A representationalist-friendly introduction to representationalism which covers a number of central problems and objections.

Modern representationalism about consciousness (MR) is often conflated with classical representationalism (CR). This chapter discusses CR first in order to highlight the contrast between old and new representationalism and bring out some of the strengths of the latter. It discerns three key projects related to MR. The first is that of determining whether its defining claim, the exhaustion thesis, is true. The second is that of explicating the fundamental difference between phenomenal and nonphenomenal states. The (...) third project is that of developing a theory of representation strong and stable enough to support MR. MR naturally bifurcates into externalist and internalist versions, depending upon the favored theory of mental representation. Many proponents of MR endorse the externalist view. MR is compatible with a range of theories of introspection. Introspection requires a special and sophisticated way of thinking about conscious experience. (shrink)

Discusses recent work on representationalism, including: the case for a representationalist theory of consciousness, which explains consciousness in terms of content; rivals such as neurobiological type-type identity theory (Papineau, McLaughlin) and naive realism (Allen, Campbell, Brewer); John Campbell and David Papineau's recent objections to representationalism; the problem of the "laws of appearance"; externalist vs internalist versions of representationalism; the relation between representationalism and the mind-body problem.

While Russell famously rejected the pragmatist theory of truth, recent scholarship portrays his post-prison accounts of belief and knowledge as resembling James’s. But deeper divisions in fact persisted between Russell and James concerning the nature of mind. I argue 1) that Russell’s neutral monist approach to consciousness in The Analysis of Mind constitutes an early form of representationalism in that he took states to be phenomenally conscious partly in virtue of (truly) representing an antecedent (typically just-passed) sensation; 2) (...) that although James also saw representation (typically of expected kinaesthetic sensation) as a crucial component of consciousness, he contended that representation is a matter of affording future-directed action control that aligns with the agent’s interests; and 3) that what divides these contrasting approaches to consciousness and representation is precisely what Russell would continue to reject in the pragmatist theory of truth, namely the productive role James assigned to an agent’s interests. (shrink)

This paper aims to shed new light on certain philosophical theories of perceptual experience by examining the semantics of perceptual ascriptions such as “Jones sees an apple.” I start with the assumption, recently defended elsewhere, that perceptual ascriptions lend themselves to intensional readings. In the first part of the paper, I defend three theses regarding such readings: I) intensional readings of perceptual ascriptions ascribe phenomenal properties, II) perceptual verbs are not ambiguous between intensional and extensional readings, and III) intensional perceptual (...) ascriptions have a relational form. The second part of the paper describes the implications of I-III for theories of perceptual experience. I argue that I-III support and reconcile the three main views of perceptual experience, relationalism, disjunctivism, and representationalism. However, I-III leave open at least one important point of contention: particularism, the view that we experience external objects. I conclude by exploring the implications of accepting or denying particularism given I-III. (shrink)

This essay surveys representationalist theories of phenomenal consciousness as well as the major arguments for them. It also takes up two major objections. The essay is divided into five sections. Section I offers some introductory remarks on phenomenal consciousness. Section II presents the classic view of phenomenal consciousness to which representationalists are opposed. Section III canvasses various versions of representationalism about consciousness. Section IV lays out the main arguments for the representationalist stance. The final (...) section addresses the two objections. (shrink)

This thesis introduces the Problem of Consciousness as an antinomy between Physicalism and Primitivism about the phenomenal. I argue that Primitivism is implausible, but is supported by two conceptual gaps. The ‘–tivity gap’ holds that physical states are objective and phenomenal states are subjective, and that there is no entailment from the objective to the subjective. The ‘–trinsicality gap’ holds that physical properties are extrinsic and phenomenal qualities are intrinsic, and that there is no entailment from the extrinsic (...) to the intrinsic. Stoljar’s Epistemic View (EV) suggests that we have a limited conception of the physical world, and that the apparent inexplicability of consciousness is merely a symptom of our ignorance. I argue that EV must satisfy two conditions which require it to specify the content of our ignorance. EV’s best hope is a Russellian appeal to our ignorance of intrinsic physical properties. After arguing in favour of this ignorance claim, I show how it undermines the –trinsicality gap. However, I suggest that the –tivity gap cannot be dealt with by the Russellian ignorance hypothesis, nor by any other version of EV. However, I then argue that the Russellian ignorance hypothesis can still be deployed as half of a hybrid account of the phenomenal. Representationalist theories of consciousness have difficulty with the –trinsicality gap, but show promise with the –tivity gap. Specifically, Kriegel’s Self-Representationalism indicates that there can indeed be an entailment from objective physical states to subjective phenomenal states. This paves the way for my hybrid account of consciousness: the subjectivity of a phenomenal state is the product of its self-representational structure, and the qualitative character of a phenomenal state is the product of the epistemically inaccessible intrinsic physical properties involved in its implementation. (shrink)

