Some contributions of neuropsychology of vision and memory to the problem of consciousness

Abstract

This chapter explains how recourse to consciousness as an explanatory characterization is called for by empirical data, specifically in pathologies of vision and memory. It gives a main distinction between objectively adequate behaviour (when induced) and the ability to comment on such functions or the acknowledgement of awareness. The chapter suggests that the main (perhaps the only) impairment in certain neurological disorders is one of conscious awareness, and that this has disabling consequences. As some other chapters do, this chapter characterizes the capacity as one of monitoring. It gives such a capacity a causal role in donating an adaptive flexibility. Finally it confronts a question left untouched by others — how one might know if non-verbal species also have consciousness.

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