Higher-order representation (HOR) theories posit that the contents of lower-order brain states enter consciousness when tracked by a higher-order brain state. The nature of higher-order monitoring was examined in light of current scientific knowledge, primarily in experimental perceptual psychology. The most plausible candidate for higher-order state was found to be conceptual short-term memory (CSTM), a buffer memory intimately connected with a semantic engine operating in the medium of the language of thought (LOT). This combination meets many of the requirements of (...) HOR theories, although falling short in some significant respects, most notably the inability of higher- order states to represent more than a small fraction of the information contained in primary states, especially in vision. A possible way round this obstacle is suggested, involving the representation of visual detail by means of ensemble concepts. (shrink)

Rolls defends a higher-order thought theory of phenomenal consciousness, mapping the distinction between conscious and non-conscious states onto a distinction between two types of action and corresponding neural pathways. Only one type of action involves higher-order thought and consequently consciousness. This account of consciousness has implausible consequences for the nature of stimulus-reinforcement learning.

This article compares the three frameworks for theories of consciousness that are taken most seriously by neuroscientists, the view that consciousness is a biological state of the brain, the global workspace perspective and an account in terms of higher order states. The comparison features the “explanatory gap” (Nagel, 1974; Levine, 1983) the fact that we have no idea why the neural basis of an experience is the neural basis of that experience rather than another experience or no experience at all. (...) It is argued that the biological framework handles the explanatory gap better than the global workspace of higher order views. The article does not discuss quantum theories or “panpsychist” accounts according to which consciousness is a feature of the smallest particles of inorganic matter (Chalmers, 1996; Rosenberg, 2004). Nor does it discuss the “representationist” proposals (Tye, 2000; Byrne, 2001a) that are popular among philosophers but not neuroscientists. (shrink)

Consciousness is a mongrel concept: there are a number of very different "consciousnesses". Phenomenal consciousness is experience; the phenomenally conscious aspect of a state is what it is like to be in that state.

We have a vast range of conscious experience; from the taste of our favorite food, to the appearance of our favorite art, to the highs of accomplishing our goals, to the excruciating agony of a broken bone, or loss of a loved one, to wondering what time it is, or thinking about what one has to do to name but a few. Our conscious experience can be by turns exhilarating or frightening or overpowering, or just plain dull. Yet though all (...) of this is common place it is quite mysterious how to fit this phenomenon into the natural world. Or so it seems to many philosophers and scientists, who feel, as Descartes did, that there is no hope of giving a scientific account of how consciousness arises in nature. These philosophers see ‘hard problems’ and ‘explanatory gaps’ that lead them to model consciousness as a non-physical phenomenon that is out of the reach of our scientific theories. (shrink)

The terminology surrounding the dispute between higher-order and first-order theories of consciousness is piled so high that it sometimes obscures the view. When the debris is cleared away, there is a real prospect.

Consciousness is the subject of many metaphors, and one of the most hardy perennials compares consciousness to a spotlight, illuminating certain mental goings-on, while leaving others to do their work in the dark. One way of elaborating the spotlight metaphor is this: mental events are loaded on to one end of a conveyer belt by the senses, and move with the belt.

The fact that we can engage in first-person discourse about our own mental states seems, intuitively, to be bound up with consciousness. David Rosenthal draws upon this intuition in arguing for his higher-order thought theory of consciousness. Rosenthal's argument relies upon the assumption that the truth-conditions for "p" and "I think that p" differ. It is argued here that the truth-conditional schema debars "I think" from playing one of its (expressive) roles and thus is not a good test for (...) what is asserted when "I think" is employed in making an assertoric utterance. The critique of Rosenthal's argument allows us to make explicit the intuitions which shape higher-order representation theories of consciousness in general. Consciousness and first-person mental discourse seem to be connected primarily because consciousness is (and was) an epistemic term, used to denote first-person knowledge of minds. Higher-order thought theories of consciousness draw upon this epistemic notion of consciousness, and because self-knowledge seems to involve higher-order representation, the higher-order theorist can deploy what is in effect an "error theory" about conscious experience disguised as a kind of conceptual analysis of our ordinary concept of a conscious mental state. The conclusion reached is that there is unlikely to be a simple or direct path from considerations about mental discourse to conclusions about the nature of consciousness. (shrink)