A strong form of representationalism says that every conscious property of every mental state can be identified with some part of the state’s representational properties. A weaker representationalism says that some conscious property of some mental state can be identified with some part of the state’s representational properties. David Papineau has recently argued that all such theories are incorrect since they construe consciousness as consisting in “relations to propositions or other abstract objects outside space and time”, whereas (...) consciousness is “concrete” and “here and now”. Papineau defends instead a kind of “qualia theory” according to which all conscious properties are intrinsic non-relational properties of subjects. He argues that this theory bypasses the difficulties he identifies for representationalism. Similar worries about representationalism, and similar ideas to the effect that some qualia theory, adverbial theory, or sense-datum theory fares better with respect to these worries are relatively wide-spread. I argue that Papineau’s theory does not bypass the difficulties he identifies for representationalism. In fact, Papineau’s theory arguably has no advantage at all over representationalism with regard to these issues. The features that concern Papineau about representationalist views do not derive—or do not derive solely—from the representationalism of these views. They derive from a common-factorism of these views. And this common-factorism is embraced by Papineau as well as by most theories of consciousness and perception. (shrink)

A strong form of representationalism says that every conscious property of every mental state can be identified with some part of the state’s representational properties. A weaker representationalism says that some conscious property of some mental state can be identified with some part of the state’s representational properties. David Papineau has recently argued that all such theories are incorrect since they construe consciousness as consisting in “relations to propositions or other abstract objects outside space and time”, whereas (...) consciousness is “concrete” and “here and now”. Papineau defends instead a kind of “qualia theory” according to which all conscious properties are intrinsic non-relational properties of subjects. He argues that this theory bypasses the difficulties he identifies for representationalism. Similar worries about representationalism, and similar ideas to the effect that some qualia theory, adverbial theory, or sense-datum theory fares better with respect to these worries are relatively wide-spread. I argue that Papineau’s theory does not bypass the difficulties he identifies for representationalism. In fact, Papineau’s theory arguably has no advantage at all over representationalism with regard to these issues. The features that concern Papineau about representationalist views do not derive—or do not derive solely—from the representationalism of these views. They derive from a common-factorism of these views. And this common-factorism is embraced by Papineau as well as by most theories of consciousness and perception. (shrink)

The sensorimotor theory of perception and consciousness is frequently presented as a variety of anti-representationalist cognitive science, and there is thus a temptation to suppose that those who take representation as bedrock should reject the approach. This paper argues that the sensorimotor approach is compatible with representationalism, and moreover that representationalism about phenomenal qualities, such as that advocated by Tye, would be more complete and less vulnerable to criticism if it incorporated the sensorimotor account of conscious (...) feel. The paper concludes by arguing that the project of naturalizing phenomenal qualities would nonetheless be better served by abandoning ‘representation’ talk altogether, a move that would require only a small modification of existing representationalist accounts. (shrink)

This paper proposes a subjectivist approach to color within the framework of an externalist form of representationalism about phenomenal consciousness. Motivations are presented for accepting both representationalism and color subjectivism, and an argument is offered against the case made by Michael Tye on behalf of the claim that colors are objective, physical properties of objects. In the face of the considerable difficulties associated with finding a workable realist theory of color, the alternative account of color experience (...) set out, projectivist representationalism, claims that the color properties we encounter in experience exist only in the representational contents of our experiences. Color experiences are caused by the physical structure of objects, but objects are never actually colored and color experiences systematically misrepresent objects as colored. However, despite being an error theory of color, projectivist representationalism does not do violence to our everyday use and understanding of color concepts and terms, nor does it undermine the role of color experience in aiding the perceiving subject in navigating through the world. (shrink)

David Rosenthal explains conscious mentality in terms of two independent, though complementary, theories—the higher-order thought (“HOT”) theory of consciousness and quality-space theory (“QST”) about mental qualities. It is natural to understand this combination of views as constituting a kind of representationalism about experience—that is, a version of the view that an experience’s conscious character is identical with certain of its representational properties. At times, however, Rosenthal seems to resist this characterization of his view. We explore here (...) whether and to what extent it makes sense to construe Rosenthal’s views as representationalist. Our goal is not merely terminological—discerning how best to use the expression ‘representationalism’. Rather, we argue that understanding Rosenthal’s account as a kind of representationalism permits us not only to make sense of broader debates within the philosophy of mind, but also to extend and clarify aspects of the view itself. (shrink)

The knowledge argument aims to refute physicalism, the view that the world is entirely physical. The argument first establishes the existence of facts about consciousness that are not a priori deducible from the complete physical truth, and then infers the falsity of physicalism from this lack of deducibility. Frank Jackson gave the argument its classic formulation. But now he rejects the argument . On his view, it relies on a false conception of sensory experience, which should be replaced (...) with representationalism , the view that phenomenal states are just representational states. And he argues that mental representation is physically explicable. (shrink)

