Two Puzzles For a New Theory of Consciousness

In The Significance of Consciousness, Charles Siewert proposes a novel understanding of consciousness by arguing against higher-order views of consciousness and rejecting the traditional taxonomy of the mental into qualitative and intentional aspects. I discuss two puzzles that arise from these changes: first, how to account for first-person knowledge of our conscious states while denying that these are typically accompanied by higher-order states directed towards them; second, how to understand his claim that phenomenal features are intentional features without either risking consciousness neglect or retreating to a more traditional understanding of the relation between qualitative and intentional character. Thinking of theories that defend phenomenal consciousness might bring to mind Kantian inner-awareness pictures of a mind constantly aware of its own contents, or contemporary 'qualia freaks' who would preserve consciousness by arguing for the irreducibility of sensory 'raw feels' such as that of seeing a red tomato. Thinking of theories that defend a distinctive first-person knowledge of our conscious states might call to mind Cartesian views of mental states as infallibly known by their possessors. Charles Siewert aims to change all that in The Significance of Consciousness by developing and defending a new view of phenomenal consciousness that can avoid the problems of inner awareness views, the trivialization of consciousness through association with mere qualia, and the wrongful association of the idea of first-person warrant with Cartesian infallibilism. The book pursues two interrelated goals. The first is to defend the idea that there is phenomenal consciousness, as against (and while making evident) various forms of 'consciousness neglect'. The strategy is first, to argue that we do have a distinctive kind of first-person warrant for beliefs about our own experiences and attitudes (although such beliefs may not be infallible), and second, to utilize that first-person warrant as the basis for asserting that we have phenomenal consciousness and distinguishing it from other features. A series of blindsight thought experiments, considered from the first-person point of view, is used to clarify what phenomenal consciousness involves, providing the basis for a series of arguments that many so-called theories of consciousness, including those of Dennett and Rosenthal, in fact leave out phenomenal consciousness entirely. These admirably thorough and incisive arguments squeeze out room for the rhetorical dissimulation so common in discussions of consciousness, and squarely lay out requirements for a theory that really acknowledges phenomenal consciousness. The arguments here seem to me so convincing that I will leave it for others to attempt to respond to or circumvent them. The second goal is to draw out a positive view of the nature and extent of phenomenal consciousness in a way that prevents its dismissal or trivialization and demonstrates its centrality to mind and ultimately to human life. I will focus on this positive view, for the natural question that arises for those of us convinced of the need to account for phenomenal consciousness is whether Siewert's proposal is the best way of bringing phenomenal consciousness into a general theory of the mind. The theory developed provides an interesting and novel understanding of phenomenal consciousness, which parts company with many non-reductive theories of consciousness in at least two ways. First, it abandons those traditional phenomenological accounts of consciousness that would insist that a distinctive feature of consciousness is that it involves (higher-order) consciousness of our mental states themselves, arguing instead for a one-level view of consciousness. Second, it eschews the standard move of those who would argue for the irreducibility of phenomenal consciousness by emphasizing its qualitative or sensory features. Instead, Siewert argues against taxonomies that would divide the mental into intentional and qualitative aspects (identifying consciousness with the latter), in favor of the view that phenomenal features (typically) are intentional