Manson, Neil C. (2002) What does language tell us about consciousness? First-person mental discourse and higher-order thought theories of consciousness. Philosophical Psychology, 15 (3). pp. 221-238.
Full text not available from this repository.Abstract
The fact that we can engage in first-person discourse about our own mental states seems, intuitively, to be bound up with consciousness. David Rosenthal draws upon this intuition in arguing for his higher-order thought theory of consciousness. Rosenthal�s argument relies upon the assumption that the truth-conditions for �p� and �I think that p� differ. It is argued here that the truth-conditional schema debars �I think� from playing one of its (expressive) roles and thus is not a good test for what is asserted when �I think� is employed in making an assertoric utterance. The critique of Rosenthal�s argument allows us to make explicit the intuitions which shape higher-order representation theories of consciousness in general. Consciousness and first-person mental discourse seem to be connected primarily because consciousness is (and was) an epistemic term, used to denote first-person knowledge of minds. Higher-order thought theories of consciousness draw upon this epistemic notion of consciousness, and because self-knowledge seems to involve higher-order representation, the higher-order theorist can deploy what is in effect an �error theory� about conscious experience disguised as a kind of conceptual analysis of our ordinary concept of a conscious mental state. The conclusion reached is that there is unlikely to be a simple or direct path from considerations about mental discourse to conclusions about the nature of consciousness.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Journal or Publication Title: | Philosophical Psychology |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | consciousness ; higher-order thought ; Moore's paradox ; Rosenthal ; David M ; epistemic consciousness |
| Subjects: | B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > B Philosophy (General) |
| Departments: | Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences > Politics & International Relations (Merged into PPR 2010-08-01) |
| ID Code: | 525 |
| Deposited By: | Dr Neil C Manson |
| Deposited On: | 01 Jun 2007 |
| Refereed?: | Yes |
| Published?: | Published |
| Last Modified: | 26 Jul 2012 18:12 |
| Identification Number: | |
| URI: | http://eprints.lancs.ac.uk/id/eprint/525 |
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