The irreducibility thesis of phenomenal consciousness can only succeed against the sceptical attack and avoid solipsism iff it can coherently establish the transition from subjective certainty to the objectivity of knowledge. The sceptical attack on the relationship between the phenomenal qualitative character of experience about the subjects own mental fact and the awareness of the qualitative properties of the phenomenal object can be avoided through establishing the immediacy of experience. The phenomenal realist become successful in establishing the subjective (...) certainty about the knowledge of phenomenal consciousness, however, has been failed in establishing objective certainty of knowledge, which leads to several epistemological problems (i.e., scepticism about the independent existence of external world, knowledge about the external reality and the existence of other mind; popularly known as the harder problem of consciousness) in philosophy of mind. In this paper, my objective is to reveal the undesirable consequences of representationalism. Representationalism is not an ideal option for responding to the sceptical attack against the other minds and the reality of the external world. It always leaves an open question for us about the relation between the representation of the object of experience and consciousness. Representationalistic theories of experience violates the principles of phenomenality by rejecting the immediacy of experience and has been committing the pragmatic contradiction by reducing the phenomenal properties to representational properties. The categorization of knowledge about phenomenality as inferential knowledge by representationalist leave no room for foundational knowledge about phenomenality. (shrink)

In a recent paper, Gow raised a new and interesting problem for externalist representationalism, the conclusion of which is that its proponents are unable to provide an acceptable account of the phenomenal character of colour hallucination. In contrast to Gow, we do not believe that the problem is particularly severe – indeed, that there is any problem at all. Thus our aim is to defend externalist representationalism against the problem raised by Gow. To this end, we will first (...) reconstruct her reasoning, and then show that it poses no real challenge to externalist representationalism. (shrink)

The circularity problem states that the representationalist about phenomenal consciousness gives a circular explanation if she adopts the classic view about secondary qualities, such as colours, that characterises them as dispositions to produce experiences with a specifi c phenomenal character. Since colour primitivism faces severe diffi culties, it seems that colour physicalism is the only viable option for the representationalist. I will argue that the representationalist is not committed to colour physicalism because she can adopt an anti-realist (...) theory of colour. My diagnosis is that the alleged commitment to colour physicalism rests upon the acceptance of colour realism which is due to the approval of externalist versions of representationalism, such as tracking representationalism. I will argue that the representationalist can deal with the circularity problem by adopting figurative projectivism, which holds that colours are contingently non-instantiated properties that only figure in the representational contents of colour experiences. (shrink)

Recently, Peter Carruthers has advanced the debate over first-order representationalist theories and higher-order representationalist theories of consciousness by offering two innovative arguments in support of dispositionalist HORs. In this article, I offer a limited defense of actualist FORs by showing that Carruthers' two arguments either beg the question against such accounts, equivocate on important concepts, or rest on suspect claims about our abilities to attribute phenomenal consciousness to animals. In addition, I argue that dispositionalist HORs face an (...) apparent counterexample, one which Carruthers does not consider. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to address a well-known dilemma for physicalism. If mental properties are type identical to physical properties, then their causal efficacy is secure, but at the cost of ruling out mentality in creatures very different to ourselves. On the other hand, if mental properties are multiply realizable, then all kinds of creatures can instantiate them, but then they seem to be causally redundant. The causal exclusion problem depends on the widely held principle that realized properties (...) inherit their causal powers from their realizers. While this principle holds for functional realization, it fails on a broader notion of realization that permits the realization of complex qualitative properties such as spatial and temporal patterns. Such properties are best seen as dependent powerful qualities, which have their causal roles in virtue of being the qualities they are, and do not inherit powers from their realizers. Recent studies have identified one such property—neural synchrony—as a correlate of consciousness. If synchrony is also partially constitutive of consciousness, then phenomenal properties are both multiply realizable and causally novel. I outline a version of representationalism about consciousness on which this constitution claim holds. (shrink)

In Consciousness and Persons: Unity and Identity, Michael Tye takes on the thorny issue of the unity of consciousness and answers these important questions: What exactly is the unity of consciousness? Can a single person have a divided consciousness? What is a single person? Tye argues that unity is a fundamental part of human consciousness -- something so basic to everyday experience that it is easy to overlook. For example, when we hear the sound of (...) waves crashing on a beach and at the same time see a red warning flag, there is an overall unity to our experience; the sound and the red shape are presented together in our consciousness. Similarly, when we undergo a succession of thoughts as we think something through, there is an experience of succession that unifies the thoughts into a conscious whole. But, Tye shows, consciousness is not always unified. Split-brain subjects, whose corpus callosum has been severed, are usually taken to have a divided or disunified consciousness. Their behavior in certain situations implies that they have lost the unity normal human subjects take for granted; it is sometimes even supposed that a split-brain subject is really two persons.Tye begins his account by proposing an account of the unity of experience at a single time; this account is extended over the succeeding chapters to cover bodily sensations at a single time and perceptual experience, bodily sensations, conscious thoughts, and felt moods at a single time. Tye follows these chapters with a discussion of the unity of experience through time. Turning to the split-brain phenomenon, he proposes an account of the mental life of split-brain subjects and argues that certain facts about these subjects offer support for his theory of unity. Finally, addressing the topic of the nature of persons and personal identity, Tye finds the two great historical accounts -- the ego theory and the bundle theory -- lacking and he makes an alternative proposal. He includes an appendix on the general representational approach to consciousness and its many varieties, because of the relevance of representationalism to the theory of unity being adanced. (shrink)