According to higher-order thought accounts of phenomenal consciousness it is unlikely that many non-human animals undergo phenomenally conscious experiences. Many people believe that this result would have deep and far-reaching consequences. More specifically, they believe that the absence of phenomenal consciousness from the rest of the animal kingdom must mark a radical and theoretically significant divide between ourselves and other animals, with important implications for comparative psychology. I shall argue that this belief is mistaken. Since phenomenal consciousness might be almost (...) epiphenomenal in its functioning within human cognition, its absence in animals may signify only relatively trivial differences in cognitive architecture. Our temptation to think otherwise arises partly as a side-effect of imaginative identification with animal experiences, and partly from mistaken beliefs concerning the aspects of common-sense psychology that carry the main explanatory burden, whether applied to humans or to non-human animals. (shrink)

Following a short introduction, this chapter begins by contrasting two different forms of higher-order perception (HOP) theory of phenomenal consciousness - inner sense theory versus a dispositionalist kind of higher-order thought (HOT) theory - and by giving a brief statement of the superiority of the latter. Thereafter the chapter considers arguments in support of HOP theories in general. It develops two parallel objections against both first-order representationalist (FOR) theories and actualist forms of HOT theory. First, neither can give an adequate (...) account of the distinctive features of our recognitional concepts of experience. And second, neither can explain why there are some states of the relevant kinds that are phenomenal and some that aren. (shrink)

Can phenomenal consciousness be given a reductive natural explanation? Many people argue not. They claim that there is an.

How can phenomenal consciousness exist as an integral part of a physical universe? How can the technicolour phenomenology of our inner lives be created out of the complex neural activities of our brains? Many have despaired of finding answers to these questions; and many have claimed that human consciousness is inherently mysterious. Peter Carruthers argues, on the contrary, that the subjective feel of our experience is fully explicable in naturalistic (scientifically acceptable) terms. Drawing on a variety of interdisciplinary resources, he (...) develops and defends a novel account in terms of higher-order thought. He shows that this can explain away some of the more extravagant claims made about phenomenal consciousness, while substantively explaining the key subjectivity of our experience. Written with characteristic clarity and directness, and surveying a wide range of extant theories, this book is essential reading for all those within philosophy and psychology interested in the problem of consciousness. (shrink)

Many people have thought that consciousness.

Do we think in natural language? Or is language only for communication? Much recent work in philosophy and cognitive science assumes the latter. In contrast, Peter Carruthers argues that much of human conscious thinking is conducted in the medium of natural language sentences. However, this does not commit him to any sort of Whorfian linguistic relativism, and the view is developed within a framework that is broadly nativist and modularist. His study will be essential reading for all those interested in (...) the nature and significance of natural language, whether they come from philosophy, psychology or linguistics. (shrink)

Surely one of the most interesting problems in the study of mind concerns the nature of sentience. How is it that there are sensations, rather than merely sensings? What is it like to be a bat -- or why is it like anything at all? Why aren't we automata or responding but unfeeling Zombies? How does neural activity give rise to subjective experience? As Leibniz put the problem (Monadology section 17):

_It must be confessed, however, that Perception_ [consciousness?]_, and (...) that which depends upon it, are_
_inexplicable by mechanical means, that is to say, by figures and motions. Supposing that there were a_
_machine whose structure produced thought, sensation, and perceptions, we could conceive of it as increased_
_in its interior size with the same proportions until one was able to enter into its interior, as he would into a_
_mill. Now, on going into it he would find only pieces working upon one another, but never would he find_

_anything to explain Perception._ [Montgomery trans.]. (shrink)

Meehan finds fault with a number of my arguments, and proposes that better solutions to the problems I was addressing are available if we adopt a higher-order theory of consciousness. I start with some general remarks on theories of this sort. I connect what I had to say about the A-thesis with different forms of higher-order sense theories, and explain why I ignored higher-order thought theories altogether: there are compelling grounds for thinking they cannot provide a viable account of phenomenal (...) unity in phenomenal terms. Meehan. (shrink)

The so-called 'higher-order thought' (HOT) theory of consciousness says that what makes a mental state conscious is the presence of a suitable higher-order thought directed at it (Rosenthal, 1986; 1990; 1993; 2002; 2004; Gennaro, 1996; 2004). The HOT theory has been or could be attacked from two apparently opposite directions. On the one hand, there is what Stubenberg (1998) has called 'the problem of the rock' which, if successful, would show that the HOT theory proves too much. On the other (...) hand, it might also be alleged that the HOT theory does not or cannot address the so-called 'hard problem' of phenomenal consciousness. If so, then the HOT theory would prove too little. We might say, then, that the HOT theory is arguably between a rock and a hard place. In this paper, I critically examine these objections and defend the HOT theory against them. In doing so, I hope to show that the HOT theory, or at least some version of it, neither proves too little nor too much, but is just right. I also show that these two objections are really just two sides of the same coin, and that the HOT theory is immune from David Chalmers' (1995; 1996) criticisms of other attempted reductionist accounts of consciousness. (shrink)

