We begin by distinguishing computationalism from a number of other theses that are sometimes conflated with it. We also distinguish between several important kinds of computation: computation in a generic sense, digital computation, and analog computation. Then, we defend a weak version of computationalism—neural processes are computations in the generic sense. After that, we reject on empirical grounds the common assimilation of neural computation to either analog or digital computation, concluding that neural computation is sui generis. Analog computation requires continuous (...) signals; digital computation requires strings of digits. But current neuroscientific evidence indicates that typical neural signals, such as spike trains, are graded like continuous signals but are constituted by discrete functional elements (spikes); thus, typical neural signals are neither continuous signals nor strings of digits. It follows that neural computation is sui generis. Finally, we highlight three important consequences of a proper understanding of neural computation for the theory of cognition. First, understanding neural computation requires a specially designed mathematical theory (or theories) rather than the mathematical theories of analog or digital computation. Second, several popular views about neural computation turn out to be incorrect. Third, computational theories of cognition that rely on non-neural notions of computation ought to be replaced or reinterpreted in terms of neural computation. (shrink)

Block () highlights two experimental studies of neglect patients which, he contends, provide ‘dramatic evidence’ for unconscious seeing. In Block's hands this is the highly non-trivial thesis that seeing of the same fundamental kind as ordinary conscious seeing can occur outside of phenomenal consciousness. Block's case for it provides an excellent opportunity to consider a large body of research on clinical syndromes widely held to evidence unconscious perception. I begin by considering in detail the two studies of neglect to which (...) Block appeals. I show why their interpretation as evidence of unconscious seeing faces a series of local difficulties. I then explain how, even bracketing these issues, a long-standing but overlooked problem concerning our criterion for consciousness problematizes the appeal to both studies. I explain why this problem is especially pressing for Block given his view that phenomenal consciousness overflows access consciousness. I further show that it is epidemic—not only affecting all report-based studies of unconscious seeing in neglect, but also analogous studies of the condition most often alleged to show unconscious seeing, namely blindsight. (shrink)

According to the discontinuity view, people recognize a deep discontinuity between phenomenal and intentional states, such that they refrain from attributing feelings and experiences to entities that do not have the right kind of body, though they may attribute thoughts to entities that lack a biological body, like corporations, robots, and disembodied souls. We examine some of the research that has been used to motivate the discontinuity view. Specifically, we focus on experiments that examine people's aptness judgments for various mental (...) state ascriptions to groups. These studies seem to reveal that people are more inclined to think of groups as having intentionality than as having phenomenology. Combined with the fact that groups obviously lack a single biological body, this has been taken as evidence that people operate according to the relevant discontinuity. However, these studies support discontinuity only on the assumption that the experimental participants are interpreting the relevant group mental state ascriptions in a specific way. We present evidence that people are not interpreting these ascriptions in a way that supports discontinuity. Instead, we argue that people generally interpret group mental state ascriptions distributively, as attributions of mental states to various group members. (shrink)

The coevolution of objectivity and subjectivity and the nature of both their division and connection are central to this paper. Section 2 addresses the nature of meaning from the subjective perspective. Initially, I examine the meaningful engagement that exists between the unicellular organism and its environment. In this respect, I focus on the ontological importance of the qualitative biochemical assimilation of the physical rather than on the evolution of form and function. In Section 3, I broaden the discussion to include (...) multicellular organisms and introduce the idea that meaning, at various levels, qualifies different objective and informational constructs of the world. These determine the character of interactive engagement and reveal much about the way in which an agent signifies the external. In Section 4, I review Darwinian evolution from the position of the existential self. I emphasize that meaning is that which qualifies the human concept of objectivity, rather than that objectivity is that which will help humankind qualify or understand meaning. Ultimately, this outlook challenges scientific disciplines that have tended to obscure the relevance of meaning and sought, instead, to explain it from an epistemological footing. In its overall scope, I try to establish the view that the subjective and objective domains are more nuanced, layered, and intertwined ontologically than the default stance that presents a binary juxtaposition between the two. (shrink)