Dualist and Reductionist theories of mind disagree about whether or not consciousness can be reduced to a state of or function of the brain. They assume, however, that the contents of consciousness are separate from the external physical world as-perceived. According to the present paper this assumption has no foundation either in everyday experience or in science. Drawing on evidence for perceptual projection in both interoceptive and exteroceptive sense modalities, the case is made that the physical world (...) as-perceived is a construct of perceptual processing and, therefore, part of the contents of consciousness. A finding which requires a Reflexive rather than a Dualist or Reductionist model of how consciousness relates to the brain and the physical world. The physical world as-perceived may, in turn be thought of as a biologically useful model of the world as described by physics. Redrawing the boundaries of consciousness to include the physical world as-perceived undermines the conventional separation of the 'mental' from the physical', and with it the very foundation of the Dualist-Reductionist debate. The alternative Reflexive model departs radically from current conventions, with consequences for many aspects of consciousness theory and research. Some of the consequences which bear on the internal consistency and intuitive plausibility of the model are explored, e.g. the causal sequence in perception, representationalism, a suggested resolution of the Realism versus Idealism debate, and the way manifest differences between physical events as-perceived and other conscious events are to be construed. In the present paper I wish to challenge some of our most deeply-rooted assumptions about what consciousness is, by re-examining how consciousness, the human brain, and the surrounding physical world relate to each other. (shrink)

In his 2009 article “Self-Representationalism and Phenomenology,” Uriah Kriegel argues for self-representationalism about phenomenal consciousness primarily on phenomenological grounds. Kriegel’s argument can naturally be cast more broadly as an argument for higher-order representationalism. I examine this broadened version of Kriegel’s argument in detail and show that it is unsuccessful for two reasons. First, Kriegel’s argument (in its strongest form) relies on an inference to the best explanation from the claim that all experiences of normal adult (...) human beings are accompanied by peripheral awareness of those very experiences to the claim that all experiences are accompanied by peripheral awareness of those very experiences. This inference is inadequately defended, for the explanandum may also be given a straightforward evolutionary explanation. Second, contra Kriegel, I argue that phenomenological investigation does not support the thesis that we are always peripherally aware of our experiences. Instead, it delivers no verdict on this thesis. Kriegel’s phenomenological mistake may be explained via a highly diluted version of the famous transparency thesis about experience. (shrink)

Carruthers (2000; 2005) provides a general defence of reductive representationalism about phenomenal consciousness while critiquing first-order theories of the sort proposed by Baars (1988), Tye (1995), Dennett (2001), and others (thereby motivating a form of higher-order account). The present paper defends first-order theories against that attack.

Intermodal representationalism is a popular theory of consciousness. This paper argues that intermodal representationalism is false, or at least likely so. The argument turns on two forms of exceptional episodic memory: hyperthymesia and prodigious visual memory in savant syndrome. Emerging from this argument is a broader lesson about the relationship between memory and perception; that it may be possible to entertain in memory the very same content as in a corresponding perceptual experience, and that the ‘overflow’ (...) interpretation of the classic Sperling paradigm experiments may not fully generalize. (shrink)

The primary goal of this paper is to provide substantial motivation for exploring an Acquaintance account of phenomenal consciousness, on which what fundamentally explains phenomenal consciousness is the relation of acquaintance. Its secondary goal is to take a few steps towards such an account. Roughly, my argument proceeds as follows. Motivated by prioritizing naturalization, the debate about the nature of phenomenal consciousness has been almost monopolized by representational theories. Among them, Self-Representationalism is by far the (...) most antecedently promising. However, on thorough inspection, Self-Representationalism turns out not explanatorily or theoretically better than the Acquaintance account. Indeed, the latter seems to be superior in at least some important respects. Therefore, at the very least, there are good reasons to take the Acquaintance account into serious consideration as an alternative to representational theories. The positive contribution of this paper is a sketch of an account of consciousness on which phenomenal consciousness is explained partly in representationalist terms, but where a crucial role is played by the relation of acquaintance. (shrink)

Newcomers to the philosophy of mind are sometimes resistant to the idea that pain is a mental state. If asked to defend their view, they might say something like this: pain is a physical state, it is a state of the body. A pain in one’s leg feels to be in the leg, not ‘in the mind’. After all, sometimes people distinguish pain which is ‘all in the mind’ from a genuine pain, sometimes because the second is ‘physical’ while the (...) first is not. And we also occasionally distinguish mental pain (which is normally understood as some kind of emotional distress) from the ‘physical pain’ one feels in one’s body. So what can be meant by saying that pain is a mental state? Of course, it only takes a little reflection shows that this naive view is mistaken. Pain is a state of consciousness, or an event in consciousness, and whether or not all states of mind are conscious, it is indisputable that only minds, or states of mind, are conscious.2 But does the naive view tell us anything about the concept of pain, or the concept of mind? I think it does. In this paper, I shall give reasons for thinking that consciousness is a form of intentionality, the mind’s ‘direction upon its objects’. I shall claim that the consciousness involved in bodily sensations like pain is constituted by the mind’s direction upon the part or region of the body where the sensation feels to be. Given this, it is less surprising that the naive view of pain says what it does: the apparent ‘physicality’ of pain is a consequence of confusing the object of the intentional state—the part of the body in which the pain is felt—with the state of being in pain. (shrink)