In Thinking About Consciousness , David Papineau [2002] presents a criticism of so-called 'actualist HOT theories of consciousness'. The HOT theory, held most notably by David Rosenthal, claims that the best explanation for what makes a mental state conscious is that it is the object of an actual higher-order thought directed at the mental state. Papineau contends that actualist HOT theory faces an awkward problem in relation to higher-order memory judgements; for example, that the theory cannot explain how one could (...) later recall an earlier experience that was not introspected. He argues that, on the HOT theory, we are even left with the absurd conclusion that the consciousness of, say, an earlier visual experience might even depend on the later act of memory. I show that Papineau's criticism of actualist HOT theory not only fails, but also that it seriously mischaracterizes and underestimates the theory. In particular, Papineau badly conflates the crucial difference between an introspective state (i.e., where a conscious HOT is directed at a mental state) and an outer-directed first-order conscious state (i.e., a case where one has a nonconscious HOT). (shrink)

[Final version in Philosophical Papers, 2000] Much has been made over the past few decades of two related problems in aesthetics. First, the "feeling fiction problem," as I will call it, asks: is it rational to be moved by what happens to fictional characters? How can we care about what happens to people who we know are not real?[i] Second, the so-called "paradox of tragedy" is embodied in the question: Why or how is it that we take pleasure in artworks (...) (e.g. tragedies) which are clearly designed to cause in us such feelings as sadness and fear?[ii] Various solutions to these puzzles have been proposed, but my primary aim is neither to offer a novel solution nor to summarize and critique most of the alternatives.[iii] My focus instead will be on the issue of consciousness and, more specifically, to view these problems from the point of the view of the so-called "higher-order thought theory of consciousness" (the HOT theory). Although some work on these puzzles have raised important questions about the nature of consciousness and "aesthetic experience," no attempt has yet been made to examine them in light of a specific theory. (shrink)

This interdisciplinary work contains the most sustained attempt at developing and defending one of the few genuine theories of consciousness.

William Lycan has articulated “a simple argument” for higher-order representation (HOR) theories of a variety of consciousness sometimes labeled ‘awareness consciousness’ (Lycan, Analysis 61.1, January 3–4, 2001). The purpose of this article is to critically assess the influential argument-strategy of the simple argument. I argue that, as stated, the simple argument fails since it is invalid. Moreover, I argue that an obvious “quick fix” would beg the question against competing same-order representation (SOR) theories of awareness consciousness. I then provide a (...) reconstruction of the argument and argue that although the reconstructed argument deserves consideration, it is also too simple as stated. In particular, it raises several controversial questions about the nature of mental representation. These questions must be addressed before a verdict as to the cogency of the HOR argument-strategy can be reached. But since the questions are controversial, a cogent argument for HOR theories of awareness consciousness is unlikely to be simple. (shrink)

Higher Order theories of consciousness have their fair share of sympathisers, but the arguments mustered in their support are—to my mind—unduly persuasive. My aim in this paper is to show that Higher Order theories cannot accommodate the possibility of misrepresentation without either falling into contradiction, or collapsing into a First-Order theory. If this diagnosis is on the right track, then Higher Order theories—at least in the specific versions here considered—fail to give an account of what they set out to explain: (...) what is distinctive of ‘conscious’ phenomena. (shrink)

I argue against such "Relation Intentionalist" theories of consciousness as the higher-order thought and inner sense views on the grounds that they understand a subject's awareness of his or her phenomenal characters to be intentional, like seeming-seeing, rather than "direct", like seeing. The trouble with such views is that they reverse the order of explanation between phenomenal character and intentional awareness. A superior theory of consciousness, based on views expressed by Russell and Price, takes the relation of awareness to be (...) a nonintentional "acquaintance". (shrink)

In this paper we present a two-stage argument against Peter Carruthers' theory of phenomenal consciousness. The first stage shows that Carruthers' main argument against first-order representational theories of phenomenal consciousness applies with equal force against his own theory. The second stage shows that if Carruthers can escape his own argument against first-order theories, it will come at the cost of wedding his theory to certain unwelcome implausibilities. discusses Carruthers' argument against first-order representationalism. presents Carruthers' theory of consciousness. presents our argument (...) against Carruthers' theory. sums up. (shrink)