I argue that the physiological, phenomenal and conceptual constitute a trichotomous hierarchy of emergent categories. I claim that each category employs a distinctive type of interactive mechanism that facilitates a meaningful kind of environmental discourse. I advocate, therefore, that each have a causal relation with the environment but that their specific class of mechanism qualifies distinctively the meaningfulness of that interaction and subsequent responses. Consequently, I argue that the causal chain of physical interaction feeds distinctive value-laden constructions that are ontologically (...) distinct for each category. Within the limitations of the interactive mechanisms of each category, increasingly sophisticated forms tend to evolve. The increase in sophistication in each category inevitably leads to the emergence of the novel mechanism particular to the next in the hierarchy. In essence, there is an emergent hierarchy of evolving categories delineated by the nature of their mechanism of environmental engagement. I argue that biochemical mechanisms have a tendency to evolve meaningfully, specifically in a way that is both qualitatively relevant and responsive to environmental particulars. I explain that these mechanisms set in play an organisational imperative that leads to the emergence of the capacity to evaluate and prioritise qualitative biochemical assimilations which, inevitably, generates a subjectively individuated experience phenomenon. I then relate this to the novel characteristics of the human perspective. (shrink)

Our everyday life is increasingly permeated with digital objects that carry out smart and complex functions. The latest (but certainly not final) advancement of smart digital applications – is to be identified the creation of a field, at once conceptual and material, of things denominated smart objects (henceforth SOs). This technological evolution is so pervasive that it is referred to as smartification. Smart objects have some distinctive features including in particular varying degrees of agency, autonomy and authority. There is no (...) doubt that the SO category is extremely broad, various and intrinsically fuzzy, it is evident that the phenomenon is by no means easy to define: which objects are really smart and which are not? But above all: what do we mean in semio-linguistic, and not psychological nor merely phenomenological terms, when we attribute the qualifier smart to an artifact? What is clear is that a new, or at least different (and controversial) relationship is developing between objects and subjects, or rather between human beings and objects inhabiting the spaces of social action: that is, a new system of objects, to cite Baudrillard (1968), or a new “society of objects” (see Landowski and Marrone 2002). In this paper we will focus on a type of smart physical device designed to interact with its users in the domestic sphere, assisting them in a variety of tasks – such as for example Amazon Echo, capable of connecting to Alexa, an intelligent personal assistant based on machine learning, or the more recent Google Assistant. Our semiotic-oriented – or, more precisely, potentially socio-semiotic/ethno-semiotic – analysis will deal with these issues theoretically by concentrating on the problem of identity, which is anthropologically, but also and above all philosophically, sensitive. We shall look at the impact of technological devices on the perceptive/cognitive systems of human beings, starting with a reflection on the practices of interaction, signification and interpretation that also involve digital objects with a possible impact on everyday life. (shrink)

Cognition is not, and could not possibly be, entirely representational in character. There is also a phenomenal form of cognitive expression that registers the intrinsic properties of mental states themselves. Arguments against the reality of this intrinsic phenomenal dimension to mental experience have focused either on its supposed impossibility, or secondly, the non-appearance of any such qualities to introspection. This paper argues to the contrary, that the registration of cognitive state properties does take place independently of representational content; and necessarily (...) so, since it supports an independent function—self-management. Given the fact that unlike a computer, the brain must, of necessity, operate itself, it needs to be in touch with itself to do so. Intrinsic phenomenal forms of cognitive expression allow the brain to do just that by registering characteristics of the cognitive states themselves. Self-management might well prove to constitute the prime reason for the emergence of subjectivity itself. (shrink)

The preceding article by Marc Bekoff reveals much about our current understanding of animal self-consciousness and its implications. It also reveals how much more there is to be said and considered. This response briefly examines animal self-consciousness from scientific, moral, and theological perspectives. As Bekoff emphasizes, self-consciousness is not one thing but many. Consequently, our moral relationship to animals is not simply one based on a graded hierarchy of abilities. Furthermore, the complexity of animal self-awareness can serve as stimulus for (...) thinking about issues of theodicy and soteriology in a broader sense. (shrink)

