Misrepresentation and Mental
appearance
David Rosenthal 1
abstract: I begin by discussing an objection often lodged against
higher-order theories of consciousness. The objection is that those
theories do not preclude consciousness from misrepresenting the mental properties of our conscious states. I argue
that there are several reasons
why this objection cannot succeed. Sam Coleman (2018) agrees that the objection
fails, but sees it as pointing to a related
objection, which he argues poses difficulties the higher-order theorist cannot avoid. His solution is a variant theory of consciousness that
invokes mental quotation in the content of a higher-order awareness. I’ll argue that mental
quotation cannot be understood in any way that helps with the objection. I’ll argue also that the
objection Coleman articulates is question begging, since it in effect simply
channels a first-order approach to consciousness, and has no independent basis
apart from that.
Keywords: Higher-order theories of consciousness. Misrepresentation by
consciousness. Mental quotation.
Same-order theories. Mental appearance.
In a thoughtful and probing article
in this issue,
Sam Coleman (2018) develops a difficulty for my higher-order-thought (HOT) theory of what it is
for a mental state to be a conscious state. After offering a careful exposition of the theory, Coleman discusses one
common criticism of that theory. He argues that though the HOT theory can
withstand that objection, there is a related difficulty that he urges the
theory cannot meet. Coleman goes on to develop an alternative theory, which he
maintains can avoid what he sees as the more telling objection he advances.2
The wide-spread
objection to which Coleman calls attention is that higher-order theories do not
on their own preclude the possibility that our higher-order awareness of conscious states
may sometimes misrepresent some of the mental properties of those states.
This feature of higher-order theories
1
Professor, Philosophy and
Coordinator of Cognitive Science, Graduate Center, City University of New York (CUNY), New York, NY – United States of America. E-mail: davidrosenthal1@gmail.com
2 When not otherwise indicated, references are to Coleman’s article.
is seen by many as a
decisive objection to such theories (NEANDER, 1998; LEVINE, 2001; BLOCK, 2011).
Unlike many critics, Coleman regards my previous replies to that objection (ROSENTHAL, 2011, 2012) as satisfactory.
In section I, below, I discuss the objection at more length than I have in the
past, and explain why it cannot undermine higher-order theories.
Though Coleman
agrees with the bottom line of my assessment of the
objection from the possibility of misrepresentation, he sees a related objection that my previous responses
about misrepresentation leave unaddressed.
And he regards that related difficulty as revealing the deeper issue that the
misrepresentation objection stems from. To
deal with that deeper difficulty, Coleman proposes an alternative theory that
involves a notion of mental quotation. On that theory, the content of the state
in virtue of which one is aware of a conscious state contains a quotation of that state, thereby “forming a larger composite structure
wherein the first-order state is displayed.” (COLEMAN, 2018, P. 43). In section
II, I consider the related objection Coleman formulates and argue that it is
without foundation, and in section III, I raise questions about whether mental
quotation of the sort Coleman appeals to can be understood in any satisfactory
way.
I conclude
in section IV by discussing why the related objection Coleman formulates seems compelling. I argue that the objection is simply an expression of a first-order approach to consciousness, and that such first-order
approaches are unable to provide
any informative explanation in psychological
terms of what it is for a mental state to be conscious. First-order approaches
at best offer a descriptive phenomenology, but cannot,
on their own, give any theoretical account of consciousness.
i
Misrepresentation by consciousness
On
higher-order theories of consciousness, a mental state’s being conscious
consists in one’s being aware of oneself as being in the state in question. The basic motivating idea is that if one is in some mental
state but wholly unaware of being in it, that state is not a conscious
state. By contraposition, if a state is conscious, one is aware of it some
suitable way.
There are
various constraints one might impose on what that higher- order awareness
consists in. On my own HOT theory, that higher-order awareness is a distinct
state from the state that one is aware of oneself as
being in. In
addition, I argue that the higher-order awareness is a thought with intentional content, so as to explain
the ability of creatures with suitable
linguistic ability to report their
mental states when those states
are conscious. Reporting that one is in some mental state
is expressing a HOT that one is in
that state. And though inference
might figure in how such HOTs sometimes arise, one would never
be aware of any such inference; otherwise the awareness would
not have the subjective appearance of being direct.
Many
higher-order theorists share many of these conditions on the higher-order
awareness, but not all. On the so-called same-order version (KRIEGEL, 2009),
the higher-order content
in virtue of which one is aware
of being in the target state
belong to that target state
itself. This raises
a question about how we should individuate the relevant states (PHILLIPS, 2014), but I will not address that issue in this
discussion.
