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Summary Higher-order theories of consciousness seek to explain the difference between conscious mental states and unconscious mental states. We have both common sense as well as scientific reasons to think that mental functioning can occur both consciously and unconsciously. Higher-order theories explain this difference in terms of our having some kind of (unconscious) higher-order awareness which makes it the case that I am aware of myself as being in some mental state. The claim that a conscious mental state is one which I am in some suitable way aware of myself as being in is commonly referred to as the Transitivity Principle.
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Higher-Order Thought Theories of Consciousness
  1. Richard E. Aquila (1990). Consciousness as Higher-Order Thoughts: Two Objections. American Philosophical Quarterly 27 (1):81-87.
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  2. Uziel Awret (2008). Las Meninas and the Search for Self-Representation. Journal of Consciousness Studies 15 (9):7-34.
    The article will attempt to show that Velasquez's Las Meninas can be viewed as an allegorical enactment of some of the current debates and controversies in the philosophy of cognition and self-representation. I will focus on two very different philosophical trajectories, to which the allegory of the painting can be linked. The first, analytic, trajectory relates Las Meninas to the notion of representation and self-representation in the work of philosophers David Rosenthal, Robert Van Gulick, Uriah Kriegel and Bruce Mangan, and (...)
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  3. Katalin Balog (2000). Phenomenal Judgment and the HOT Theory: Comments on David Rosenthal’s “Consciousness, Content, and Metacognitive Judgments”. Consciousness and Cognition 9 (2):215-219.
    In this commentary I criticize David Rosenthal’s higher order thought theory of consciousness (HOT). This is one of the best articulated philosophical accounts of consciousness available. The theory is, roughly, that a mental state is conscious in virtue of there being another mental state, namely, a thought to the effect that one is in the first state. I argue that this account is open to the objection that it makes “HOT-zombies” possible, i.e., creatures that token higher order mental states, but (...)
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  4. John Beeckmans (2007). Can Higher-Order Representation Theories Pass Scientific Muster? Journal of Consciousness Studies 14 (s 9-10):90-111.
    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 (...)
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  5. Jacob Berger (2013). Consciousness is Not a Property of States: A Reply to Wilberg. Philosophical Psychology.
    According to Rosenthal’s higher-order thought (HOT) theory of consciousness, one is in a conscious mental state if and only if one is aware of oneself as being in that state via a suitable HOT. Several critics have argued that the possibility of so-called targetless HOTs—that is, HOTs that represent one as being in a state that does not exist—undermines the theory. Recently, Wilberg (2010) has argued that HOT theory can offer a straightforward account of such cases: since consciousness is a (...)
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  6. José Luis Bermúdez (2000). Consciousness, Higher-Order Thought, and Stimulus Reinforcement. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 23 (2):194-195.
    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.
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  7. Thomas Bittner (2007). Consciousness: Essays From a Higher-Order Perspective - By Peter Carruthers. Philosophical Books 48 (1):84-86.
  8. N. Block (2011). Response to Rosenthal and Weisberg. Analysis 71 (3):443-448.
  9. Ned Block, Comparing the Major Theories of Consciousness.
    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. (...)
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  10. Ned Block, Some Concepts of Consciousness.
    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.
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  11. Ned Block (2011). The Higher Order Approach to Consciousness is Defunct. Analysis 71 (3):419-431.
    The higher order approach to consciousness attempts to build a theory of consciousness from the insight that a conscious state is one that the subject is conscious of. There is a well-known objection1 to the higher order approach, a version of which is fatal. Proponents of the higher order approach have realized that the objection is significant. They have dealt with it via what David Rosenthal calls a “retreat” (2005b, p. 179) but that retreat fails to solve the problem.
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  12. Manuel Bremer (2008). Peter Carruthers, Consciousness: Essays From a Higher-Order Perspective. Minds and Machines 18 (3).
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  13. Bruce Bridgeman (1992). Consciousness and Memory. Psycoloquy.
