This is a draft a paper to be published in its full
developed form in the book Lines of Thought: Rethinking Philosophical
Assumptions (Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2014).
THREE FORMS
OF CONSCIOUSNESS AND HOW THEY ARE RELATED TO REALITY
Das, was einmal gesehen, das Auffallendste und Stärkste ist, fällt uns
nicht auf.
[We fail to be
struck by that which, once seen, is the most striking and the most powerful.]
—Wittgenstein
The primary aims of this paper are to show that there
is an essential link between the concepts of consciousness and reality and to
explain how this link is established and preserved in what seem to me to be the
three main forms of consciousness. Apart from the results of conceptual
analysis, my purpose is in Wittgenstein’s sense therapeutic: I wish to dispel
some possible metaphysical speculations by showing that there is a necessary,
but completely non-mysterious internal link between the two concepts.
The key point I wish to emphasize is
something that should be obvious, namely, that consciousness must always be
awareness of how things really are. After all, it seems very plausible
to think that consciousness is an evolutionary product aiming to reflect
reality in order to enable the conscious organism to interact successfully with
the world. Accordingly, since mind has a receptive, perceptual
dimension, and an active, volitional dimension, consciousness belongs to
the receptive dimension because of its function of reflecting reality, even if
this has indispensable consequences for action. I do not see any need to prove
that the function of consciousness is to reflect things as they really are,
because I consider this an intuitive and almost trivial insight. It is,
nevertheless, an important minor insight that we could easily overlook if we do
not spell it out in some detail.
To
elucidate this point further, I begin by accepting a complementary and also
very plausible assumption, namely, that consciousness always involves representational
experience. Concerning representations, it is essential to remember that
they can be either veridical or non-veridical. A veridical
representation can be regarded as one that is either correct for a given
individual or a given property, or true for a fact (understood as an umbrella
term for given situations, circumstances, states of affairs, events and
processes). Assuming this, I define a veridical representation as one that
represents what it is aimed to represent.[1] Moreover, we can say that
here a representation represents what it is aimed to represent when it represents
things (individuals, properties, facts) as they really are.
But what do we mean by ‘things as they really are’? The answer is: they are at
least those things that we are reasonably able to accept as being what they
appear to be when we represent them, that is, insofar as they are things that
we would see as real under circumstances of interpersonal agreement. So
understood, my proposal is that a necessary condition for consciousness is that
it involves some kind of veridical representation. This brings us to the
connection between consciousness and reality: in a sense, a representation
is conscious at least when it is veridical, namely, when it represents what it
is aimed to represent in the sense that it represents things as they really are
for us.
An example can be helpful: suppose I
believe I see a snake near my feet. Now, it seems that one can say that I am
conscious of a snake near my feet only when this state of affairs is real. This
means that in this case the representation of the snake, which is involved in
my visual experience of the snake, must represent what it is aimed to
represent, namely, the physically real snake. If my experience were illusory,
one could not say that I was effectively conscious of a snake near my
feet, since the depicted state of affairs would not be physically real. This
non-veridical representation represents what it is not aimed to
represent, in this case, an illusory snake, which compromises my awareness of
what is happening. In other words: I am conscious of a snake near my feet when
I have a veridical representation of a snake, namely, when a representation
corresponds to what it is aimed to represent, what at least means that what is
aimed to be represented can be interpersonally accepted as the real thing.
These considerations make it plausible to
think that a person can be called conscious insofar as she has a sufficient
number of veridical representations. This would be what could called global
consciousness, relative to the living being as such. It can be argued
that even when we say that a person has moral consciousness (conscience), what
we really mean is that she is able to have a fair, that is, a veridical
representation of the moral circumstances involved in her actions.
In what follows, I offer support for the
view sketched above. In order to do this, I will identify and briefly discuss
three main kinds of consciousness, which we may call sensory, reflexive
and thinking consciousness. This distinction has the theoretical
advantage of being able to encompass in the simplest way most of what we
naturally and meaningfully call conscious phenomena. After presenting each of
these kinds of consciousness, I will show how the proposed relationship between
consciousness and reality fits with each of them.
Sensory
consciousness
The first kind of consciousness is what David
Armstrong called perceptual consciousness, but which I prefer to call sensory
consciousness.[2]
This is the most primary form of consciousness, which can be seen as the:
Sensory representation of things outside of
us and of our own bodies.