Attention influences the character of conscious perceptual experience in intricate and surprising ways, including our experience of contrast, space, and time. These patterns of influence have been argued to cause trouble for the attractive thesis that differences in the character of conscious experience flow from differences in what we represent. I present a novel theory of the functional role of attention that has the resources for a systematic representationalist account of these phenomena. On the erotetic theory of attention, we bring (...) an interest to the task of perception, captured as a question we seek to answer. Questions, as understood here, are contents that cognitive systems can represent rather than sentences. We process perceptual input as a putative answer to our question in a way that is modulated by attentional focus; attentional focus aims to pick out something that matches what our question is “about.” In certain cases, this yields a form of predictive coding: if the contribution of focus matches what our question is about, we take it to select one of the possible answers we are entertaining, even though our perceptual input by itself does not supply a full answer. The proposed account also provides a new account of the phenomenology of salience. (shrink)

In this book, Kristina Musholt offers a novel theory of self-consciousness, understood as the ability to think about oneself. Traditionally, self-consciousness has been central to many philosophical theories. More recently, it has become the focus of empirical investigation in psychology and neuroscience. Musholt draws both on philosophical considerations and on insights from the empirical sciences to offer a new account of self-consciousness—the ability to think about ourselves that is at the core of what makes us (...) human. -/- Examining theories of nonconceptual content developed in recent work in the philosophy of cognition, Musholt proposes a model for the gradual transition from self-related information implicit in the nonconceptual content of perception and other forms of experience to the explicit representation of the self in conceptual thought. A crucial part of this model is an analysis of the relationship between self-consciousness and intersubjectivity. Self-consciousness and awareness of others, Musholt argues, are two sides of the same coin. -/- After surveying the philosophical problem of self-consciousness, the notion of nonconceptual content, and various proposals for the existence of nonconceptual self-consciousness, Musholt argues for a non-self-representationalist theory, according to which the self is not part of the representational content of perception and bodily awareness but part of the mode of presentation. She distinguishes between implicitly self-related information and explicit self-representation, and describes the transitions from the former to the latter as arising from a complex process of self–other differentiation. By this account, both self-consciousness and intersubjectivity develop in parallel. (shrink)

Before one can even begin to model consciousness and what exactly it means that it is a subjective phenomenon one needs a theory about what a first-person perspective really is. This theory has to be conceptually convincing, empirically plausible and, most of all, open to new developments. The chosen conceptual framework must be able to accommodate scientific progress. Its ba- sic assumptions have to be plastic as it were, so that new details and empirical data can continuously be (...) fed into the theoretical model as it grows and becomes more refined. This paper makes an attempt at sketching the outlines of such a theory, offering a representationalist analysis of the phenomenal first-person perspective. Three phenomenal target properties are centrally relevant. (shrink)

A satisfactory solution to the problem of consciousness would take the form of a simple yet fully general model that specifies the precise conditions under which any given state of consciousness occurs. Science has uncovered numerous correlations between consciousness and neural activity, but it has not yet come anywhere close to this. We are still looking for the Newtonian laws of consciousness. -/- One of the main difficulties with consciousness is that we lack a language (...) in which to formulate illuminating generalizations about it. Philosophers and scientists talk about "what it’s like", sensations, feelings, and perceptual states such as seeing and hearing. This language does not allow a precise articulation of the internal structures of conscious states and their inter-relations. It is inadequate to capture relations of the kind we are looking for between conscious states and physical states. -/- In this thesis I refine and defend a theory of consciousness which promises to solve this regimentation problem: the representational theory of consciousness. I argue that the representational theory can solve the regimentation problem and smooth out other important obstacles to a fruitful study of consciousness. I also make a case for the theory independently of its payoffs, and I discuss the leading opposing theories at some length. (shrink)

Fifty years ago, Dieter Henrich wrote an influential little text on ‘Fichte’s Origi­nal Insight’. Seldom so much food for thought has been put in a nutshell. The essay, bearing such an unremarkable title, delivers a diagnosis of why two hundred years of penetrating thought about the internal structure of subjectivity have ended up so fruitless. Henrich’s point was: Self-consciousness cannot be explained as the result of a higher-order act, bending back upon a first-order one, given that “what reflection (...) finds, must already have been there before” (Novalis). Whereas Henrich’s discovery had some influence in German speaking countries (and was dubbed the ‘Heidelberg School’), it remained nearly unnoticed in the anglophone (and now dominant) philosophical world. This is starting to change, now that a recent view on (self-) consciousness, called ‘self-representationalism’, is beginning to develop and to discover its Heidelbergian roots. (shrink)