    Rosenthal makes assertions about what can and cannot happen without being conscious. Although his distinctions are informative, they do not substitute for data. We have little precise information that differentiates the immediate feeling of awareness, such as that possible for Korsakoff patients, from the later episodic memory of conscious experience. Appeals to introspection are useful starting points, but they are clearly are not to be trusted in this context. Rosenthal also asks why conscious thinking would be more efficacious than thinking (...)
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  14. Richard Brown (2012). Two Concepts of Transitive Consciousness: Review of Rocco J. Gennaro 'The Consciousness Paradox: Consciousness, Concepts, and Higher-Order Thoughts'. [REVIEW] Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews.
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  15. Richard Brown (2012). Editorial: Standing on the Verge: Lessons and Limits From the Empirical Study of Consciousness. Consciousness and Cognition 21 (2):597-599.
    The papers in this special issue are all descended from papers presented at the second Online Consciousness Conference. I founded the Online Consciousness Conference at Consciousness Online (http://consciousnessonline.wordpress.com) in 2008 mostly because no one else would. Being inspired by the Online Philosophy Conference, I mentioned to several people that it would be great if we had something like that in Consciousness Studies. People I talked to were very enthusiastic but no one seemed like they wanted to initiate the process. I (...)
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  16. Richard Brown (2012). The Brain and its States. In Shimon Edelman, Tomer Fekete & Neta Zach (eds.), Being in Time: Dynamical Models of Phenomenal Experience. John Benjamins.
    In recent times we have seen an explosion in the amount of attention paid to the conscious brain from scientists and philosophers alike. One message that has emerged loud and clear from scientific work is that the brain is a dynamical system whose operations unfold in time. Any theory of consciousness that is going to be physically realistic must take account of the intrinsic nature of neurons and brain activity. At the same time a long discussion on consciousness among philosophers (...)
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  17. Richard Brown (2012). The Myth of Phenomenological Overflow. Consciousness and Cognition 21 (2):599-604.
    In this paper I examine the dispute between Hakwan Lau, Ned Block, and David Rosenthal over the extent to which empirical results can help us decide between first-order and higher-order theories of consciousness. What emerges from this is an overall argument to the best explanation against the first-order view of consciousness and the dispelling of the mythological notion of phenomenological overflow that comes with it.
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  18. Richard Brown & Pete Mandik, On Whether the Higher-Order Thought Theory of Consciousness Entails Cognitive Phenomenology or What is It Like to Think That One Thinks That P?
    Among our conscious states are conscious thoughts. The question at the center of the recent growing literature on cognitive phenomenology is this: In consciously thinking P, is there thereby any phenomenology—is there something it’s like? One way of clarifying the question is to say that it concerns whether there is any proprietary phenomenology associated with conscious thought. Is there any phenomenology due to thinking, as opposed to phenomenology that is due to some co-occurring sensation or mental image? In this paper (...)
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  19. Derek Browne (1999). Carruthers on the Deficits of Animals. Psyche 5 (23).
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  20. Alex Byrne (2004). What Phenomenal Consciousness is Like. In Rocco J. Gennaro (ed.), Higher-Order Theories of Consciousness: An Anthology. John Benjamins.
    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.
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  21. Alex Byrne (1997). Some Like It HOT: Consciousness and Higher-Order Thoughts. Philosophical Studies 2 (2):103-29.
    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.
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  22. Neil Campbell Manson (2002). What Does Language Tell Us About Consciousness? First-Person Mental Discourse and Higher-Order Thought Theories of Consciousness. Philosophical Psychology 15 (3):221 – 238.
    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 (...)
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  23. Peter Carruthers, Higher-Order Theories of Consciousness. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
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  24. Peter Carruthers (2007). Higher-Order Theories of Consciousness. In Max Velmans & Susan Schneider (eds.), The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness. Blackwell.
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  25. Peter Carruthers (2005). Consciousness: Essays From a Higher-Order Perspective. Oxford University Press.