Sensory consciousness involves being awake, aware of
and responsive to the environment. It involves some level of cognition
regarding the processes of perceiving things in the external world and of
sensing what is going on in our own body. This sense of the word is very
common: physicians speak of a loss of consciousness when referring to a patient
in a coma, and as a diagnostic method they used to squirt cold water into the
ears of unconscious patients to see whether they would react. When John Searle
wrote that consciousness is what we regain when we wake up in the morning and
what we lose when we fall into a dreamless sleep, or lapse into a coma or die,
he had in mind above all the loss and regaining of consciousness in this
primary sense.[3] Our knowledge of sensory
consciousness is indirect, primarily grounded on third-person experience and
then on first-person access based on reflexive or thinking consciousness, as we
will see.
This is the most primitive form of
consciousness. Even mice can have it, for a mouse has sensory reactions to the
world outside it and to what is happening inside its own body. Indeed, after
sedating a mouse with chloroform, we could say that the mouse has lost
consciousness, meaning consciousness in its sensory form.
There is a problem here with regard to the
boundaries of consciousness. If being conscious is to perceive the world and
sense our own inner states, then it seems that far too many organisms must be
conscious. A bee, an ant and a shrimp are able to perceive the world in some
sense of the word. But we would not say that these creatures are conscious. I
once saw a headline in a newspaper in London: ‘Scientists have discovered that
flies are conscious’. I didn’t need to read the article to conclude that this
could not be true, and I had good reasons to think so. An explanation, I
believe, comes from Friedrich Waismann’s personal exposition of Wittgenstein’s
views.[4] As with many psychological concepts, we
can apply the word ‘conscious’ only in referring to creatures that display a sufficient
degree of mental and behavioural complexity. Consider, for
example, the concept of understanding. It is different from that of perceiving.
Although we may say that in some sense flies and shrimps can perceive the
world, it is not that easy to suppose that they can understand anything. Why?
Because the concept of understanding applies more properly to creatures able to
display sufficiently complex behaviour. We are not inclined to say that insects
have, or lose or regain sensory consciousness, probably because they do not
have anything approaching our sensory-perceptual experience. It is true
that the concept of consciousness lacks sharp boundaries, but although its
domains include even mice, the wisdom of the language suggests that it would be
senseless to extend it much further.
Finally, the concept of sensory
consciousness does justice to the fact that consciousness is a biological
phenomenon. Biological beings are so very different from mechanical automatons
that consciousness could not be expected in the latter. Although a camera can
make pictures that represent states of affairs, it does not do this of
itself: Since the pictures lack psychological intentions and biologically
grounded aims, they require an interpreter who sees them as representing some
state of affairs. This is also a reason to think that computers will never be
able to represent anything in a veridical way and that a non-biological machine
will never be conscious.
Sensory
consciousness and reality
Returning to our main point: sensory consciousness
involves the necessary condition of consciousness, that of representing things
and facts as they really are. If the aim is to perceptually represent things in
a veridical way and we succeed in doing this, we are said to be primarily
conscious. Even a mouse must aim to represent a cat as it really is and not as
a piece of cheese, for its own sake (this aim can be inferred from the manifest
behaviour of mice, and does not imply an attribution of intentionality).
It is important to note that when we speak about
sensory consciousness, we are not usually linking it with the veridicality of a
representation alone, but rather with a cluster of representations of variable
size. Consider, for example, an alcoholic suffering from delirium tremens. In
this condition, he may lie writhing in bed, trembling, sweating, uttering
incoherent groans and suffering all sorts of tactile and visual hallucinations
of disgusting creatures attacking him, while he twists and turns and tries to
protect himself. His consciousness is said to be disoriented and confused.
Indeed, we could say that he lacks sensory consciousness of the world around
him, although not completely.
This is also a reason why we are not
inclined to say that dreams are conscious. Dreams are non-veridical
representations that do not correspond to what the dreamer believes he is
representing, because the content of these representations is something that on
reflection he would not be willing to accept as real. Therefore, in this sense
they cannot be conscious. However, a truly prophetic dream foreseeing a future
real state of affairs could be regarded as a product of consciousness, as it
would be veridical. This clairvoyant dream could even be said to be
‘super-conscious’.
