Abstract
I believe that there is a ubiquitous pre-reflective self-awareness accompanying first-order conscious states. However, I do not think that such self-awareness is itself typically conscious. On my view, conscious self-awareness enters the picture during what is sometimes called “introspection” which is a more sophisticated form of self-consciousness. I argue that there is a very close connection between consciousness and self-consciousness and, more specifically, between the structure of all conscious states and self-consciousness partly based on the higher-order thought (HOT) theory of consciousness. A plausible notion of self-consciousness is, I think, simply having any degree of higher-order or meta-psychological thought. I argue that the connection between conscious states and self-consciousness is representational but also critically evaluate several different options. I then critique the alternative “acquaintance” theory of self-awareness and address a couple of recent criticisms of HOT theory. There is the potential danger of misrepresentation between self-awareness and conscious states which I also briefly address.
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Notes
Also: (3) If (or when) we better understand the neural correlates of consciousness (NCC’s), it seems reasonable to think that they would be part of the conscious states themselves. (4) The WIV can better explain the essential interplay between cognition and concepts, on the one hand, and sensory states, on the other (Gennaro 2005, 2012). Nonetheless, much of what I have to say below applies both to the WIV and standard HOT theory.
Some have attacked HOT theory and related views by arguing that so-called “depersonalization” psychopathological cases, such as thought insertion in schizophrenia and somatoparaphrenia, are problematic for HOT theory and related views. I respond to this line of argument in Gennaro 2015a, 2020, 2021.
Yet another view would be Van Gulick’s HOGS or “Higher-Order Global States” (see, for example, Van Gulick, 2004). I will not address HOGS in this paper because of space limitations and since I am somewhat less clear about how self-consciousness fits into it.
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Gennaro, R.J. What is the Structure of Self-Consciousness and Conscious Mental States?. Rev.Phil.Psych. 13, 295–309 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13164-022-00623-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13164-022-00623-3