    The first half of the volume is devoted to developing, elaborating, and defending against competitors one particular sort ofreductive explanation of phenomenal ...
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  26. Peter Carruthers (2005). Why the Question of Animal Consciousness Might Not Matter Very Much. Philosophical Psychology 18 (1):83-102.
    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 (...)
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  27. Peter Carruthers (2004). Hop Over FOR, HOT Theory. In Rocco J. Gennaro (ed.), Higher-Order Theories of Consciousness: An Anthology. John Benjamins.
    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 (...)
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  28. Peter Carruthers (2003). Phenomenal Concepts and Higher-Order Experiences. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 68 (2):316-336.
    Relying on a range of now-familiar thought-experiments, it has seemed to many philosophers that phenomenal consciousness is beyond the scope of reductive explanation. (Phenomenal consciousness is a form of state-consciousness, which contrasts with creature-consciousness, or perceptual-consciousness. The different forms of state-consciousness include various kinds of access-consciousness, both first-order and higher-order--see Rosenthal, 1986; Block, 1995; Lycan, 1996; Carruthers, 2000. Phenomenal consciousness is the property that mental states have when it is like something to possess them, or when they have subjectively-accessible feels; (...)
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  29. Peter Carruthers, Precis of Phenomenal Consciousness: A Naturalistic Theory.
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  30. Peter Carruthers (2001). Consciousness: Explaining the Phenomena. In D. Walsh (ed.), Evolution, Naturalism and Mind. Cambridge University Press.
    Can phenomenal consciousness be given a reductive natural explanation? Many people argue not. They claim that there is an.
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  31. Peter Carruthers, Reply to Seager.
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  32. Peter Carruthers (2000). Phenomenal Consciousness: A Naturalistic Theory. Cambridge University Press.
    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 (...)
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  33. Peter Carruthers (2000). Replies to Critics: Explaining Subjectivity. Psyche 6 (3).
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  34. Peter Carruthers (1998). Natural Theories of Consciousness. European Journal of Philosophy 6 (2):203-22.
    Many people have thought that consciousness.
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  35. Peter Carruthers (1997). Fragmentary Versus Reflexive Consciousness. Mind and Language 12 (2):181-95.
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  36. Peter Carruthers (1996). Language, Thought, and Consciousness. Cambridge University Press.
    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 (...)
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  37. Peter Carruthers (1992). Consciousness and Concepts. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 66 (66):41-59.
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  38. Peter Carruthers (1989). Brute Experience. Journal of Philosophy 86 (May):258-269.
  39. Gregg Caruso (2012). Free Will and Consciousness: A Determinist Account of the Illusion of Free Will. Lexington Books.
    In recent decades, with advances in the behavioral, cognitive, and neurosciences, the idea that patterns of human behavior may ultimately be due to factors beyond our conscious control has increasingly gained traction and renewed interest in the age-old problem of free will. In this book I examine both the traditional philosophical problems long associated with the question of free will, such as the relationship between determinism and free will, as well as recent experimental and theoretical work directly related to consciousness (...)
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  40. David J. Cole, Sense and Sentience.
    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 (...)
    _anything to explain Perception._ [Montgomery trans.]. (shrink)
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  41. Rebecca Copenhaver (2007). Reid on Consciousness: Hop, Hot or For? Philosophical Quarterly 57 (229):613-634.
    Thomas Reid claims to share Locke's view that consciousness is a kind of inner sense. This is puzzling, given the role the inner-sense theory plays in indirect realism and in the theory of ideas generally. I argue that Reid does not in fact hold an inner-sense theory of consciousness and that his view differs importantly from contemporary higher-order theories of consciousness. For Reid, consciousness is a first-order representational process in which a mental state with a particular content suggests the application (...)
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  42. Barry F. Dainton (2004). Higher-Order Consciousness and Phenomenal Space: Reply to Meehan. Psyche 10 (1).
    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 (...)