We can explain the kind of non-veridicality
of dreams as recurring to two domains of reality. The first is that of concrete
reality, of reality as such: of things involving us, our bodies
and even qualitatively subjective states like feelings, as we originally
experience them. The second domain is that of as if reality, the
kind of fictional reality we attribute to dream images, hallucinations
or projected images in a dream that only imitate concrete reality. If we assume
this, we can say that the lack of consciousness in a dream results from a
category mistake: a dreamer believes her dreams represent concrete reality,
since this is what she aims to represent. Actually, all she manages to
represent is a fictional reality. This is why the representations in a dream
can be said to be non-veridical and therefore non-conscious. If the intention
were only to represent a fictional reality, they would be veridical and
therefore conscious. This is also the reason why a daydream is said to be
conscious. It is because its representations are veridical in the sense that
they represent what they are meant to represent, namely, only a kind of
fictional reality.
Reflexive
consciousness
The second and more important kind of consciousness is
what we could call reflexive consciousness. Reflexive consciousness
or self-consciousness can be seen as the:
cognitive representation of one’s own
mental states.
This primarily simultaneous cognitive/representational
experience of our internal mental states is what we may call reflexive
cognition, which can have as its objects all kinds of mental states:
sensations, feelings, desires, perceptions and even thoughts and beliefs.
(Since many first-order mental states are already cognitive or
representational, their second-order reflexive cognitions can be correctly
called meta-cognitions or meta-representations.) Reflexive consciousness is
consciousness in capital letters. It is typically, if not properly, human. The
great apes can have it, but not mice and probably not even new-born human
infants. [5]
As an example of how reflexive
consciousness makes a difference, imagine that you have a barely perceptible
headache that lasts all day long, but you simply ignore it. However, whenever
you do pay attention to it, you see that the feeling is still there, and language
allows you to say that your headache is conscious. Now, when you pay attention
to a state of discomfort, what you may have is a suitable simultaneous
reflexive cognition about this state.[6] It is this reflexive
consciousness that makes people truly conscious, and evidence for this is that
you are able to report verbally on it, saying that you have a headache.
Reflexive consciousness was already
conceived by Armstrong as similar to a computer’s self-scanning function. He
developed an important explanation for the emergence of reflexive consciousness
(which he called ‘introspective consciousness’). His proposal is that through
evolution the mental processes of living beings have become increasingly
complex and sophisticated. While this was happening, mental processes gave rise
to drives that caused them to be simultaneously monitored, that is,
controlled, organized and directed by a higher instance.[7] This higher instance, we
could add, is what is responsible for reflexive consciousness, that is,
suitable cognitions of lower-order mental states.
The main objection to the monitoring
hypothesis is that reflexive cognitions are thoughts generated by simultaneous
lower-order mental states and that these reflexive cognitions (usually
second-order cognitions) have, therefore, no causal influence on the
lower-order mental states that generate them.[8] However, for two reasons
this conclusion is unnecessary: the first is that the reflexive cognitions that
make the lower-order states conscious seem to be generated by our attention
to the lower-order states and not by these states alone. The second is that
according to the causal theory of action, reasons can have causal effects, and
reasons for action are nothing more than beliefs plus desires
(volitions). If we accept this, it is easy to understand that suitable
reflexive cognitions, being asserted thoughts, that is, beliefs, when
adequately associated with volitions directing our attention, could also
possess causal power. Through their association with volitions, reflexive
cognitions would be able to control the lower-order states of mind and in this
way to influence the actions arising from them.
Since first-order mental events can usually
be seen as representations, reflexive consciousness of them must involve
suitable reflexive representations or meta-cognitions. For this reason, we can
speak about reflexive consciousness in two ways: in a relational way
– as transitive consciousness – by saying that we are conscious
of our first-order states, and in a non-relational way – as state
consciousness – by saying that first-order mental states are
conscious.[9] Thus, I can say that I am
conscious of my feelings for Suzy (relational or transitive consciousness), but
I can also say that my feelings for Suzy are conscious (non-relational or state
consciousness). These reflexive representations are what make us conscious of
first-order mental states. But they are not able to make us conscious of
themselves. In order to reach consciousness, they would need to be the objects
of meta-reflexive cognitions (usually meta-meta-cognitions), and so on. As
Rosenthal noted, writing on this issue, the thought at the top always remains
beyond the reach of consciousness.
