Online research in philosophy

Searle has recently used two adaptations of his Chinese room argument in an attack on connectionism. I show that these new forms of the argument are fallacious. First I give an exposition of and rebuttal to the original Chinese room argument, and then a brief introduction to the essentials of connectionism.

In a series of closely connected papers, Rosenthal has defended what has come to be known as “the higher-order thought theory of state-consciousness.” According to this theory, a mental state which one instantiates is conscious if and only if one is conscious of being in it in some relevant way, and one’s being conscious of being in the state which is conscious consists in one’s having a contemporaneous thought to the effect that one is in that state. The main aim of this paper is to disarm a Searle-style objection to Rosenthal’s account of state-consciousness, one that takes mentality, in particular intentionality, to presuppose state-consciousness. It is argued that the Searlean attempt to convict Rosenthal’s hypothesis of circularity fails, because the postulation of what Searle called “subjective ontology,” as well as the requirement that there be an uncancelable connection between mode of representation and state-consciousness, is unreasonable. While defending Rosenthal against Searle, this paper also aims to develop a fresh objection to the higher-order thought conception of state-consciousness.

Searle's Connection Principle says that "the ascription of an unconscious intentional phenomenon to a system implies that the phenomenon is in principle accessible to consciousness". In this paper I want to defend the thesis that Searle's theory of mind, and especially the Connection Principle, does not offer a coherent picture of unconscious mental states and, a fortiori, of the intentional life generally.

It is argued that Searle’s argument for the thesis that there is a conceptual connection between intentionality and consciousness suffers from serious ambiguities. Searle’s argument is reconstructed as consisting of three premises that contain the notions of aspectual shape and irreducible subjectivity. Having identified two different readings of ‘aspectual shape’ and ‘irreducibly subjective,’ I conclude that each version of Searle’s argument incorporates at least one false premise.

According to John Searle's connection principle (CP) all intentional states are, necessarily, potentially conscious (Searle 1992). Thus formulated, CP implies that intentionality is ontologically dependent on consciousness. Searle's argument in favour of CP is based on the assumption that, while every intentional state is endowed with an aspectual shape, only conscious intentional states are intrinsically so endowed. In turn, the contention that only conscious intentional states are intrinsically aspectual and perspectival is based on what I call the Cartesian view of subjectivity (CS), according to which subjectivity implies consciousness. I argue that, though intuitive, CS is ultimately untenable. A plea is made for an alternative, `Aristotelian' view of subjectivity (AS), on which the roots of subjectivity lie not in consciousness per se, but in the more basic capacity for autonomous conduct. Searle's failure to appreciate this point, I argue, accounts for the unresolved dualistic tension over- shadowing his conception of mind.

Objections to Searle's argument for the Connection Principle and its consequences (Searle 1990a) fall roughly into three categories: (1) those that focus on problems with the _argument_ for the Connection Principle; (2) those that focus on problems in understanding the _conclusion_ of this argument; (3) those that focus on whether the conclusion has the _consequences_ Searle claims for it. I think the Connection Principle is both true and important, but I do not think that Searle's argument establishes it. The problem with the argument is that it either begs the question or proves too much.