The field of metacognition, richly sampled in the book under review, is recognized as an important and growing branch of psychology. However, the field stands in need of a general theory that (1) provides a unified framework for understanding the variety of metacognitive processes, (2) articulates the relation between metacognition and consciousness, and (3) tells us something about the form of meta-level representations and their relations to object-level representations. It is argued that the higher-order thought theory of consciousness supplies us (...) with the rudiments of a theory that meets these desiderata and integrates the principal findings reported in this collection. (shrink)

b>. One major problem many hypotheses regarding the neural correlate of consciousness (NCC) face is what we might call “the why question”: _why _would this particular neural feature, rather than another, correlate with consciousness? The purpose of the present paper is to develop an NCC hypothesis that answers this question. The proposed hypothesis is inspired by the Cross-Order Integration (COI) theory of consciousness, according to which consciousness arises from the functional integration of a first-order representation of an external stimulus and (...) a second-order representation of that first-order representation. The proposal comes in two steps. The first step concerns the “general shape” of the NCC and can be directly derived from COI theory. The second step is a concrete hypothesis that can be arrived at by combining the general shape with empirical considerations. (shrink)

One of the distinctive properties of conscious states is the peculiar self- awareness implicit in them. Two rival accounts of this self-awareness are discussed. According to a Neo-Brentanian account, a mental state M is conscious iff M represents its very own occurrence. According to the Higher-Order Monitoring account, M is merely accompanied by a numerically distinct representation of its occurrence. According to both, then, M is conscious in virtue of figuring in a higher-order content. The disagreement is over the question (...) whether the higher-order content is carried by M itself or by a differ- ent state. While the Neo-Brentanian theory is phenomenologically more attractive, it is often felt to be somewhat mysterious. It is argued (i) that the difference between the Neo- Brentanian and Higher-Order Monitoring theories is smaller and more empirical than may initially seem, and (ii) that the Neo-Brentanian theory can be readily demystified. These considerations make it prima facie preferable to the Higher-Order Monitoring theory. (shrink)

It is usually taken as given that consciousness involves superior or more elaborate forms of information processing. Contemporary models equate consciousness with global processing, system complexity, or depth or stability of computation. This is in stark contrast with the powerful philosophical intuition that being conscious is more than just having the ability to compute. I argue that it is also incompatible with current empirical findings. I present a model that is free from the strong assumption that consciousness predicts superior performance. (...) The model is based on Bayesian decision theory, of which signal detection theory is a special case. It reflects the fact that the capacity for perceptual decisions is fundamentally limited by the presence and amount of noise in the system. To optimize performance, one therefore needs to set decision criteria that are based on the behaviour, i.e. the probability distributions, of the internal signals. One important realization is that the knowledge of how our internal signals behave statistically has to be learned over time. Essentially, we are doing statistics on our own brain. This ‘higherorder’ learning, however, may err, and this impairs our ability to set and maintain optimal criteria for perceptual decisions, which I argue is central to perception consciousness. I outline three possibilities of how conscious perception might be affected by failures of ‘higher-order’ representation. These all imply that one can have a dissociation between consciousness and performance. This model readily explains blindsight and hallucinations in formal terms, and is beginning to receive direct empirical support. I end by discussing some philosophical implications of the model. (shrink)

I have very little disagreement with Carruthers' article, for our views are very similar. I think he is terminologically a bit hard on Michael Tye. I think that in invoking Swampman he is in danger of conflating teleological theories of representation with etiological theories of teleology. In response to his criticism of my own higher-order experience (HOE) view, I argue that there is good reason to believe that we human beings sport as great a degree of computational complexity as is (...) needed for HOEs. If other animals do not exhibit a comparable degree, we should deny that they have "phenomenal-consciousness" in the strong sense of that term. (shrink)

Locke put forward the theory of consciousness as "internal Sense" or "reflection"; Kant made it inner sense, by means of which the mind intuits itself or its inner state." ¹ On that theory, consciousness is a perception-like second-order representing of our own psychological states events. The term "consciousness," of course, has many distinct uses.