It is interesting to consider the relation
between reflexive and sensory consciousness. We can only achieve first-person
awareness of our sensory consciousness because we are able to have reflexive
cognitions/ representations of the sensory and perceptual states belonging to
the latter. Therefore, in our view, perceptual consciousness is paradoxically a
non-conscious kind of consciousness. (A cat can recognize a dog and be
afraid of it, but it probably cannot be conscious that it is facing its
archenemy or even of its own fear.)[10]
Finally, the adoption of the concepts of
reflexive and sensory consciousness helps us to explain some interesting
empirical phenomena:
1) Somnambulism: sleepwalkers can sit up in
bed, walk around and even engage in hazardous activities without being awake,
afterward being unable to remember their actions. Here, as Armstrong would say,
the system of reflexive consciousness is switched off, while the system of
sensory consciousness continues to operate.
2) Blind-sight: Persons with blind-sight
have lost part of their visual field. But they can respond to visual stimuli
they cannot consciously see. They can often correctly guess what is present in
the blind half of their visual field, and in some cases with prompting they can
catch objects thrown in front of them or even move themselves around objects
that they say they didn´t have seen. The cause of blind-sight is a lesion in
region V1 of the visual cortex, where information from more primitive regions of
the brain is integrated and processed. The explanation for blind-sight could be
that although an affected person still has sensory visual consciousness, he
lacks the capacity for reflexive consciousness of visual states. This could be
the reason why he or she is not conscious of seeing anything.
3) Benjamin Libet’s experiments: In Libet’s
well-known experiments, a subject is taught to make a movement after receiving
a stimulus. After the stimulus, an unconscious build-up of electrical charges
occurs within the brain that is called a readiness potential (Bereitschaftspotential),
corresponding to the decision to act. However, the awareness of the decision –
which arises ~200 milliseconds before the conscious action is made –
occurs ~350 milliseconds after the readiness potential arises, showing
that the decision to act is made before it is consciously taken.
The explanation would be that although
sensory consciousness arises simultaneously with the readiness potential, reflexive
consciousness only arises ~350 milliseconds later. The readiness potential,
resulting from the fact that the agent has already been taught the reaction he
is to make after the stimulus is given, demonstrates the presence of sensory
consciousness. The monitoring function of reflexive consciousness is made
evident by the fact that the agent is still able to suppress or withhold the
action in the next ~200 milliseconds, as Libet’s experiments also show. In my
view, these experiments not only demonstrate the extent to which sensory
consciousness is in itself unconscious, they also confirm the existence and
role of reflexive consciousness.
4) Lucid dreams: these are dreams in which
we are aware that we are dreaming and that we can steer in different ways,
according to our own will. These dreams, also called conscious dreams, have
greater clarity, and after we awaken, we can more easily and clearly remember
them than most other dreams. Reflexive consciousness could explain this: dream
processes become more conscious when we gain a suitable meta-cognitive
representation of them.
Integrative
dimension of reflexive consciousness
The main alternatives to the idea of reflexive
consciousness are what we may call integrationist views.[11] According to these
views, conscious states are not properly those that are the object of reflexive
cognitions, but those that can be well integrated into the conscious person’s
system of mental states and motor system, that is, with her actions and speech.
Indeed, unconscious mental states are more or less isolated: one cannot make
them conscious by means of their usual association with other cognitive states.
Moreover, they usually remain unrelated to the motor system, particularly to
speech, as we see in cases of non-reportable subliminal perception. Based on
this, one can hold that repressed and subliminal states are unconscious not
because we do not have simultaneous meta-cognition of them, but because we are
unable to integrate them sufficiently with the other mental states of the
system. Thus, it seems that there are two competing ways to explain state
consciousness: integrative and reflexive.
At this point, I would like to offer a
reconciliatory hunch. My suggestion is that integration is typically mediated
by reflexive cognition, which has some kind of binding property: the
property of integrating the first-order state referred to by it with a system
of other states. We can recall Bernard Baar’s metaphor of the theatre of
consciousness in his global workspace theory of consciousness – a typical
integrationist theory. According to this metaphor, a conscious state is a
mental state under the spotlight of the reflector of attention, which enables
this state to be ‘broadcast’ to the whole auditorium of pre-conscious and
unconscious states.[12]
This is an interesting metaphor. But I would add that a suitable reflexive
cognition is the very spotlight controlled by the reflector of
attention. This view is not without intuitive appeal: When we become aware of a
mental state, we inevitably recognize it by cognitive means. However, in doing
this we are inevitably relating the state to others, and – actually or
potentially – to the whole system, including the motor system.
