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- Michael V. Antony, Are Our Concepts "Conscious State" and "Conscious Creature" Vague?are sharp rather than vague, that they can have no borderline cases. On the other hand, many who take conscious states to be identical to, or realized by, complex physical states are committed to the vagueness of those concepts. In the paper I argue that conscious state and conscious creature are sharp by presenting four necessary conditions for conceiving borderline cases in general, and showing that some of those conditions cannot be met with conscious state. I conclude that conscious state is sharp, and the conclusion is then extended to conscious creature. The paper ends with a brief discussion of some implications.In my reading list | Discuss this article | Edit | Categorize |My bibliography
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| | Other links: springerlink.com | Scholar | More.. p0005 The term ‘consciousness’ is used in several ways: to describe a person or other creature as being awake and sentient, to describe a person or other creature as being ‘aware of ’ something, and to refer to a property of mental states, such as perceiving, feeling, and thinking, that distinguishes those states from unconscious mental states. Distinguishing these different concepts of consciousness is crucial in evaluating the major theories of what it is for a state to be conscious. Among (...)
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It is widely held that there is an important distinction between the notion of consciousness as it is applied to creatures and, on the other hand, the notion of consciousness as it applies to mental states. McBride has recently argued in this journal that whilst there may be a grammatical distinction between state consciousness and creature consciousness, there is no parallel ontological distinction. It is argued here that whilst state consciousness and creature consciousness are indeed related, they are distinct properties. (...)
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| Discuss this article | Edit | Categorize | My bibliography | Export citation | Other links: taylorandfrancis.metapress.com informaworld.com ingentaconnect.com | Scholar | More..
| | Other links: taylorandfrancis.metapress.com informaworld.com ingentaconnect.com | Scholar | More.. For a wide range of concepts, a thinker’s understanding of what it is for a thing to fall under the concept plausibly involves knowledge of an identity. It involves knowledge that the thing has to have the same property as is exemplified in instantiation of the concept in some distinguished, basic instance. This paper addresses the question: can we apply this general model of the role of identity in understanding to the case of subjective, conscious states? In particular, can we (...)
Abstract. An argument is offered for this conditional: If our current concept conscious state is sharp rather than vague, and also correct (at least in respect of its sharpness), then common versions of familiar metaphysical theories of consciousness are false--?namely versions of the identity theory, functionalism, and dualism that appeal to complex physical or functional properties in identification, realization, or correlation. Reasons are also given for taking seriously the claim that our current concept conscious state is sharp. The paper ends (...)
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| | Other links: springerlink.com | Scholar | More.. 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 (...)
This is an excellent book, one of the best I have read on consciousness in recent years. It is rigorously argued and contains interesting suggestions as to how to solve the mystery of consciousness. Following the standard literature, Uriah Kriegel takes consciousness to be the "what it is like for me"-ness of conscious mental states. This is also what is sometimes called the 'phenomenal character' of conscious mental states. For Kriegel (as for Levine), phenomenal character has two components: qualitative character (...)
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| | Other links: brogaardb.googlepages.com sites.google.com | Scholar | More.. Recent progress in neurosciences has improved our understanding of chronic disorders of consciousness. One example of this advancement is the emergence of the new diagnostic category of minimally conscious state (MCS). The central characteristic of MCS is impaired consciousness. Though the phenomenon now referred to as MCS pre-existed its inclusion in diagnostic classifications, the current medical ethical concepts mainly apply to patients with normal consciousness and to non-conscious patients. Accordingly, how we morally should stand with persons in minimally conscious state (...)
Are there different constraints on theories of conscious experience as against theories of conscious propositional thought? Is what is problematic or puzzling about each of these phenomena of the same, or of different, types? And to what extent is it plausible to think that either or both conscious experience and conscious thought involve some sort of selfreference? In pursuing these questions I shall also explore the prospects for a defensible form of eliminativism concerning conscious thinking, one that would leave the (...)
In order to distinguish the conscious state itself from its aspects and contents we need an answer to the question "if there is something it is like to be conscious, what is it?" A succinct answer to this question is provided in the form of a common denominator of all conscious states. This characterization of the conscious state has implications for the systematic study of consciousness through its bearing on a number of concrete issues connected with the nature of consciousness (...)
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