To adopt a first-person perspective on consciousness is typically understood as a matter of inwardly engaging one's awareness in such a way as to make one's conscious states and their properties into objects of awareness. When awareness is thus inwardly engaged, experience functions as both act and object of awareness. As objects of awareness, an experience-token and its various properties are items of which a subject is aware. As an act of awareness, an experience-token is that in virtue of (...) which items - in this case, other experience-tokens and their properties - can appear, to a subject, as objects of awareness. The precise nature of the relation between experience functioning as act and as object is a matter of dispute. However, two broad possibilities can be distinguished: (1) as acts of awareness, experiences reveal other experiences to subjects by way of a form of direct, unmediated, acquaintance, (2) as acts of awareness experiences reveal other experiences to subjects by way of modes of presentation of those experiences. I shall argue against (1). Possibility (2), I shall argue, entails a form of representationalism about experiences: experiences are defined by their representational role. However, (2) also yields a crucial but largely neglected consequence of representationalism: necessarily, in any given experience, there is an aspect of this experience that must be understood in terms of its representational role but cannot be understood in terms of its representational content. I shall call this the ineliminable intentional core of the experience. The ineliminable intentional core of the experience is, necessarily, not an object of inwardly engaged awareness. This entails a significant revision in the way we think about the concept of the first-person perspective, and of what it is to study consciousness from the inside. (shrink)

The program of “neurophenomenal structuralism” is presented as an agenda for a genuine structuralist neuroscience of consciousness that seeks to understand specific phenomenal experiences as strictly relational affairs. The paper covers a broad range of topics. It starts from considerations about neural change detection and relational coding that motivate a solution of the Newman problem of the brain in terms of spatiotemporal relations. Next, phenomenal quality spaces and their Q-structures are discussed. Neurophenomenal structuralism proclaims a homomorphic mapping of (...) the structures of self-organized neural maps in the brain onto Q-structures, and it will be demonstrated how this leads to a new and special version of structural representationalism about phenomenal content. A methodological implication of neurophenomenal structuralism is that it proposes measurement procedures that focus on the relationships between different stimuli (as, for instance, similarity ratings or representational geometry methods). Finally, it will be shown that neurophenomenal structuralism also has strong philosophical implications, as it leads to holism about phenomenal experiences and serves to reject inverted qualia scenarios. (shrink)

According to intentionalism, phenomenal properties are identical to, supervenient on, or determined by representational properties. Intentionalism faces a special challenge when it comes to accounting for the phenomenal character of moods. First, it seems that no intentionalist treatment of moods can capture their apparently undirected phenomenology. Second, it seems that even if we can come up with a viable intentionalist account of moods, we would not be able to motivate it in some of the same kinds of ways that intentionalism (...) about other kinds of states can be motivated. In this article, I respond to both challenges: First, I propose a novel intentionalist treatment of moods on which they represent unbound affective properties. Then, I argue that this view is indirectly supported by the same kinds of considerations that directly support intentionalism about other mental states. (shrink)

The main aim of this paper is to show that we can extract an elaborate account of phe- nomenal consciousness from Leibniz’s (1646-1716) writings. Against a prevalent view, which attributes a higher-order reflection account of phenomenal consciousness to Leibniz, it is argued that we should understand Leibniz as holding a first-order concep- tion of it. In this conception, the consciousness aspect of phenomenal consciousness is explained in terms of a specific type of attention. This type of (...) attention, in turn, is accounted for in terms of cognitive appetites aiming at knowledge about a repre- sented object by means of initiating cognitive operations on representational content. Furthermore, against the view that Leibniz holds a reifying account, it is argued that Leibniz accepts an epistemic account of phenomenal character. According to this view, the phenomenal character of phenomenally conscious states rests on the con- fusing effect of imperfect acts of attention directed towards representational contents. Holding this view, Leibniz finds fruitful middle ground between contemporary stan- dard positions like higher-order theories, representationalist conceptions, and qualia accounts of phenomenal consciousness. His position possesses resources to meet sev- eral objections these standard accounts are confronted with. (shrink)

This chapter sketches what is considered the best interpretation of physicalism, rehearses the best way of defending it, and shows that the physicalism forthcoming is still going to be less than fully satisfying; it is going to leave us short of the satisfaction that might be expected from a philosophical theory. The chapter is organized into three sections. The first section gives an interpretation of physicalism in the spirit of Frank Jackson's; this involves a rich version under which the way (...) things are phenomenally is derivable in principle from physical premisses. The second sketches a representationalist or intentionalist argument for physicalism about phenomenal experience, one which also appeals to Jackson. The third section argues that even if we accept this case for a rich physicalism, still we should not expect to find the doctrine fully satisfying; the simulatory gap will stand between us and a sort of satisfaction that we might have expected to achieve. (shrink)

One popular approach to theorizing about phenomenal consciousness has been to connect it to representations of a certain kind. Representational theories of consciousness can be further sub-divided into first-order and higher-order theories. Higher-order theories are often interpreted as invoking a special relation between the first-order state and the higher-order state. However there is another way to interpret higher-order theories that rejects this relational requirement. On this alternative view phenomenal consciousness consists in having suitable higher-order representations. I (...) call this ‘HOROR’ (‘Higher-Order Representation Of a Representation’) theory to distinguish it from relational versions of higher- order theory. In this paper I make the case that HOROR theory is a plausible account of the real nature of phenomenal consciousness whatever one’s views are about whether it is physical/reducible or not. I first clarify HOROR theory and compare it to the more traditional same-order and higher-order thought theories. Afterwards I move to presenting some considerations in favor of HOROR theory. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that there are problems with the foundations of the current version of physicalism about color. In some sources laying the foundations of physicalism, types of surface reflectance corresponding to (veridical) color perceptions are characterized by making reference to properties of the observer. This means that these surface attributes are not objective (i.e. observer-independent). This problem casts doubt on the possibility of identifying colors with types of surface reflectance. If this identification cannot be maintained, that (...) in turn threatens representationalist theories of phenomenal consciousness: there remains no objective, observer-independent property that color experiences represent - hence no representational content, in terms of semantic externalism, can be attributed to color experiences. I offer an alternative account of color and conclude that further empirical study is required to do justice to the basic claims of color physicalism. (shrink)