To illustrate this point, consider the case
of a man undergoing a seizure of temporal epilepsy. He is able to act and even
speak, showing some degree of integration. But since this integration is
comparatively deficient, it is justifiable to say that he has ‘a narrowed field
of consciousness’. But along with this, it seems to be a lack of reflexive
consciousness, since after recovering from the seizure he cannot remember his
actions. According to the view I am suggesting, reflexive cognition and
integration go together; reflexive cognition is a way of improving integration.[13]
Finally, my proposal for reconciling the
two positions also suggests an answer to what some theoreticians consider the
main objection to cognitive-reflexive views of consciousness. This is that they
do not provide a criterion for distinguishing between a reflexive cognition
that makes a mental state conscious and a reflexive cognition that does not.[14] My proposed solution is:
the criterion should be the binding property of a non-inferential and
simultaneously reflexive cognition produced by attention. What makes a
reflexive cognition suitable for consciousness is that it has the binding
property of integrating the lower-order state it refers to with a whole system
of mental states.
Reflexive
consciousness and reality
Returning to our Leitfaden: Just as with
sensory consciousness, reflexive consciousness also involves veridical
representation. The difference is that reflexive consciousness (considered in
its relational sense) does not consist in veridical (meta-)representations of
sensed or perceived states of affairs, but rather in veridical (meta-)representations
of lower-level mental states. However, we can only say that we are conscious of
these first-order mental states because they are in some way veridically
represented: they are represented as they really are. If these
(meta-)representations are not veridical, then we cannot say that lower-level
states are really conscious, or even that we are conscious of what they
represent. Consider, for example, the case of someone who constantly lies to
himself about his sensations, feelings and thoughts. If he consistently reads
them incorrectly in his mind, he will be said to be a person who lacks
self-consciousness.
A first case of non-veridical
representation producing a lack of consciousness concerns feelings. In
Shakespeare’s comedy Much Ado About Nothing, Benedick and Beatrice are
secretly in love, but because of their pride, they prefer to believe that they
very much despise each other. Perceiving what is going on, their friends decide
to help them. They tell each of them separately that the other is dying of
unrequited love. This is sufficient to make them conscious that they are
actually in love with each other and to reconcile them. Now, it is only when
they are enabled to make a veridical reflexive representation of their real
feelings – their repressed feelings of love – that their feelings can become
conscious. Weren’t they previously conscious of their mutual antipathy? Yes,
since they had a veridical representation of their self-defensively produced
mutual antipathy. But we cannot say that they were aware of their true
feelings, for they had no veridical representation of them, as they were
hindered in their development.
Another case is that of lucid dreams.
Dreams, as is commonly said, are not conscious. But a lucid dream is considered
to have a certain level of consciousness. It is even called a ‘conscious
dream’. Why? Because it involves a simultaneous and veridical meta-cognitive
representation of the dreaming process or, as we could also say, of fictional
reality in its fictional character, which is its real character. Indeed,
we can have a nightmare that nearly awakens us, and then, half-awake, we can
tell ourselves: ‘This is only a dream’. This case also shows that the
veridicality of suitable meta-cognitions concerning the represented mental
states is essential to reflexive consciousness.
A particularly important case is that of
conscious perception, which is in fact reflexive consciousness of a perceptual
sensory consciousness. When the object of a reflexive representation is a
perceptual representation, that is something belonging to sensory-perceptual
consciousness (which is already cognitive), the reflexive representation is
aimed to be doubly veridical: it must be (i) a simultaneous and
veridical meta-cognitive representation of (ii) a veridical perceptual
representation of empirical things and facts. For example: If I am reflexively
aware that I am perceiving a snake near my feet, I must be veridically aware of
my veridical sensory perception of this fact, namely, of the real snake near my
real feet.
One could still object that subliminal
perceptions are veridical, but not conscious. However, this is misleading,
since they are not conscious only in the reflexive sense of the word. We say
that they are veridical because we receive a third-person acknowledgment that
we are sensorially conscious of them. As such, they are standard examples of
what we have already called ‘unconscious consciousness’.