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  43. Daniel C. Dennett (1991). Lovely and Suspect Qualities. In Enrique Villanueva (ed.), [Book Chapter]. Ridgeview.
    A family of compelling intuitions work to keep "the problem of consciousness" systematically insoluble, and David Rosenthal, in a series of papers including the one under discussion, has been resolutely driving these intuitions apart, exposing them individually to the light, and proposing alternatives. In this instance the intuition that has seemed sacrosanct, but falls to his analysis, is the intuition that "sensory quality" and consciousness are necessarily united: that, for instance, there could not be unconscious pains, or unconscious subjective shades (...)
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  44. Zoltán Dienes (2004). Assumptions of Subjective Measures of Unconscious Mental States: Higher Order Thoughts and Bias. Journal of Consciousness Studies 11 (9):25-45.
  45. Fred Dretske (1995). Are Experiences Conscious? In Fred Dretske (ed.), Naturalizing the Mind. Mit Press.
  46. Fred Dretske (1993). Conscious Experience. Mind 102 (406):263-283.
  47. Paula Droege, Higher-Order Theories of Consciousness. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
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  48. Paula Droege (2003). Caging the Beast: A Theory of Sensory Consciousness. John Benjamins.
    CHAPTER On sensory consciousness Consciousness, like love, is something so intimate and vital to our sense of ourselves as human, that explanation, ...
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  49. Donelson E. Dulany (2004). Higher Order Representation in a Mentalistic Metatheory. In Rocco J. Gennaro (ed.), Higher-Order Theories of Consciousness: An Anthology. John Benjamins.
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  50. Robert Francescotti (1995). Higher-Order Thoughts and Conscious Experience. Philosophical Psychology 8 (3):239-254.
    For nearly a decade, David Rosenthal has proposed that a mental state M of a creature C is conscious just in case C has a suitable higher-order thought directed toward M. While this theory has had its share of criticism in recent years, I believe that the real difficulties have been ignored. In this essay, I show that the presence of a higher order is insufficient for conscious experience, even if we suppose that the thought satisfies the constraints that Rosenthal (...)
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  51. Rocco Gennaro (2008). Representation of a Representation: Reflections on Las Meninas. Journal of Consciousness Studies 15 (9):47-50.
    Diego Velasquez's Las Meninas (The Maids of Honour) is an intriguing work of representational art. It seems to me that there are two central ways to analyse the painting as involving some kind of 'representation of a representation'.
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  52. Rocco J. Gennaro, Visual Agnosia and Higher- Order Thought Theory.
    In general, the idea is that what makes a mental state conscious is that it is the object of some kind of higher-order representation (HOR). A mental state M becomes conscious when there is a HOR of M. A HOR is a “meta-psychological” state, i.e. a mental state directed at another mental state. So, for example, my desire to do a good powerpoint presentation becomes conscious when I am (non-inferentially) “aware” of the desire. Intuitively, it seems that conscious states, as (...)
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  53. Rocco J. Gennaro (2011). The Consciousness Paradox: Consciousness, Concepts, and Higher-Order Thoughts. Mit Pr.
    In The Consciousness Paradox, Rocco Gennaro aims to solve an underlying paradox, namely, how it is possible to hold a number of seemingly inconsistent views, including higher-order thought (HOT) theory, conceptualism, infant and animal ...
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  54. Rocco J. Gennaro (2008). Are There Pure Conscious Events? In Chandana Chakrabarti & Gordon Haist (eds.), Revisiting Mysticism. Cambridge Scholars Press.
    There has been much discussion about the nature and even existence of so-called “pure conscious events” (PCEs). PCEs are often described as mental events which are non-conceptual and lacking all experiential content (Forman 1990). For a variety of reasons, a number of authors have questioned both the accuracy of such a characterization and even the very existence of PCEs (Katz 1978, Bagger 1999). In this chapter, I take a somewhat different, but also critical, approach to the nature and possibility of (...)