Higher-Order Representational theories of consciousness — HORs — primarily seek to explain a mental state’s being conscious in terms of the mental state’s being represented by another mental state. First-Order Representational theories of consciousness — FORs — primarily seek to explain a property’s being phenomenal in terms of the property being represented in experience. Despite differences in both explanans and explananda, HORs and FORs share a reliance on there being such a property as being represented. In this paper I develop (...) an argument — the Unicorn Argument — against both HORs and FORs. The core of the Unicorn is that since there are mental rep- resentations of things that do not exist, there cannot be any such prop- erty as being represented, and thus no such property with which to identify either being conscious or being phenomenal. (shrink)

David Rosenthal's higher-order thought (HOT) theory is one of the most widely argued for of the higher-order accounts of consciousness. I argue that Rosenthal vacillates between two models of the HOT theory. First, I argue that these models employ different concepts of 'state consciousness'; the two concepts each refer to mental state tokens, but in virtue of different properties. In one model, the concept of 'state consciousness' is more consistent with how the term is typically used, both by philosophers and (...) scientists, and in commonsense usage. This model, however, also has its problems. In the second part of the paper, I develop a modified version of Rosenthal's transitivity principle, thereby avoiding some complications that stem from the original transitivity principle. I suggest that Rosenthal occasionally employs this modified model himself, and that the inconsistency identified in the first section of this paper might really reflect Rosenthal's vacillation between these two versions of the transitivity principle. I offer one explanation for how this equivocation may have occurred. These two versions would result if articulations of the transitivity principle employed the term 'mental state' inconsistently, to refer on some occasions merely to mental state types, and on others, to tokened mental states. I conclude by arguing, contrary to Rosenthal and others, that the theory is not incompatible with view that conscious states are uniquely casual efficacious. (shrink)

The present article distinguishes three kinds of accounts of direct (reflective) awareness (i.e. awareness of one's mental occurrences causally unmediated by any other mental occurrence): mental-eye theory, self-intimational theory and appendage theory. These aim to explain the same phenomenon, though each proposes that direct (reflective) awareness occurs in a fundamentally different way. Also, I address a crucial problem that appendage theory must solve: how does a direct (reflective) awareness succeed in being awareness specifically of the particular mental-occurrence instance that is (...) its object? Appendage theory is singled out for this attention because psychologists, as they embark on their renewed study of consciousness, are most likely to be attracted by appendage theory for their explanation of direct (reflective) awareness. (shrink)

Dienes & Perner offer us a theory of explicit and implicit knowledge that promises to systematise a large and diverse body of research in cognitive psychology. Their advertised strategy is to unpack this distinction in terms of explicit and implicit representation. But when one digs deeper one finds the “Higher-Order Thought” theory of consciousness doing much of the work. This reduces both the plausibility and usefulness of their account. We think their strategy is broadly correct, but that consensus on the (...) explicit/implicit knowledge distinction is still a fair way off. (shrink)

Through the utilization of a descriptive illustration and detailed referencing of Carruthers (2000), a comparison of Hierarchical Systems theory (Pharoah, 2007) with Dispositional Higher-Order Thought theory identifies and reinforces their complementary status. However, this also determines some key distinctions, particularly with regard to the conclusions each make regarding the mentality of animals and the autistic, and regarding the moral consequences of these conclusions.

This paper develops an empirically motivated theory of visual consciousness. It begins by outlining neuropsychological support for Jackendoff's (1987) hypothesis that visual consciousness involves mental representations at an intermediate level of processing. It then supplements that hypothesis with the further requirement that attention, which can come under the direction of high level representations, is also necessary for consciousness. The resulting theory is shown to have a number of philosophical consequences. If correct, higher-order thought accounts, the multiple drafts account, and the (...) widely held belief that sensation precedes perception will all be found wanting. The theory will also be used to illustrate and defend a methodology that fills the gulf between functionalists who ignore the brain and neural reductionists who repudiate functionalism. (shrink)

in Encyclopedia of Consciousness, ed. William P. Banks, Amsterdam: Elsevier, forthcoming in 2009.

in Mind and Consciousness: Five Questions, ed. Patrick Grim, New York and London: Automatic Press, forthcoming.

(not intended for publication), Replies to Strawson and Block in Colloquium at the CUNY Graduate Center, December 13, 2006.

MS., for an Eastern Division APA Author-Meets-Critics Session on Dorit Bar-On, Speaking My Mind: Expression and Self-Knowledge, Baltimore, December 2007.

But there is another reason, equally important. We distinguish among thoughts, feelings, and sensations by virtue of their characteristic representational properties. In particular, we describe thoughts and emotions in terms of the things they are about and how they represent those things. And we characterize sensations by reference to their qualitative properties and the things..

PowerPoint presentation at Tucson VII, Toward a Science of Consciousness 2006, session on Self-Representational Approaches to Consciousness.

