The persistent problem of targetless thought.
Consciousness
Higher-order thought
Philosophy
Journal
Consciousness and cognition
ISSN: 1090-2376
Titre abrégé: Conscious Cogn
Pays: United States
ID NLM: 9303140
Informations de publication
Date de publication:
07 2020
07 2020
Historique:
received:
23
09
2019
revised:
09
02
2020
accepted:
11
03
2020
pubmed:
23
5
2020
medline:
20
7
2021
entrez:
23
5
2020
Statut:
ppublish
Résumé
Targetless thought raises a persistent problem for higher-order theories of consciousness. In cases of targetless thought, a subject represents herself as being in a mental state that she in fact lacks. One popular response among proponents of the higher-order theory is to say that it can appear to a subject that she is in a conscious mental state, even though that mental state doesn't exist (Picciuto, 2017; Rosenthal 1997, 2011; Weisberg, 2010). Recently Brown and Lau (2019) and Lau and Rosenthal (2011) have shifted the debate to empirical ground, and offered evidence for real-world cases of targetless thought. In this paper, I give an alternate explanation of the evidence which avoids the need to posit targetless thoughts. As I argue, this challenges the empirical argument for the higher-order view because it shows that the evidence on offer does not discriminate between the first-order and higher-order theories of consciousness.
Identifiants
pubmed: 32442910
pii: S1053-8100(19)30399-X
doi: 10.1016/j.concog.2020.102918
pii:
doi:
Types de publication
Journal Article
Langues
eng
Sous-ensembles de citation
IM
Pagination
102918Informations de copyright
Copyright © 2020. Published by Elsevier Inc.