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  55. Rocco J. Gennaro (2005). The HOT Theory of Consciousness: Between a Rock and a Hard Place. Journal of Consciousness Studies 12 (2):3-21.
    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 (...)
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  56. Rocco J. Gennaro (2004). Higher-Order Thoughts, Animal Consciousness, and Misrepresentation: A Reply to Carruthers and Levine. In Rocco J. Gennaro (ed.), Higher-Order Theories of Consciousness: An Anthology. John Benjamins.
  57. Rocco J. Gennaro (2004). Higher-Order Theories of Consciousness: An Overview. In Rocco J. Gennaro (ed.), Higher-Order Theories of Consciousness. John Benjamin.
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  58. Rocco J. Gennaro (2003). Papineau on the Actualist HOT Theory of Consciousness. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 81 (4):581-586.
    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 (...)
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  59. Rocco J. Gennaro (2002). Jean-Paul Sartre and the HOT Theory of Consciousness. Canadian Journal of Philosophy 32 (3):293-330.
  60. Rocco J. Gennaro (2000). Fiction, Pleasurable Tragedy, and the HOT Theory of Consciousness. Philosophical Papers 29 (2):107-20.
    [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 (...)
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  61. Rocco J. Gennaro (1996). Consciousness and Self-Consciousness: A Defense of the Higher-Order Thought Theory of Consciousness. John Benjamins.
    This interdisciplinary work contains the most sustained attempt at developing and defending one of the few genuine theories of consciousness.
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  62. Rocco J. Gennaro (1993). Brute Experience and the Higher-Order Thought Theory of Consciousness. Philosophical Papers 22 (1):51-69.
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  63. Mikkel Gerken (2008). Is There a Simple Argument for Higher-Order Representation Theories of Awareness Consciousness? Erkenntnis 69 (2):243-259.
    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 (...)
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  64. Isabel Gois (2010). A Dilemma for Higher-Order Theories of Consciousness. Philosophia 38 (1).
    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: (...)
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  65. David Miguel Gray (forthcoming). HOT: Keeping Up Appearances? Southern Philosophical Review.
    David Rosenthal and Josh Weisberg have recently provided a counter argument to Ned Block’s argument that a Higher Order Thought (HOT) theory of consciousness cannot accommodate the existence of hallucinatory conscious states (i.e. a conscious episode consisting of a HOT without the presence of a relevant lower order thought). Their counter argument invokes the idea of mental appearances: a non-existent intentional object which is to aid in an account of subjective conscious awareness. I argue that if mental appearances are to (...)
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  66. Guven Guzeldere (1996). Consciousness and the Introspective Link Principle. In Stuart R. Hameroff, Alfred W. Kaszniak & A. C. Scott (eds.), Toward a Science of Consciousness. MIT Press.
  67. Guven Guzeldere (1995). Is Consciousness the Perception of What Passes in One's Own Mind? In Thomas Metzinger (ed.), Conscious Experience. Ferdinand Schoningh.
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  68. Valerie Gray Hardcastle (2004). HOT Theories of Consciousness: More Sad Tales of Philosophical Intuitions Gone Astray. In Rocco J. Gennaro (ed.), Higher-Order Theories of Consciousness: An Anthology. John Benjamins.
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  69. Benj Hellie (2007). Higher-Order Intentionalism and Higher-Order Acquaintance. Philosophical Studies 134 (3):289--324.
    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 (...)
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  70. Pierre Jacob (1996). State Consciousness Revisited. Acta Analytica 11 (16):29-54.
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  71. Dale W. Jamieson & Marc Bekoff (1992). Carruthers on Nonconscious Experience. Analysis 52 (1):23-28.
  72. David Jehle & Uriah Kriegel (2006). An Argument Against Dispositionalist HOT. Philosophical Psychology 19 (4):463-476.
    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 (...)
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  73. R. Kirk (2006). Review: Consciousness: Essays From a Higher-Order Perspective. [REVIEW] Mind 115 (460):1107-1110.