Few contemporary researchers in psychology, philosophy, and the cognitive sciences have any doubt about whether mental phenomena occur without being conscious. There is extensive and convincing clinical and experimental evidence for the existence of thoughts, desires, and related mental states that aren’t conscious. We characterize thoughts, desires, intentions, expectations, hopes, and many other mental states in terms of the things they are about and, more fully, in terms of their content, as captured by a sentence nominalization, such as a clause (...) beginning with the word ‘that’. The philosophical literature follows Franz Brentano’s adaptation of Thomist terminology in referring to all such states as intentional states. But there is another type of mental phenomena, which lack intentionality and whose mental nature consists instead of some qualitative feature. These states include bodily sensations, such as aches and pains, and perceptual states, such as visual sensations of color and tactile sensations of heat and cold. And these states all exhibit some mental quality or another, such as the mental quality distinctive of pain or the mental quality of red or blue.1 And even theorists who acknowledge that intentional states can and do occur without being conscious have sometimes insisted that qualitative states cannot. There is, according to these theorists, nothing to a state’s being qualitative or exhibiting some mental quality unless that state is conscious – unless it is, as we might metaphorically say, “lighted up”. It’s striking that Freud himself seems to have adopted this double standard toward the two types of mental state. In his metapsychological paper, “The Unconscious”, for example, he writes that “all the categories which we employ to describe conscious mental acts, such as ideas, purposes, resolutions, and so forth, can be applied to [unconscious mental occurrences]” (Freud 1915e, p. 168). But he seems here to have in.. (shrink)

Remarks such as ‘I am in pain’ and ‘I think that it’s raining’ are puzzling, since they seem to literally describe oneself as being in pain or having a particular thought, but their conditions of use tend to coincide with unequivocal expressions of pain or of that thought. This led Wittgenstein, among others, to treat such remarks as expressing, rather than as reporting, one’s mental states. Though such expressivism is widely recognized as untenable, Bar-On has recently advanced a neo-expressivist view, (...) on which such remarks exhibit characteristics of both expressions of mental states and reports of those states. I argue against any attempt to see such remarks as both reporting and expressing the same mental states, and that a correct account rests on distinguishing the truth conditions of such remarks from their conditions of use. (shrink)

All mental states, including thoughts, feelings, perceptions, and sensations, often occur consciously. But they all occur also without being conscious. So the first thing a theory of consciousness must do is explain the difference between thoughts, feelings, perceptions, and sensations that are conscious and those which are not.

I. Zombies and the Knowledge Argument John Perry.

The problem of consciousness is to say what it is for some of our thoughts, feelings, and sensations to be conscious, given that others are not. This is different from saying what it is for a person to be conscious or not conscious. Even when people are conscious, many of their thoughts and sensations typically are not. And there's nothing problematic about a person's being conscious; it's just the person's being awake and responsive to sensory input.

Because metacognition consists in our having mental access to our cognitive states and mental states are conscious only when we are conscious of them in some suitable way, metacognition and consciousness shed important theoretical light on one another. Thus, our having metacognitive access to information carried by states that are not conscious helps con?rm the hypothesis that a mental state.

Because there is a fair amount of overlap in the points by Balog and Rey, I will organize this response topically, referring specifically to each commentator as rele- vant. And, because much of the discussion focuses on my higher-order-thought (HOT) hypothesis independent of questions about metacognition, I will begin by addressing a cluster of issues that have to do with the status, motivation, and exact formulation of that hypothesis.

Recent writing on consciousness has increasingly stressed ways in which the terms.

be realized. Whatever gets access to phenomenal awareness (to consciousness and P-consciousness are almost always present or P-consciousness as described by Block) is represented within this absent together.

Theories of what it is for a mental state to be conscious must answer two questions. We must say how we're conscious of our conscious mental states. And we must explain why we seem to be conscious of them in a way that's immediate. Thomas Natsoulas (1993) distinguishes three strategies for explaining what it is for mental states to be conscious. I show that the differences among those strategies are due to the divergent answers they give to the foregoing questions. (...) Natsoulas finds most promising the strategy that amounts to the higher-order-thought hypothesis that I've defended elsewhere. But he raises a difficulty for it, which he thinks probably can be met only by modifying that strategy. I argue that this is unnecessary. The difficulty is a special case of a general question, the answer to which is independent of any issues about consciousness. So it's no part of a theory of consciousness to address the problem, much less solve it. Moreover, the difficulty seems to have intuitive force only given the picture that underlies the other two explanatory strategies, which both Natsoulas and I reject. (shrink)