Within the philosophy of mind, consciousness is currently understood as the expression of one or other cognitive modality, either intentionality , transparency , subjectivity or reflexivity . However, neither intentionality, subjectivity nor transparency adequately distinguishes conscious from nonconscious cognition. Consequently, the only genuine index or defining characteristic of consciousness is reflexivity, the capacity for autonoetic or self-referring, self-monitoring awareness. But the identification of reflexivity as the principal index of consciousness raises a major challenge in relation to the cognitive mechanism responsible (...) for operationalizing such a reflexive state. Current reliance by higher-order and intrinsic self-representational theories on self-representing data structures to achieve reflexive self-awareness is highly problematic, suggesting a solution in terms of a self-referential processing regime. (shrink)

The “Slicing Problem” is a thought experiment that raises questions for substrate-neutral computational theories of consciousness, including those that specify a certain causal structure for the computation like Integrated Information Theory. The thought experiment uses water-based logic gates to construct a computer in a way that permits cleanly slicing each gate and connection in half, creating two identical computers each instantiating the same computation. The slicing can be reversed and repeated via an on/off switch, without changing the amount of matter (...) in the system. The question is what do different computational theories of consciousness believe is happening to the number and nature of individual conscious units as this switch is toggled. Under a token interpretation, there are now two discrete conscious entities; under a type interpretation, there may remain only one. Both interpretations lead to different implications depending on the adopted theoretical stance. Any route taken either allows mechanisms for “consciousness-multiplying exploits” or requires ambiguous boundaries between conscious entities, raising philosophical and ethical questions for theorists to consider. We discuss resolutions under different theories of consciousness for those unwilling to accept consciousness-multiplying exploits. In particular, we specify three features that may help promising physicalist theories to navigate such thought experiments. (shrink)

: The development of the interdisciplinary areas of cognitive, affective and action neurosciences contributes to the identification of neurobiological bases of conscious experience. The structure of consciousness was philosophically conceived a century ago as consisting of a subjective pole, the bearer of experiences, and an objective pole composed of experienced contents. In more recent formulations, Nagel refers to a “point of view”, in which qualitative experiences are anchored, while Velmans understands that phenomenal content is composed of mental representations “projected” to (...) the space external to the brains that construct them. In Freudian psychology, the conscious mind contains a tension between the Id and the Ego. How to relate this bipolar structure with the results of neuroscience? I propose the notion of projection [also used by Williford et al. ] as a bridge principle connecting the neurobiological systems of knowing, feeling and acting with the bipolar structure. The projective process is considered responsible for the generation of the sense of self and the sense of the world, composing an informational phenomenal field generated by the nervous system and experienced in the first-person perspective. After presenting the projective hypothesis, I discuss its philosophical status, relating it to the phenomenal and high-order thought approaches, and a mathematical model of projection. Eight ways of testing the status of the projective hypothesis are briefly mentioned. Resumo: O desenvolvimento de áreas interdisciplinares das neurociências, contribui para a identificação das bases neurobiológicas da experiência consciente. A estrutura intrínseca da experiência consciente foi filosoficamente concebida há um século como consistindo de um pólo subjetivo, o portador de experiências, e um pólo objetivo, composto dos conteúdos experimentados. Em formulações mais recentes, Thomas Nagel refere-se a um “ponto de vista”, no qual experiências qualitativas são ancoradas, enquanto Max Velmans entende que o conteúdo fenomenal é composto de representações mentais “projetadas” para o espaço externo ao cérebro que as constrói. Na psicologia freudiana, a mente consciente contém uma tensão entre o Id e o Ego. Como relacionar esta estrutura bipolar com os resultados da neurociência? Proponho a noção de projeção como princípio-ponte, conectando os sistemas neurobiológicos do saber, sentir e agir com a estrutura bipolar. O processo projetivo é considerado responsável pela geração do sentido do eu e do sentido do mundo, compondo um campo fenomenal informacional gerado pelo sistema nervoso e vivenciado na perspectiva da primeira pessoa. Após apresentar a hipótese projetiva, discuto seu status filosófico, relacionando-o às abordagens fenomenológicas, à teoria do pensamento de ordem superior e ao modelo matemático da projeção. Oito maneiras de testar o status da hipótese projetiva são brevemente mencionadas. (shrink)

