"A Refined Higher Order Theory for Statics and Dynamics of Doubly Curved Shells"

I introduce an empirically-grounded version of a higher-order theory of conscious perception. Traditionally, theories of consciousness either focus on the global availability of conscious information, or take conscious phenomenology as a brute fact due to some biological or basic representational properties. Here I argue instead that the key to characterizing the consciousness lies in its connections to belief formation and epistemic justification on a subjective level.

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Dual Aspect Theory

10.1093/oso/9780190854751.003.0006 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

J. Christopher Maloney

Keyword(s):

Phenomenal Character ◽

Order Theory ◽

Higher Order ◽

Normal Variation ◽

Perceptual Representations ◽

Order Representation ◽

Management Conflicts ◽

Higher Order Theory

Carruthers proposes a subtle dispositionalist rendition of higher order theory regarding phenomenal character. The theory would distinguish unconscious movement management from conscious attitude management as perceptual processes. Each process takes perceptual representations as inputs. A representation subject to attitude management is apt to induce a higher order representation of itself that secures a self-referential aspect of its content supposedly determinative of phenomenal character. Unfortunately, the account requires a problematic cognitive ambiguity while failing to explain why attitude, but not movement, management, determines character. Moreover, normal variation in attitudinal management conflicts with the constancy typical of phenomenal character. And although an agent denied perceptual access to a scene about which she is otherwise well informed would suffer no phenomenal character, dispositionalist theory entails otherwise. Such problems, together with the results of the previous chapters, suggest that, whether cloaked under intentionalism or higher order theory, representationalism mistakes content for character.

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Higher Order Theory

10.1093/oso/9780190854751.003.0005 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

J. Christopher Maloney

Keyword(s):

Phenomenal Character ◽

Order Theory ◽

Higher Order ◽

Cognitive State ◽

Unconscious Perception ◽

Higher Order Theory ◽

Order State

Rosenthal's rendition of representationalism denies intentionalism. His higher order theory instead asserts that a perceptual state's phenomenal character is set by that state's being related to, because represented by, another, but higher order, cognitive state. The theory arises from the doubtful supposition of unconscious perception and mistakenly construes intrinsic phenomenal character extrinsically, as one state's serving as the content of another. Yet it remains mysterious how and why a higher order state might be so potent as to determine phenomenal character at all. Better to resist higher order theory’s embrace of dubious unconscious perceptual states and account for states so-called simply in terms of humdrum mnemonic malfeasance. Moreover, since the suspect theory allows higher order misrepresentation, it implies sufferance of impossible phenomenal character. Equally problematic, representationalism pitched at the higher order entails the existence of bogus phenomenal character when upstairs states represent downstairs nonperceptual states.

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Seeming to Seem

10.1093/oso/9780199367511.003.0009 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

David Rosenthal

Keyword(s):

Mental States ◽

Order Theory ◽

Higher Order ◽

Psychological State ◽

Intentional Stance ◽

First Person ◽

Psychological States ◽

Third Person ◽

Higher Order Theory ◽

The Third Person

Dennett’s account of consciousness starts from third-person considerations. I argue this is wise, since beginning with first-person access precludes accommodating the third-person access we have to others’ mental states. But Dennett’s first-person operationalism, which seeks to save the first person in third-person, operationalist terms, denies the occurrence of folk-psychological states that one doesn’t believe oneself to be in, and so the occurrence of folk-psychological states that aren’t conscious. This conflicts with Dennett’s intentional-stance approach to the mental, on which we discern others’ mental states independently of those states’ being conscious. We can avoid this conflict with a higher-order theory of consciousness, which saves the spirit of Dennett’s approach, but enables us to distinguish conscious folk-psychological states from nonconscious ones. The intentional stance by itself can’t do this, since it can’t discern a higher-order awareness of a psychological state. But we can supplement the intentional stance with the higher-order theoretical apparatus.

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