  74. Bernard W. Kobes (1997). Metacognition and Consciousness: Review Essay of Janet Metcalfe and Arthur P. Shimamura (Eds), Metacognition: Knowing About Knowing. Philosophical Psychology 10 (1):93-102.
    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 (...)
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  75. Bernard W. Kobes (1995). Telic Higher-Order Thoughts and Moore's Paradox. Philosophical Perspectives 9:291-312.
  76. Benjamin Kozuch (forthcoming). Prefrontal Lesion Evidence Against Higher-Order Theories of Consciousness. Philosophical Studies:1-26.
    According to higher-order theories of consciousness, a mental state is conscious only when represented by another mental state. Higher-order theories must predict there to be some brain areas (or networks of areas) such that, because they produce (the right kind of) higher-order states, the disabling of them brings about deficits in consciousness. It is commonly thought that the prefrontal cortex produces these kinds of higher-order states. In this paper, I first argue that this is likely correct, meaning that, if some (...)
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  77. Uriah Kriegel (2007). A Cross-Order Integration Hypothesis for the Neural Correlate of Consciousness. Consciousness & Cognition 16 (4):897-912.
    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 (...)
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  78. Uriah Kriegel (2003). Consciousness, Higher-Order Content, and the Individuation of Vehicles. Synthese 134 (3):477-504.
    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 (...)
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  79. Uriah Kriegel (2002). Consciousness, Permanent Self-Awareness, and Higher-Order Monitoring. Dialogue 41 (3):517-540.
  80. Olli Lagerspetz (2002). In the Industry. Inquiry 45 (4):541-559.
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  81. Timothy Lane & Caleb Liang (2010). Mental Ownership and Higher-Order Thought: Response to Rosenthal. Analysis 70 (3):496-501.
    We previously argued that somatoparaphrenia poses a challenge for David Rosenthal’s Thin Immunity Principle (TIP) and his Higher-Order Thought theory of consciousness. Rosenthal responded that this counterexample can be accommodated, without violating TIP, if it is reinterpreted as a concern about subjective bodily location. But Rosenthal’s interpretation fails, because it treats mental ownership as merely derivative from subjective bodily location. Mental ownership—matters pertaining to who experiences a mental state—can be misrepresented. Acknowledging that who experiences a mental state can be misrepresented (...)
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  82. Timothy Lane & Caleb Liang (2008). Higher-Order Thought and the Problem of Radical Confabulation. Southern Journal of Philosophy 46 (1):69-98.
    Currently, one of the most influential theories of consciousness is Rosenthal’s version of higher-order-thought (HOT). We argue that the HOT theory allows for two distinct interpretations: a one-componentand a two-component view. We further argue that the two-component view is more consistent with his effort to promote HOT as an explanatory theory suitable for application to the empirical sciences.Unfortunately, the two-component view seems incapable of handling a group of counterexamples that we refer to as cases of radical confabulation. We begin by (...)
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  83. Hakwan Lau (2008). A Higher Order Bayesian Decision Theory of Consciousness. In Rahul Banerjee & B. K. Chakrabarti (eds.), Models of Brain and Mind: Physical, Computational, and Psychological Approaches. Elsevier.
    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. (...)
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  84. Hakwan Lau & Richard Brown (forthcoming). The Emperor's New Phenomenology? The Empirical Case for Conscious Experience Without First-Order Representations. In Adam Pautz & Daniel Stoljar (eds.), Festschrift for Ned Block. MIT.
    We discuss cases where subjects seem to enjoy conscious experience when the relevant first-order perceptual representations are either missing or too weak to account for the experience. Though these cases are originally considered to be theoretical possibilities that may be problematical for the higher-order view of consciousness, careful considerations of actual empirical examples suggest that this strategy may backfire; these cases may cause more trouble for first-order theories instead. Specifically, these cases suggest that (I) recurrent feedback loops to V1 are (...)
