Abstract
It is often said that some kind of peripheral (or inattentional) conscious awareness accompanies our focal (attentional) consciousness. I agree that this is often the case, but clarity is needed on several fronts. In this paper, I lay out four distinct theses on peripheral awareness and show that three of them are true. However, I then argue that a fourth thesis, commonly associated with the so-called "self-representational approach to consciousness," is false. The claim here is that we have outer focal consciousness accompanied often (or even always) by inner peripheral (self-)awareness. My criticisms stem from both methodological and phenomenological considerations. In doing so, I offer a diagnosis as to why the fourth thesis has seemed true to so many and also show how the so-called "transparency of experience," frequently invoked by representationalists, is importantly relevant to my diagnosis. Finally, I respond to several objections and to further attempts to show that thesis four is true. What emerges is that if one wishes to hold that some form of self-awareness accompanies all outer-directed conscious states, one is better off holding that such self-awareness is itself unconscious, as is held for example by standard higher-order theories of consciousness.
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Notes
For a more complete introduction to varieties of higher-order theory, see Gennaro 2004a and the essays and references therein.
There are two other related and somewhat hybrid views worth noting here. I have argued that, when one has a first-order conscious state, the HOT is better viewed as intrinsic to the target state, so that we have a complex conscious state with parts (Gennaro 1996, 2004, 2006). I call this the “wide intrinsicality view” (WIV) and also argue that Jean-Paul Sartre’s theory of consciousness can be understood in this way (Gennaro 2002). I hold that conscious mental states should be understood (as Kant might have today) as global brain states which are combinations of passively received perceptual input and presupposed higher-order conceptual activity directed at that input. Higher-order concepts in the meta-psychological thoughts are presupposed in having first-order conscious states. Robert Van Gulick (2004, 2006) has also explored the alternative that the HO state is part (in some sense) of an overall global conscious state. He calls such states “HOGS” (= higher-order global states) whereby a lower-order unconscious state is “recruited” into a larger state, which becomes conscious partly due to the implicit self-awareness that one is in the lower-order state. Both Van Gulick and I have suggested that conscious states can be understood materialistically as global states of the brain, and it would be better to treat the first-order state as part of the larger complex brain state. To be sure, the notion of a mental state representing itself or a mental state with one part representing another part is in need of further development and is perhaps somewhat mysterious. Nonetheless, there is agreement that conscious mental states are, in some important sense, reflexive or self-directed.
This is not of course to say that we are always consciously aware of everything that we consciously attend to, as seems to be one lesson learned from cases of inattentional blindness (Mack and Rock 1998). I will not discuss this important phenomenon in this paper.
See Kriegel 2004b, pp. 177–178, for a nice discussion of this point.
This is of course a very complex issue in itself. See e.g. Kind 2003 for some discussion including important distinctions between various kinds of transparency of experience.
This is one of many points made in a wonderful paper by Daniel Stoljar 2004.
I also argue in Gennaro 2006 that self-representationalism cannot explain introspection at all.
The context in that paper was to show in great detail that there is a viable middle position between what I called “pure self-referentialism” and “extrinsic HOT theory.”
Again, for much more detail, see Gennaro 2006.
It is also worth noting here that if Kriegel is correct, then there is no chance of obtaining a reductionist account of conscious mental states in mentalistic terms, which I take to be another major disadvantage, though I won’t argue for this preference here. In Gennaro 2006, I similarly argue that self-representationalism doesn’t really explain what makes a mental state conscious, which is a major deficiency.
I do agree with Kriegel that “there is something artificial in calling a mental state conscious when the subject is wholly unaware of its occurrence” (2003, p. 106, emphasis added). But this leaves open whether such meta-awareness is conscious or not. Kriegel’s use of the expression “wholly unaware” suggests both “consciously and unconsciously unaware,” but we might instead hold that a state is conscious when the subject is unconsciously aware of its occurrence. Kriegel’s argument can really only justify the weaker claim that “there is something artificial in calling a mental state conscious when the subject is not at least unconsciously aware of its occurrence.” But this is precisely one key issue at hand between Kriegel’s view and, say, standard HOT theory.
I’ll ignore their discussion of neurophysiology for the purposes of this paper.
For related analysis of a few other psychopathologies, see Gennaro 1996, pp. 136–142.
Much of the impetus behind this section resulted from some very helpful comments and questions when I presented a shorter version of this paper at the 2006 “Toward a Science of Consciousness” Conference in Tucson, Arizona. Special thanks to Pete Mandik, Robert Van Gulick, Josh Weisberg, and Uriah Kriegel.
Another case might be sitting on my back patio and reflecting on the nice weather when I am interrupted by one of my young children running toward the street. When I see that, I’d say that all of my consciousness becomes outer directed.
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Gennaro, R.J. Representationalism, peripheral awareness, and the transparency of experience. Philos Stud 139, 39–56 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-007-9101-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-007-9101-4