The Nagel inspired “something-it-is-like” conception of conscious experience remains a dominant approach in philosophy. In this paper I criticize a prevalent philosophical construal of SIL consciousness, one that understands SIL as a property of mental states rather than entities as a whole. I argue against thinking of SIL as a property of states, showing how such a view is in fact prevalent, under-warranted, and philosophically pernicious in that it often leads to an implausible reduction of conscious experience to qualia. I (...) then develop a holistic conception of SIL for entities and argue that it has at least equal pre-empirical warrant, is more conservative philosophically in that it decides less from the a priori “armchair,” and enjoys a fruitful two-way relationship with empirical work. (shrink)

The Nagel inspired “something-it-is-like” conception of conscious experience remains a dominant approach in philosophy. In this paper I criticize a prevalent philosophical construal of SIL consciousness, one that understands SIL as a property of mental states rather than entities as a whole. I argue against thinking of SIL as a property of states, showing how such a view is in fact prevalent, under-warranted, and philosophically pernicious in that it often leads to an implausible reduction of conscious experience to qualia. I (...) then develop a holistic conception of SIL for entities and argue that it has at least equal pre-empirical warrant, is more conservative philosophically in that it decides less from the a priori “armchair,” and enjoys a fruitful two-way relationship with empirical work. (shrink)

The mental realm seems different to the physical realm; the mental is thought to be dependent on, yet distinct from the physical. But how, exactly, are the two realms supposed to be different, and what, exactly, creates the seemingly insurmountable juxtaposition between the mental and the physical? This review identifies and discusses five marks of the mental, features that set characteristically mental phenomena apart from the characteristically physical phenomena. These five marks (intentionality, consciousness, free will, teleology, and normativity) are not (...) presented as a set of features that define mentality. Rather, each of them is something we seem to associate with phenomena we consider mental, and each of them seems to be in tension with the physical view of reality in its own particular way. It is thus suggested how there is no single mind-body problem, but a set of distinct but interconnected problems. Each of these separate problems is analyzed, and their differences, similarities and connections are identified. This provides a useful basis for future theoretical work on psychology and philosophy of mind, that until now has too often suffered from unclarities, inadequacies, and conflations. (shrink)

Sentience, defined as the unconscious capacity of having conscious feeling experiences, is a psychobiological phenomenon involving dynamic patterns of electrochemical waves in living systems. The process of feeling can be studied in two ways: a) Empirical identification and analysis of the universal temporal patterns that characterize feeling, forming a science to be called Sentiomics; b) Introspective identification and report of the variety of qualitative conscious experiences, from a first-person perspective, a study that could be called Qualiomics. Qualiomics is undoubtedly a (...) challenge to conventional science, as stated in the “hard problem of consciousness” (Chalmers, 1995), as the first-person perspective is not accessible to conventional scientific measurement methods and explanations. Sentiomics, focusing on dynamic patterns that define the capacity to feel, is therefore susceptible to empirical and experimental treatment. In this article, we propose to contextualize the philosophical assumptions and problems of Sentiomics and present some of its various applications, focusing on its the relation with music. (shrink)

In 1980 grey-headed flying-foxes, a species now listed as "vulnerable to extinction," made camp at the Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne (RBGM). In May 2000 the RBGM started to kill bats. The killing was halted when Humane Society International (HSI) filed for the bats’ protection under federal and state conservation laws. Over the next 13 months, conservationists, garden officials and scientists, politicians, animal activists, and others all played a part in a chain of events that demonstrates the tangled web of scientific (...) involvement in politics and how different views within the scientific community may lead to conflicting positions on conservation strategies. (shrink)