If a philosophical theory led to the conclusion that the red stripes cannot look red to both men and women, both blacks and whites, both young and old, we would be reluctant (to say the least) to accept that philosophical theory. But there is a widespread philosophical view about the nature of conscious experience that, together with some empirical facts, suggests that color experience cannot be veridical for both men and women, both blacks and whites, both young and old.

Recently, some philosophers have claimed that consciousness has an important epistemological role to play in the introspective self-ascription of one’s own mental states. This is the thesis of the epistemological role of consciousness for introspective self-knowledge. I will criticize BonJour’s account of the role of consciousness for introspection. He does not provide any reason for believing that conscious states are epistemically better off than non-conscious states. Then I will sketch a representationalist account of how the thesis could (...) be true. Conscious states are available to the subject in a very special way in which non-conscious states are not available. This is the first part of the explanation. The crucial further element in the representationalist account is what I would like to call the ‘introspective mode of mind’. A mind can operate in certain ways or modes – modes of mind. Introspection normally takes place in the introspective mode of mind, judgments about one’s environment in the mode of ‘taking one’s appearances at face value’. And there probably are other modes of mind. The introspective mode of mind is characterized by the special way or framework in which cognitive capacities are employed. (shrink)

The relation between subjective consciousness and the physical brain is widely regarded as the last mystery facing science. David Papineau argues that there is no real puzzle here. Consciousness seems mysterious, not because of any hidden essence, but only because we think about it in a special way. Papineau exposes the confusion, and dispels the mystery: we see consciousness in its place in the material world, and we are on the way to a proper understanding of (...) the mind. (shrink)

This dissertation examines representationalism about sensory phenomenology—the claim that for a sensory experience to have a particular phenomenal character is a matter of it having a particular representational content. I focus on a particular issue that is central to representationalism: whether reductive versions of the theory should be internalist or externalist. My primary goals are to demonstrate that externalist representationalism fails to provide a reductive explanation for phenomenal qualities, and to present a reductive internalist version of (...) representationalism that utilizes the empirical framework of psychophysics and neuroscience to develop a philosophical theory of content. The bulk of the project is an attempt to provide the outlines of what such an empirically-based representationalist theory would look like. In chapter 2, I argue that reductive externalist representationalism fails because it is vulnerable to the problem of bad structural correlation: the mismatch between the structure of phenomenal qualities and the structure of physical properties “tracked” by our sensory systems with which phenomenal qualities are identified. In chapter 3, I develop the outlines of a reductive internalist version of representationalism that characterizes phenomenal qualities as modes of presentation of sensory representations that can be reductively characterized in terms of a location in a psychophysically-defined quality space, which can in turn be given a neurophysiological interpretation. In addition, I argue that the neural mechanisms responsible for the representation of spatial locations and visual objects serve a referential role in sensory psychosemantics that grounds the intentionality of sensory states. In chapter 5 I provide a detailed account of the representation of spatial locations in sensory experience, and in chapter 6 I examine the “binding problem”, demonstrating how object-based sensory representations function to demonstratively pick out sensory individuals without explicitly representing any of their features. I describe the resulting view as methodological representationalism: an attempt to demonstrate how a particular philosophical theory of sensory phenomenology can be integrated into the empirical framework of cognitive science, and thereby provide an explanatory psychosemantic framework for sensory phenomenology that is valuable to both philosophers and cognitive scientists. (shrink)

As far as an adequate understanding of phenomenal consciousness is concerned, representationalist theories of mind which are modelled on the information processing paradigm, are, as much as corresponding neurobiological or functionalist theories, confronted with a series of arguments based on inverted or absent qualia considerations. These considerations display the following pattern: assuming we had complete knowledge about the neural and functional states which subserve the occurrence of phenomenal consciousness, would it not still be conceivable that these neural (...) states (or states with the same causal r. (shrink)

This paper examines pain states (and other intransitive bodily sensations) from the perspective of the problems they pose for pure informational/representational approaches to naturalizing qualia. I start with a comprehensive critical and quasi-historical discussion of so-called Perceptual Theories of Pain (e.g., Armstrong, Pitcher), as these were the natural predecessors of the more modern direct realist views. I describe the theoretical backdrop (indirect realism, sense-data theories) against which the perceptual theories were developed. The conclusion drawn is that pure representationalism (...) class='Hi'>about pain in the tradition of direct realist perceptual theories (e.g., Dretske, Tye) leaves out something crucial about the phenomenology of pain experiences, namely, their affective character. I touch upon the role that introspection plays in such representationalist views, and indicate how it contributes to the source of their trouble vis-à-vis bodily sensations. The paper ends by briefly commenting on the relation between the affective/evaluative component of pain and the hedonic valence of emotions. (shrink)

This paper defends the realist representationalist version of the Buddhist-Abhidharma account of consciousness. The account explains the intentionality and the phenomenality of conscious experiences by appealing to the doctrine of self-awareness. Concerns raised by Buddhist Mādhyamika philosophers about the compatibility of reflexive awareness and externality of the objects of perception are addressed. Similarly, the Hindu critiques on the incoherence of the Buddhist doctrine of reflexive awareness with the doctrines of no-self and momentariness are also answered.

