinning wheel in the explanation of consciousness, raises the conceptual problem that this version of the higher-order theory seems not to offer a philosophical theory of consciousness that is distinct from the first-order theory. (shrink)

The primary aim of a theory of consciousness is to articulate existence conditions for conscious states, i.e. the conditions under which a mental state is conscious rather than unconscious. There are two main broad approaches: The Higher-Order approach and the First-Order approach. Higher-Order theories claim that a mental state is conscious only if it is the object of a suitable state of higher-order awareness. First-Order theories reject this necessary condition. However, both sides make the following claim: for any mental state (...) M of a subject S, M is conscious if there is something it is like for S to be in M. This is the Nagelian Conception of consciousness. Taking the Nagelian Conception as a starting point, I contend that the best rationalizing explanation for the ways in which Higher-Order and First-Order theorists contribute to their dispute is to see those contributions as consistent responses to two distinct questions. (shrink)

ABSTRACT I begin by developing a challenge for the Higher-Order Thought variant of Higher-Order representational theories of consciousness. The challenge is to account for the distinctive phenomenal character of visual experience—its presentational character. After setting out the challenge, I articulate a novel form of Higher-Order theory that can account for presentational character—the Map Theory of consciousness. The theory’s distinctive claim is that the relevant higher-order representations have a cartographic format.

ABSTRACTAmbitious Higher-order theories of consciousness – Higher-order theories that purport to give an account of phenomenal consciousness – face a well-known objection from the possibility of ra...

Perceptual experience is often said to be transparent; that is, when we have a perceptual experience we seem to be aware of properties of the objects around us, and never seem to be aware of properties of the experience itself. This is a introspective fact. It is also often said that we can infer a metaphysical fact from this introspective fact, e.g. a fact about the nature of perceptual experience. A transparency theory fills in the details for these two facts, (...) and bridges the gap between them. We have three aims: to scrutinize Michael Tye’s transparency theory :137–151, 2002; Consciousness revisited: materialism without phenomenal concepts, MIT Press, Cambridge, 2009; Philos Stud 170:39–57, 2014a), introduce a new transparency theory, and advance a meta-theoretical hypothesis about the interest, and import, of transparency theories. (shrink)