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What Makes Consciousness ‘Conscious’?

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Abstract

The Higher-order theories of consciousness seek to discover the necessary conditions for the formation of ‘being aware’ mental states. There have been many controversies about them since the birth of the theories. This chapter re-examines higher-order theorists’ core ideas and propositions, explicates the essence of higher-order representation (HOR) to consciousness interpretation, and analyzes their predicaments and challenges they face. It dissects the targetless problem, the trickiest of its kind, and interprets strategies to respond to it, in an effort to provide possible perspectives and ideas that can further the exploration of ‘phenomenal consciousness’. I propose an approach to the problem based on intentionality, which calls for adjusting the structure of intentional relations and requires an additional condition to distinguish the corresponding characteristics of many first-order states.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Philosophy, China University of Political Science and Law, Beijing, China

    Duoyi Fei

  2. Institute of Foreign Philosophy, Peking University, Beijing, China

    Duoyi Fei

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Correspondence to Duoyi Fei .

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Fei, D. (2023). What Makes Consciousness ‘Conscious’?. In: Beyond the Brain. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9558-3_7

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