Abstract
Carruthers returns to methodological problems of measuring the feeling of embodiment and examines the implications these problems have for the explanation offered in the previous chapters. Carruthers considers the possibility of confabulated reports of experience, or, people reporting experiences they didn’t actually have, yet sincerely believe they had. Carruthers argues that pure vehicle theories such as that offered so far in the book cannot accommodate confabulations. After establishing that such confabulations exist, Carruthers offers a hybrid account. The account offered so far explains the phenomenal qualities of the feeling of embodiment, but a functionalist account is needed to explain the subjects’ awareness of those properties, to accommodate confabulations and to explain why sometimes confabulations cannot be distinguished from veridical reports.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Strikingly commonly ‘his’.
- 2.
Although we may be tempted to ask whether this move is best understood as identification or reduction rather than elimination it makes little difference to the argument in this section. Here I use “elimination” as it fits better with Dennett’s proposal that there are no “real seemings” independent of judgements about seemings. I other contexts it will matter more to clarify the nature of this relationship and functionalists may differ on their views.
References
Berti, A., Ladavas, E., Stracciari, A., Giannarelli, C., & Ossola, A. (1998). Anosognosia for motor impairment and dissociations with patients’ evaluation of the disorder: Theoretical considerations. Cognitive Neuropsychiatry, 3(1), 21–43.
Besharati, S., Kopelman, M., Avesani, R., Moro, V., & Fotopoulou, A. (2015). Another perspective on anosognosia: Self-observation in video replay improves motor awareness. Neuropsychological Rehabilitation, 25(3), 319–352. https://doi.org/10.1080/09602011.2014.923319.
Bisiach, E., Rusconi, M., & Valler, G. (1991). Remission of somatoparaphrenic delusion through vestibular stimulation. Neuropsychologica, 29, 1029–1031.
Botvinick, M., & Cohen, J. (1998). Rubber hands “feel” touch that eyes see. Nature, 391, 756.
Brock, S., & Merwarth, H. R. (1957). The illusory awareness of body parts in cerebral disease. AMA Archives of Neurology & Psychiatry, 77(4), 366–375.
Carruthers, G. (2018). Confabulation or experience? Implications of out-of-body experiences for theories of consciousness. Theory & Psychology, 28(1), 122–140. https://doi.org/10.1177/0959354317745590.
Chatterjee, A., & Mennemeier, M. (1996). Anosognosia for hemiplegia: Patient retrospections. Cognitive Neuropsychiatry, 1(3), 221–237. https://doi.org/10.1080/135468096396523.
Clark, A. (1993). Sensory qualities. Oxford: Clarendon Library of Logic and Philosophy.
Cohen, M. A., & Dennett, D. C. (2011). Consciousness cannot be separated from function. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 15(8), 358–364. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2011.06.008.
Dennett, D. C. (1991). Consciousness explained. New York: Penguin Books.
Dennett, D. C. (1995). Consciousness: More like fame than television. Munich Conference Volume. Retrieved from http://www-personal.umich.edu/~lormand/phil/teach/mind/3%20%20%20Too%20Easy/Dennett%20-%20Consciousness%20More%20like%20Fame%20than%20Television.htm.
Dennett, D. C. (2007). Heterophenomenology reconsidered. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 6(1–2), 247–270. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-006-9044-9.
Ehrsson, H. H., Rosen, B., Stockselius, A., Ragno, C., Kohler, P., & Lundborg, G. (2008). Upper limb amputees can be induced to experience a rubber hand as their own. Brain, 131, 3443–3452.
Feinberg, T. E., & Roane, D. M. (1997). Anosognosia, completion and confabulation: The neutral-personal dichotomy. Neurocase, 3(1), 73–85.
Feinberg, T. E., Roane, D. M., & Ali, J. (2000). Illusory limb movements in anosognosia for hemiplegia. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry, 68, 511–513.
Hohwy, J. (2011). Phenomenal variability and introspective reliability. Mind and Language, 26(3), 261–286. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0017.2011.01418.x.
Irvine, E. (2012). Consciousness as a scientific concept: A philosophy of science perspective. Dordrecht: Springer Science & Business Media.
Irvine, E. (2017). Explaining what? Topoi, 36(1), 95–106. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11245-014-9273-4.
Joseph, R. (1986). Confabulation and delusional denial: Frontal lobe and lateralized influences. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 42(3), 507–520.
Lloyd, D. (1992). Toward an identity theory of consciousness. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 15(02), 215–216. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X00068369.
Mangan, B. (1993). Dennett, consciousness, and the sorrows of functionalism. Consciousness and Cognition, 2(1), 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1006/ccog.1993.1001.
Mangan, B. (1998). Against functionalism: Consciousness as an information-bearing medium. In S. R. Hameroff, A. W. Kaszniak, & A. C. Scott (Eds.), Toward a science of consciousness II: The second Tucson discussions and debates. Cambreidge, MA: Bradford Books.
O’Brien, G., & Opie, J. (1997). Cognitive science and phenomenal consciousness: A Dilemma and how to avoid it. Philosophical Psychology, 10(3), 269–286.
O’Brien, G., & Opie, J. (1999). A Connectionist theory of phenomenal experience. Behavioural and Brain Sciences, 22, 127–196.
Schwitzgebel, E. (2007). No unchallengeable epistemic authority, of any sort, regarding our own conscious experience—Contra Dennett? Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 6(1), 107–113.
Schwitzgebel, E. (2008). The unreliability of naive introspection. Philosophical Review, 117(2), 245–273.
Schwitzgebel, E. (2011). Perplexities of consciousness. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Tye, M. (1993). Reflections on Dennett and consciousness. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 53(4), 893–898. https://doi.org/10.2307/2108260.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Carruthers, G. (2019). Implications of the Real Problem of Consciousness for the Sense of Embodiment: We Need a Hybrid Account of ‘Consciousness’. In: The Feeling of Embodiment. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-14167-7_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-14167-7_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-14166-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-14167-7
eBook Packages: Behavioral Science and PsychologyBehavioral Science and Psychology (R0)