Quotational higher-order thought theory

Philosophical Studies 172 (10):2705-2733 (2015)
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Abstract

Due to their reliance on constitutive higher-order representing to generate the qualities of which the subject is consciously aware, I argue that the major existing higher-order representational theories of consciousness insulate us from our first-order sensory states. In fact on these views we are never properly conscious of our sensory states at all. In their place I offer a new higher-order theory of consciousness, with a view to making us suitably intimate with our sensory states in experience. This theory relies on the idea of ‘quoting’ sensory qualities, so is dubbed the ‘quotational higher-order thought theory’. I argue that it can capture something of the idea that we are ‘acquainted’ with our conscious states without slipping beyond the pale for naturalists, whilst also providing satisfying treatments of traditional problems for higher-order theories concerning representational mismatch. The theory achieves this by abandoning a representational mechanism for mental intentionality, in favour of one based on ‘embedding’

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Sam Coleman
University of Hertfordshire

Citations of this work

Introspective acquaintance: An integration account.Anna Giustina - 2023 - European Journal of Philosophy 31 (2):380-397.
Editorial: Consciousness and Inner Awareness.Jonathan Farrell & Tom McClelland - 2017 - Review of Philosophy and Psychology 8 (1):1-22.
Real acquaintance and physicalism.Philip Goff - 2015 - In Paul Coates & Sam Coleman (eds.), Phenomenal Qualities: Sense, Perception, and Consciousness. Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press UK.
Higher-order theories of consciousness.Peter Carruthers - 2008 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

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References found in this work

Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language.John Rogers Searle - 1969 - Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
The content and epistemology of phenomenal belief.David Chalmers - 2002 - In Aleksandar Jokic & Quentin Smith (eds.), Consciousness: New Philosophical Perspectives. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 220--72.
Subjective Consciousness: A Self-Representational Theory.Uriah Kriegel - 2009 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press UK.
Consciousness and Mind.David M. Rosenthal - 2005 - New York: Oxford University Press UK.

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