Resumo: O objetivo deste artigo é demonstrar como a teoria da mente estendida, particularmente os argumentos de Andy Clark, pode explicar os processos mentais não como fenômenos restritivos ao cérebro e endossar sua conexão com o corpo e o ambiente. Dessa forma, inicialmente, reconstroem-se as principais perspectivas materialistas que limitaram o self ao crânio; em seguida, aponta-se como o caráter estendido da mente escapa aos seus limites naturais e se mistura “descaradamente” ao mundo. Argumenta-se que artefatos externos desempenham um papel (...) importante na orientação de ações, de modo que mudanças no ambiente podem causar mudanças no comportamento do agente cognitivo, configurando uma dependência constitutiva. Desse modo, a tese da mente estendida desafia tanto o funcionalismo tradicional quanto o externalismo, pois, por um lado, considera os processos cognitivos e os estados mentais como interações relevantes do indivíduo com o ambiente e, por outro, como comportamentos orientados pela intenção. Por meio da integração dos corpos biológicos com artefatos ou ferramentas, sustenta-se uma leitura que dissolve a clássica “lacuna explicativa” das ciências cognitivas. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue for a new solution to Mary’s puzzle in Jackson’s famous knowledge argument. We are told that imprisoned Mary knows all facts or truths about color and color vision. On her release, she learns something new according to B-type of materialism and according to property dualism. I argue that this cognitive improvement can only be accounted for in terms of what Schellenberg has recently called “capacitism,” namely the claim that that experience is constitutively a matter of (...) discriminating and singling out particulars by employing perceptual capacities. Of course, I am not claiming that knowing the phenomenal character is simply the possession of abilities, let alone that the phenomenal character is a sort of know-how. That is why my claim is not affiliated with Lewis and Nemirow's ability hypothesis position. I take for granted here a sort of property-representationalism, according to which the phenomenal character of experience supervenes on the cluster of properties that the respective experiences represent. On her release, Mary acquires those perceptual abilities on the basis of which she learns to discriminate all shades of color. And after applying her old physical concept RED to the shade of red, she comes to know what it is like to experience red (propositional knowledge). (shrink)

Philosophers and psychologists have experimentally explored various aspects of people’s understandings of subjective experience based on their responses to questions about whether robots “see red” or “feel frustrated,” but the intelligibility of such questions may well presuppose that people understand robots as experiencers in the first place. Departing from the standard approach, I develop an experimental framework that distinguishes 20 between “phenomenal consciousness” as it is applied to a subject (an experiencer) and to an (experiential) mental state and experimentally test (...) folk understandings of both subjective experience and experiencers. My findings (1) reveal limitations in experimental approaches using “artificial experiencers” like robots, (2) indicate that the standard philosophical conception of subjective experience in terms of qualia is distinct from that of the folk, and (3) show that folk intuitions do support a conception of qualia that departs from the philosophical conception in that it is physical rather than metaphysical. These findings have implications for the “hard problem” of consciousness. (shrink)

Minimal adversariality consists in the opposition of contradictory conclusions in argumentation, and its usual metaphorical expression as a game between combating arguers has seen it be criticized from a number of perspectives: the language used, whether cooperation best attains the argumentative telos of epistemic betterment, and the ideal nature of the metaphor itself. This paper explores primarily the idealization of deductive argumentation, which is problematic due to its attenuated applicability to a dialectic involving premises and justificatory biases that are left (...) hidden and unelucidated. To clarify the issue and offer up a solution, we consider minimal adversariality as an involuntary state of affairs before relating this interpretation to a link between rational persuasion and the attainment of epistemic betterment. Through this we see how the idealizing tendencies of minimal adversariality can be reduced even in argumentation involving premises whose justifications for any arguer are inaccessible to any other arguer. (shrink)

This paper reflects on the qualities of living and learning in digital cultures, the design of digital technologies and the philosophical history that has informed that design. It takes as its critical perspective the field of embodied cognition as it has developed over the last three decades, in concert with emerging neurophysiology and neurocognitive research. From this perspective the paper considers cognitive, neurological and physiological effects that are increasingly becoming noticed in user populations, especially young populations. I call this class (...) of conditions ‘sensorimotor debility’, to distinguish it from other psychological, social, cultural and political symptoms associated with computer, internet and social media use. (shrink)

A number of philosophers are committed to the view that sense experiences, in so far as they have contents, have propositional contents, but this is more often tacitly accepted than argued for in the literature. This paper explains the propositional account and presents a basic case in support of it in a simple and straightforward way which does not involve commitment to any specific philosophical theory of perception.