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  85. Caleb Liang (2010). Mental Ownership and Higher-Order Thought: Response to Rosenthal. Analysis 70 (3).
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  86. Caleb Liang & Timothy Lane (2009). Higher-Order Thought and Pathological Self: The Case of Somatoparaphrenia. Analysis 69 (4):661-668.
    According to Rosenthal’s Higher-Order Thought (HOT) theory of consciousness, first-order mental states become conscious only when they are targeted by HOTs that necessarily represent the states as belonging to self. On this view a state represented as belonging to someone distinct from self could not be a conscious state. Rosenthal develops this view in terms of what he calls the ‘thin immunity principle’ (TIP). According to TIP, when I experience a conscious state, I cannot be wrong about whether it is (...)
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  87. JeeLoo Liu (2006). Review of Peter Carruthers, Consciousness: Essays From a Higher-Order Perspective. [REVIEW] Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2006 (4).
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  88. R. W. Lurz (2008). Review: David M. Rosenthal: Consciousness and Mind. [REVIEW] Mind 117 (465):214-217.
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  89. Robert W. Lurz (2004). Either FOR or HOR: A False Dichotomy. In Rocco J. Gennaro (ed.), Higher-Order Theories of Consciousness: An Anthology. John Benjamins.
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  90. Robert W. Lurz (2003). Advancing the Debate Between HOT and FO Accounts of Consciousness. Journal of Philosophical Research 28:23-44.
    David Rosenthal and Fred Dretske agree that creature consciousness should be used to give a reductive explanation of state consciousness. They disagree, however, over what type of creature consciousness will do the job. Rosenthal, defending a higher-order thought (HOT) account, argues that higher-order creature consciousness is what is needed. Dretske, defending a first-order (FO) account, argues that first-order creature consciousness is what is needed. I attempt to advance this debate by presenting a case for a third creature-conscious account of state (...)
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  91. Robert W. Lurz (2003). Neither Hot nor Cold: An Alternative Account of Consciousness. Psyche 8 (1).
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  92. Robert W. Lurz (2001). Begging the Question: A Reply to Lycan. Analysis 61 (272):313-318.
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  93. Robert W. Lurz (2000). A Defense of First-Order Representationalist Theories of Mental-State Consciousness. Psyche 6 (1).
  94. William G. Lycan (2004). The Superiority of Hop to HOT. In Rocco J. Gennaro (ed.), Higher-Order Theories of Consciousness: An Anthology. John Benjamins.
    What is consciousness?—to coin a question. According to “higher-order representation” (HOR) theories of consciousness, a mental state or event is a conscious state or event just in case it (itself) is the intentional object of one of the subject’s mental representations. That may sound odd, perhaps crazy. In fact, because of the richly diverse uses of the word “conscious” in contemporary philosophy of mind, it is bound to sound odd to many people. So I must begin by specifying what I (...)
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  95. William G. Lycan (2001). A Simple Argument for a Higher-Order Representation Theory of Consciousness. Analysis 61 (269):3-4.
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  96. William G. Lycan (1999). A Response to Carruthers' Natural Theories of Consciousness. Psyche 5 (11).
    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 (...)
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  97. William G. Lycan (1995). Consciousness as Internal Monitoring. Philosophical Perspectives 9:1-14.
    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.
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  98. William G. Lycan & Z. Ryder (2003). The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Truck-Driver. Analysis 63 (2):132-36.
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  99. Pete Mandik, Ch 3. Beware the Unicorn: Consciousness, Intentionality, and Inexistence.
    0. Introduction As mentioned in chapter 0, HORs seek to explain a mental state’s being conscious in terms of the mental state’s being represented by another mental state and FORs seek to explain a property’s being phenomenal in terms of the property of 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 chapter I develop an argument—the Unicorn Argument—against both HORs and (...)
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  100. Pete Mandik (2009). Beware of the Unicorn: Consciousness as Being Represented and Other Things That Don't Exist. Journal of Consciousness Studies 16 (1):5-36.
    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 (...)
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