Thinking
consciousness
A last and more controversial point: I believe that we
need to add one more kind of consciousness in order to accommodate some
resilient intuitions. It seems that in many cases we are said to be conscious
of things that are neither objects of present perceptual, sensory nor emotional
experience, that are not personal memories, and that are not simultaneously
meta-represented by given mental states. For example: I am conscious that:
· The Moon is a large spherical rocky object
orbiting the Earth.
· Heinrich Schliemann discovered the site of
Troy.
· I cannot simultaneously go to a movie and
to my favourite restaurant.
· The sum total of matter and energy in a
closed system remains constant over time.
· The sum of the internal angles of a
Euclidean triangle is 180º.
We may call these confirmed contents of consciousness mediated
thoughts, because they are beliefs supported by other thoughts about
states of affairs that are not presently accessible to experience. It is true
that such mediated thoughts can be accompanied by reflexive meta-cognitions: we
think about them when we think that we are thinking them. But isn’t it
true that when we think them without thinking about them, we are already
in a good measure conscious of them? Is it not the case that their own
existence entails consciousness of their contents? So it seems: if I really think
that Schliemann discovered Troy or that the sum of matter and energy remains
constant in a closed system, then I cannot be unaware of what is implied by
these thoughts, even if I am not simultaneously meta-cognitively conscious of
my thinking them.
I believe that it is because of the fact
that alone the occurrence of such mediated thoughts is sufficient to give us
consciousness of their contents that some philosophers have maintained that
conscious mental states intrinsically generate reflexive higher-order
representations. However, we know that this view is implausible not only
because in this case there would be no unconscious mental states, but also
because this view lacks intuitive evidence.
My proposal is not that mediated
thoughts are conscious of themselves, since this would be the function
of a simultaneous meta-cognitive or reflexive awareness of them. My proposal is
that they are conscious in themselves, because their representational
function gives them a conscious-making function beyond that of sensory
consciousness. They have a multi-representational role in the sense that they
are like crystals reflecting veridical information coming from other thoughts
and from experiences. Consider, for example, the thought that I cannot go to
the cinema and to my favourite restaurant at the same time. I am conscious of
the content of this thought without having a meta-cognitive or reflexive
awareness of it, because this thought-content can only be appreciated against
the background of representations of perceptual experiences that are themselves
representations of external states of affairs. If this is so, then thinking
consciousness is not a form of unconscious consciousness, like sensory
consciousness; rather it works somewhat like reflexive consciousness. In some
way, it must make us aware of sensory experiences and/or conceptual rules
implied in the mediated thoughts. Complementarily, the mediated thoughts also
gain their conscious status by reaching a more nodal position in our network of
beliefs, which endows them with increased integrative power – a nodal position
that cannot be separated from their multi-representational function.
Thinking
consciousness and reality
Finally, mediated thoughts must be veridical
representations supported in a variety of ways by representations ultimately
grounded in sensory experience and/or conceptual rules. Thinking consciousness
demands a cluster of veridical representations, even without directly involving
the present experience of their ultimate perceptual or conceptual truth-makers.
On the other hand, the non-veridical representation of the states of affairs
involved in thinking consciousness can limit or hinder consciousness.
Consequently, one cannot be conscious that the Moon is a large round
lump of green cheese or that energy can be created from nothing, since
these are false claims (although a person can be conscious in and of
having these beliefs).
Conclusion
What I have presented here is only a programmatic
sketch supported by argumentative coherence. However, I believe I have provided
enough confirmation for the view that consciousness inescapably involves
veridical representation. It seems clear that the veridicality of the
representation is essential, in the sense of being a necessary feature of the
three kinds of consciousness briefly examined here. Moreover, we may seriously
consider the possibility that the veridicality of the involved representations
is precisely what originally brought these three kinds of consciousness
together under the same concept. For it seems clear that they are kinds of
consciousness because they are distinctive means used by the mind to grasp
reality.
[1] I chose to use the word ‘aim’ instead of ‘intention’
here, because the concept of intention often presupposes consciousness, which
makes it unsatisfactory when we are trying to elucidate the nature of
consciousness. The word ‘aim’, to the contrary, is modest enough: we can say
that a spider aims to weave its web, without implying that the spider has such
an intention. Here the aim is a teleological embodiment of evolutionary
development.
