Phenomenal consciousness and self-awareness: A phenomenological critique of representational theory

Abstract

Given the recent interest in the subjective or phenomenal dimension of consciousness it is no wonder that many authors have once more started to speak of the need for phenomenological considerations. Often however the term ‘phenomenology’ is being used simply as a synonym for ‘folk psychology’, and in our article we argue that it would be far more fruitful to turn to the argumentation to be found within the continental tradition inaugurated by Husserl. In order to exemplify this claim, we criticize Rosenthal’s higher-order thought theory as well as Strawson’s recent contribution in this journal, and argue that a phenomenological analysis of the nature of self-awareness can provide us with a more sophisticated and accurate model for understanding both phenomenal consciousness and the notion of self. Cette conscience (de) soi, nous ne devons pas la considerer comme une nouvelle conscience, mais comme le seul mode d’existence qui soit possible pour une conscience de quelque chose.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 87 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.