Consciousness: Essays From a Higher-Order Perspective

Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press UK (2005)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Peter Carruthers's essays on consciousness and related issues have had a substantial impact on the field, and many of his best are now collected here in revised form. The first half of the volume is devoted to developing, elaborating, and defending against competitors one particular sort of reductive explanation of phenomenal consciousness, which Carruthers now refers to as 'dual-content theory'. Phenomenal consciousness - the feel of experience - is supposed to constitute the 'hard problem' for a scientific world view, and many have claimed that it is an irredeemable mystery. But Carruthers here claims to have explained it. He argues that phenomenally conscious states are ones that possess both an 'analog' intentional content and a corresponding higher-order analog content, representing the first-order content of the experience. It is the higher-order analog content that enables our phenomenally conscious experiences to present themselves to us, and that constitutes their distinctive subjective aspect, or feel.The next two chapters explore some of the differences between conscious experience and conscious thought, and argue for the plausibility of some kind of eliminativism about conscious thinking. Then the final four chapters focus on the minds of non-human animals. Carruthers argues that even if the experiences of animals aren't phenomenally conscious, this needn't prevent the frustrations and sufferings of animals from being appropriate objects of sympathy and concern. Nor need it mean that there is any sort of radical 'Cartesian divide' between our minds and theirs of deep significance for comparative psychology. In the final chapter, he argues provocatively that even insects have minds that include a belief/desire/perception psychology much like our own. So mindedness and phenomenal consciousness couldn't be further apart.Carruthers's writing throughout is distinctively clear and direct. The collection will be of great interest to anyone working in philosophy of mind or cognitive science.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,593

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Consciousness might matter very much.Adam Shriver & Colin Allen - 2005 - Philosophical Psychology 18 (1):113-22.
Animal consciousness.Robert W. Lurz - 1999 - Journal of Philosophical Research 24 (January):149-168.
Phenomenal concepts and higher-order experiences.Peter Carruthers - 2004 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 68 (2):316-336.
Reducing Consciousness by Making it Hot A Review of Peter Carruthers' Phenomenal Consciousness.Robert Lurz - 2002 - PSYCHE: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Research On Consciousness 8.
A theory of phenomenal consciousness?William S. Robinson - 1999 - PSYCHE: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Research On Consciousness 5.
Consciousness without awareness?Eric Saidel - 1999 - PSYCHE: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Research On Consciousness 5.
Who has subjectivity?Michael Lyvers - 1999 - PSYCHE: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Research On Consciousness 5.
Conscious experience versus conscious thought.Peter Carruthers - 2005 - In Uriah Kriegel & Kenneth Williford (eds.), Consciousness and Self-Reference. MIT Press.
Addressing Higher-Order Misrepresentation with Quotational Thought.Vincent Picciuto - 2011 - Journal of Consciousness Studies 18 (3-4):109-136.
Other Minds and the Origins of Consciousness.Ted Everett - 2014/2015 - Anthropology and Philosophy 11.
Review of Peter Carruthers', Consciousness: Essays From a Higher-Order Perspective. [REVIEW]Rocco J. Gennaro - 2006 - PSYCHE: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Research On Consciousness 12.
Suffering without subjectivity.Peter Carruthers - 2004 - Philosophical Studies 121 (2):99-125.

Analytics

Added to PP
2009-01-28

Downloads
98 (#162,709)

6 months
11 (#128,523)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Peter Carruthers
University of Maryland, College Park

Citations of this work

Global Workspace Theory and Animal Consciousness.Jonathan Birch - 2020 - Philosophical Topics 48 (1):21-37.
The Self Shows Up in Experience.Matt Duncan - 2019 - Review of Philosophy and Psychology 10 (2):299-318.
Stranger than Fiction: Costs and Benefits of Everyday Confabulation.Lisa Bortolotti - 2018 - Review of Philosophy and Psychology 9 (2):227-249.
The Phenomenology of Agency.Tim Bayne - 2008 - Philosophy Compass 3 (1):182-202.

View all 51 citations / Add more citations

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references