We review existing strategies for bringing modal intuitions to bear against materialist theories of consciousness, and then propose a new strategy. Unlike existing strategies, which assume that imagination (suitably constrained) is a good guide to modal truth, the strategy proposed here makes no assumptions about the probative value of imagination. However, unlike traditional modal arguments, the argument developed here delivers only the conclusion that we should not believe that materialism is true, not that we should believe that it is false.

It is generally assumed that if it is possible to believe that p without believing that q, then there is some difference between the object of the thought that p and the object of the thought that q. This assumption is challenged in the present paper, opening the way to an account of epistemic opacity that improves on existing accounts, not least because it casts doubt on various arguments that attempt to derive startling ontological conclusions from seemingly innocent epistemic premises.

In his fascinating new book Games: Agency as Art, Nguyen endorses an experiential requirement on aesthetic judgment: apt aesthetic judgment requires phenomenal experience. His own aesthetics of agency captures three phenomenally manifest and aesthetically significant harmonies (and corresponding disharmonies). But his view can be significantly extended to capture much more of the rich texture of human agency. In this discussion, I argue that emotions of agency, patterns of attention, and affordances all can be phenomenally experienced as aspects of agency, and (...) that each has genuine aesthetic significance. (shrink)

Traditional procedures for rational updating fail when it comes to self-locating opinions, such as your credences about where you are and what time it is. This paper develops an updating procedure for rational agents with self-locating beliefs. In short, I argue that rational updating can be factored into two steps. The first step uses information you recall from your previous self to form a hypothetical credence distribution, and the second step changes this hypothetical distribution to reflect information you have genuinely (...) learned as time has passed. While the second step resembles traditional procedures of updating by conditionalization, the first is best understood by analogy to traditional models of how agents transmit self-locating opinions through ordinary interpersonal communication. (shrink)

Dissociation thought experiments like Zombie and Inverted Spectrum cases play an essential role in the qualia debate. Critics have long since argued that these cases raise serious epistemic issues, undermining first person access to phenomenal states also in normal subjects. Proponents have denied this because, due to their phenomenal experience, normal subjects have epistemic abilities that Zombies don’t have. Here I will present a modified version of these thought experiments: Part-time Zombies and Part-time Inverts switch between normal and abnormal states (...) every now and then. Thus they provide insight into their epistemic situation showing that the mere possibility of Zombies and Inverts has consequences which undermine essential epistemic features of phenomenal properties even in normals. This line of reasoning will be corroborated by theoretical considerations on the epistemic requirements of phenomenal states. All this provides support for the “functional mapping hypothesis.” According to this hypothesis, any significant phenomenal difference can be mapped to a specific functional difference which is accessible from the third person perspective as well. (shrink)

Bering's argument that human beings are endowed with a cognitive system dedicated to forming illusory representations of psychological immortality relies on the claim that children's beliefs in the afterlife are not the result of religious teaching. We suggest four reasons why this claim is unsatisfactory.

As you face a life-defining change, you might ask yourself: Who will I become? This can be understood as a question about the nature and character of your future life, asked from your first person, or subjective, perspective. The nature and character of your conscious, first person, lived experience is a defining constituent of what it is like to be you. Framed this way, knowing the nature of your future lived experience is a way of knowing your future self. In (...) this paper, I explore this way of understanding one’s self and its implications for understanding life-defining changes in high-stakes contexts. My exploration of this way of understanding one’s self highlights the role of experience in grasping perceptual truths, and the importance of imagination, empathy, and testimony in self-understanding and prediction. (shrink)

I argue that newborn infants are conscious. I propose a methodology for investigating infant consciousness, and I present two approaches for determining whether newborns are conscious. First, I consider behavioral and neurobiological markers of consciousness. Second, I investigate the major theories of consciousness, including both philosophical and scientific theories, and I discuss what they predict about infant consciousness.