When people are trying to determine whether an entity is capable of having certain kinds of mental states, they can proceed either by thinking about the entity from a *functional* standpoint or by thinking about the entity from a *physical* standpoint. We conducted a series of studies to determine how each of these standpoints impact people’s mental state ascriptions. The results point to a striking asymmetry. It appears that ascriptions of states involving phenomenal consciousness are sensitive to (...) physical factors in a way that ascriptions of other states are not. (shrink)

According to representationalism, the phenomenal character of a mental state reduces to its intentional content. Although representationalism seems plausible with respect to ordinary perceptual states, it seems considerably less plausible for states like moods. Here the problem for representationalism arises largely because moods seem to lack intentional content altogether. In this paper, I explore several possible options for identifying the intentional content of moods and suggest that none of them is wholly satisfactory. Importantly, however, I go on (...) to argue that the plausibility of representationalism should not be seen to rest on the question of whether moods have intentional content but rather on the question of whether the intentional content of moods, were there any, would be sufficient to determine their phenomenal character. As I argue, even if we concede to the representationalist that moods have intentional content, their phenomenal character outstrips their intentional content; thus, the representationalist reduction cannot succeed. Ultimately, then, I conclude that moods do indeed pose a serious objection to the representationalist theory. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Mind, Theaters, and the Anatomy of ConsciousnessDonald Beecher"All unified theories of cognition today involve theater metaphors."—Bernard J. BaarsAmong the most perplexing challenges for cognitive philoso-phers are those pertaining to representationalism, Gilbert Ryle's denial of the "ghost in the machine," the languages of cognition, and the "self" as the one-time audience and author of consciousness.1 Each of these topics can be discussed metaphorically in terms of the theater. (...) The mind is a kind of acting space in which thoughts and images are in some fashion prepared and represented in rapid sequence. Consciousness is a theatrical machine behind which there is a director who helps to determine how the narrative of the mind will play itself out. The discrete "I" is not only the prompter of consciousness, but its audience, receiving all that is played in the mind's theater. Or, in the words of C. S. Sherrington, "each waking day is a stage dominated for good or ill, in comedy, farce or tragedy by a dramatis persona, the 'self,' and so it will be until the curtain drops."2 The problem, however, is that in matters so difficult to comprehend as the workings of the human brain and the mind operations attached to it, metaphors develop vectors of their own that shade and nuance understanding in ways that obstruct the plasticity of analysis. For this reason, theater analogies in relation to consciousness have been widely endorsed in characterizing its distinctive operations, yet widely criticized for epitomizing the philosophical thinking in the past (and the present) that detaches consciousness from the emotions, the body, and the material world. For the latter reason, the metaphor of [End Page 1] the theater will generally be found wanting, as it is in Dennett's assault on what he labels "the Cartesian theater." And yet there are compelling reasons why this metaphor may persist for a time to come as the image of choice for illustrating the operations of consciousness.Arguably, the earliest intimations of mind as resembling a theater emerged at the beginning of the sixteenth century. It was not only an age that fostered a renewed interest in dramatized spectacle, but one that confronted, through theater metaphors, the illusory nature of human experience. The rise of the modern theater, and speculations upon reality in relation to happenings in the mind, are quite separate phenomena, but, arguably, a sense of the theater as a place of memory, of illusions projected as realities, and of experience provided the best "thought experiment" for dealing with the paradoxes of mentation. In fact, the emerging sense of reality as an illusion was tantamount to a major paradigm shift, one that has remained at the center of western philosophy from the time of Descartes to the present day. That there could be a disparity between the phenomena of mind and the world of extension was a watershed in epistemological thinking, and it followed, as a matter of course, that the illusions associated with perception would find expression in the illusions associated with theatrical representation. The result was that the medieval metaphor of the speculum, emphasizing the mind as the faithful reflection of reality, was replaced by the theater, in which the necessary conventions permitting belief came to bear on the understanding of the data which the mind represented to itself. In short, conventions are to the theater what adequate representation is to the mind—the necessary slippages whereby perceptions function as reality.Parallel insights into the mind as a theater came about through sixteenth-century inquiries into mnemonics techniques for the improvement of memory. This metaphor of mind came about by analogy with memory theaters of the kind epitomized in the Idea del Theatro (1550) of Giulio Camillo. He chose the theater simply as the most apt edifice in which to house his elaborate set of memory prompts. His goal was to devise an actual working machine for enhancing recall. He chose the theater because of its architectural complexity and multi-sectionality which he could in turn invest with information. Yet insofar as the theater functioned in relation to memory through the art of mnemonics, it became an extension of mind, and... (shrink)