[2] See David Armstrong, ‘What is Consciousness?’ in his The Nature of Mind (Ithaca, NY: Cornell
University Press, 1980), pp. 55-67. The expression ‘perceptual consciousness’
is suggestive, but grammatically misleading: if a person has a headache, she
has perceptual consciousness of it;
however, she is not perceiving, but
rather feeling her headache. Emotions
and feelings are said to be felt, not perceived.
[3] John R. Searle, Consciousness
and Language (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), p. 7.
[5] The reflexive theory of
consciousness has its origins in John Locke and the philosophical tradition.
But it was introduced into the contemporary philosophy of mind by David
Armstrong in the already mentioned paper, as a theory of higher-order
perception. David Rosenthal has over the years developed a detailed version of
the reflexive view of consciousness as demanding a simultaneous and suitable
higher-order thought about a lower-level state in order to make it conscious.
If we understand words like ‘perception’ and ‘internal vision’ in the first
theory as mere metaphors, and the word ‘thought’ in the second theory as a mere
act of cognitive experience that does not necessarily require language, then
both theories tend to merge into a single theory, because a higher-order
cognitive representation or experience seems to be an essential common element
of both. Only the emphases and some details are different. I also think that
Rosenthal is mistaken in believing that his theory is incompatible with
Armstrong’s and W. C. Lycan’s view that reflexive consciousness has a monitoring function, as the development of my text shows. In my exposition, I
try to be neutral and use the vague and ambiguous term cognition as something assumed in both views. See D. M. Armstrong, Mind-Body Problem: An Opinionated
Introduction (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1999), pp. 114-120; see also W.
C. Lycan, Consciousness and Experience (Cambridge,
MA: MIT Press, 1996), chap. 2. For an introduction to Rosenthal’s views, see
his ‘Explaining Consciousness’, in D. J. Chalmers (ed.): Philosophy of Mind: Classical and Contemporary Readings (New York:
Oxford University Press, 2002).
[6] We can typically be conscious
of emotions and sensations as objects
of representation; I can say that my anxiety is conscious if I have a true
reflexive cognition/representation of my own feeling of anxiety. By maintaining
that consciousness involves representations of how things are, I am committed
to the view that there is no consciousness without representation. This
commitment finds no difficulty with regard to cognitive states like
perceptions, beliefs, wishes and desires. Emotions and sensations seem to be an
exception, since they are not as intentionally or representational. However,
this is not a necessary condition, for we can be misleading about then. One
could suggest, for example, that there is also primary or sensory consciousness
of pain, since neurophysiology shows that sensations have a representational
structure that should reflect states of the body. See, for example, C. S. Hill:
Consciousness (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2009), chap. 6.
[7] David Armstrong, ‘What is
Consciousness?’ in The Nature of Mind,
pp. 65-66.
[8] See David Rosenthal:
‘Consciousness and its Function’, Neuropsychologia,
46, 3 (2008), 829-840.
[9] The distinction between a
relational and a non-relational way is explained in Bertrand Russell, An Outline of Philosophy (London: George
Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1970), chap. XX. David Rosenthal and most theorists
call these ways of speaking about consciousness respectively transitive and intransitive states of consciousness.
[10] Defenders of first-order
theories of consciousness tend to reduce state consciousness to sensory
consciousness. As a result, they find it hard to explain the unconsciousness of
many states of awareness.
[11] Integrationist views of
consciousness were already held by thinkers from Kant to Freud. But they have,
in different ways, also been emphasized in the contemporary philosophy of
consciousness by Daniel Dennett (with his view that consciousness is cerebral celebrity), by Ned Block (with his definition of access-consciousness as the poising of a
state for free use in reasoning and for directing action), by Bernard Baars
(with the view that consciousness is the broadcasting of content under the
spotlight of attention to the global mental workspace), by G. M. Edelman and
Giulio Tononi (with the idea that consciousness corresponds to the brain’s
ability to integrate information), and by many others.
[12] B. J. Baars: In the Theater of Consciousness: The
Workspace of the Mind (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997).
[13] Reflexive cognition is not the
only way to achieve integration. As we will see, thinking consciousness
could also have an integrative dimension, and we should not confuse the two.
[14] William Seager: Theories of Consciousness: An Introduction
and Assessment (London: Routledge, 1999), p. 82.
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