Humility is widely regarded as a moral excellence and telos, hence, openly inculcated-instructed. Character education in and for humility, however, sits uncomfortably against today’s pedagogical maxims such as self-esteem and self-assertiveness. This article looks into this and other tensions from the perspective of humility as experience (phenomenon) instead of humility as goal. Surveying humility qua experience can help us to understand how the mind directs toward objects of cognition with their content, meaning and axiology. Husserl’s phenomenology and its theory of (...) intuition suggests that humility is a personal belief (doxa) that moral agents construct out of their lived-experiences. Through iterations of similar lived-experiences, humility can become a habitus and, arguably, episteme. This process is detailed by intersecting experience of humility with intentionality, phenomenological reduction, and intersubjectivity. It is argued that, in contemporary education, ‘experience’ is widely accepted as learning content and teaching method. Humility as experience has significant implications for the main schools in curriculum studies, namely traditionalists, conceptualists and phenomenologists. This article claims that inculcating humility poses ethical challenges, and the role of education should instead be to explain and present to learners the phenomenological reality of humility. (shrink)

The relation between conceptual analysis and empirical observations when ascribing or denying concepts and beliefs to non-human animals is not straightforward. In order to reflect on this relation, I focus on two theoretical proposals and one empirical case, the three of which are permanently discussed and considered in the literature on animal cognition. First, I review briefly Davidson’s arguments for denying thought to non-linguistic animals. Second, I review Allen’s criteria for ascribing concepts to creatures capable of correcting their discriminatory powers (...) by taking into account their previous errors. Allen affirms that this is an empirical proposal which offers good reasons, but not necessary or sufficient conditions, for concept attribution. Against Allen, I argue that his important proposal is not an empirical, but a conceptual one. Third, I resort to vervet monkeys to show that Allen’s criteria, and not Davidson’s, are very relevant for ascribing first-order and denying second-order beliefs to this species and thus make sense of the idea of animal cognition. (shrink)

The distinction between phenomenal and access consciousness is central to debates about consciousness and its neural correlates. However, this distinction has often been limited to the domain of perceptual experiences. On the basis of dream phenomenology and neuroscientific findings this paper suggests a theoretical framework which extends this distinction to dreaming, also in terms of plausible neural correlates. In this framework, phenomenal consciousness is involved in both waking perception and dreaming, whereas access consciousness is weakened, but not fully eliminated, during (...) dreaming. However, access consciousness is more active during lucid dreaming. The proposed framework accounts for different aspects of dream phenomenology, including levels of integration of perceptual, cognitive and affective features in dreams, bizarreness, dream amnesia and the occurrence of meta-awareness and accessibility in lucid dreaming. Self-related experiences and their neural substrates are suggested to be differently involved in waking cognition and dreaming. Further, phenomenal consciousness during both waking and dream experiences involve widespread recurrent interactions and convergence-divergence zones in the thalamo-cortico-limbic system, activated before conscious access in global workspace areas. Finally, we discuss the relationships of the proposed framework with other neurocognitive theories and models of consciousness and major theories of dreaming, and propose novel experimental predictions. (shrink)

In this paper, I compare various theories of perception in relation to the question of the epistemological and ontological status of the qualities that appear in perceptual experience. I group these theories into two main views: quality externalism and quality internalism, and I highlight their contrasting problems in accounting for phenomena such as perceptual relativity, illusions and hallucinations. Then, I propose an alternative view, which I call qualitative relationism and which conceives of the subject and the object of perceptual experience (...) as essentially related to one another in a process of co-constitution out of fundamental qualities. I lend support to this view by drawing on Husserl’s genetic phenomenology, which I complement with a form of neutral monism. I argue that the investigation of the temporal structure of perceptual experience leads us to find at its heart a qualitative process that is more fundamental than the two relata of perception and that gives rise to them. Then, I extend this account of perception into a general theory of intentionality and experience and I develop its implications into a neutral monist metaphysics. (shrink)

Dienes and Seth (2010) conclude that confidence ratings and post-decision wagering are two comparable and recommendable measures of conscious experience. In a recently submitted paper, we have however found that both methods are problematic and seem less suited to measure consciousness than a direct introspective measure. Here, we discuss the methodology and conclusions put forward by Dienes and Seth, and why we think the two experiments end up with so different recommendations.