Neither the distinct-state nor the same-order version, by itself,
provides any means to preclude what we can call higher-order
misrepresentation, on which an individual’s higher-order awareness describes
the target conscious state inaccurately. It may seem more obvious that this is
so for the distinct- state version of the theory,
which I’ll sometimes
call the standard
version. If the higher-order awareness and target state are distinct
occurrences, there can be no guarantee that the higher-order awareness will
describe the target accurately.
But the issue arises
equally for a same-order version.
Since the higher- order content in virtue of which one is on a same-order theory aware of being
in the target state is still a distinct mental property from the mental properties
one is aware of the target state
as having, there
is again no guarantee that the higher-order content will be
accurate in the way it describes those other mental properties.
Suppose the
first-order state is a sensation of red and that there’s a distinct
higher-order state that makes one aware of oneself as having not a sensation
of red, but a sensation of green (NEANDER, 1998; LEVINE, 2001). The
higher-order state misrepresents the first-order sensation. Now suppose
instead, as on a same-order theory, that there is a single state that has two
mental properties: the qualitative character
of a sensation of red, and a higher-
order content that one has a green
sensation. Despite there
being only a single
state, the higher-order content misrepresents that state. A same-order theory
can do nothing, on its own, to preclude such higher-order
misrepresentation.
This is crucial. The higher-order
content in virtue
of which one
is aware of oneself
as being in a particular mental state is a mental property that’s distinct from the mental
properties it represents the target state
as having, and distinct from any mental
properties it does have other
than that higher-order content. It doesn’t matter
whether the mental
properties all belong
to a single state or the higher-order content belongs to a distinct
state.
The point about
distinct properties is indeed also independent of whether one casts things in
higher-order terms at all. Consider a conscious sensation of red, and for
argument’s sake consider it to be a single state. The mental quality of red is
a distinct mental property from the state’s being conscious. This is evident
because conscious sensations of red, green,
and blue, effect, have in
common the property of being conscious, but differ in that mental qualities
they exhibit (MOORE, 1922, p. 22, 25).
And since
the property of a state’s
being conscious is distinct from the
qualitative mental properties it exhibits, it is unclear there can be any
reason to deny that the property of a state’s being consciousness could
misrepresent the state’s other mental properties. There may of course being some reason to
insist that consciousness can misrepresent a state’s other mental properties.
But if so, that reason must be independent of describing the issue in terms of a higher-order theory.
One might
hope to contest
that a state’s being conscious is, after all, a
distinct mental property
from the state
other mental properties. And it might seem that there is reason
specifically in the case of qualitative mental states. Thus, one might contend
that the property of being conscious is simply a determinable whose
determinates are the various specific
mental qualities. If that
were so, the property of a state’s being conscious would simply be a generic
version of a state’s qualitative mental properties.
But it is unlikely
that this line can be sustained. For one thing,
there are many conscious
mental states that arguably lack qualitative character altogether,
such as thoughts, desires, and other purely intentional states. If the
property of a state’s being conscious were a determinable of specific mental
qualities, such nonqualitative mental states could not be conscious. An advocate of the
determinable-determinate account might urge that the properties of a state’s
being conscious is different for qualitative and nonqualitative mental states.
But there seems no reason to hold that other than a desire to sustain the
determinable-determinate account.
But that account is questionable on grounds wholly independent
of the current issue. The property of being a chemical element is a
determinable of the property of being gold or of being oxygen, and the property
of being an animal is a determinable of the property of being a horse or a dog. And in each case the determinable is a property
distinct from the properties of its determinates.
The appeal to
consciousness as a determinable may seem tempting if one denies that qualitative states can occur without being conscious. And one
might seek to explain why such states
couldn’t occur without
being conscious by construing
the property of being conscious as a determinable of specific mental qualities.
There is ample reason to hold that this denial is unfounded (ROSENTHAL, 2005, chs. 5-7, 2010; YOUNG et al., 2014). But we can
avoid this
controversial topic here. Even if qualitative states couldn’t occur without being conscious, that would not help show that being conscious
is a determinable of the various mental qualities. We would need some
independent reason for that.
Since being conscious is a distinct
property from a state’s other mental
properties, we would need some special consideration if we want to preclude
misrepresentation by consciousness. And it’s not obvious what consideration
would preclude that without simply being stipulative. Still, though higher-
order theories do not on their own rule out such misrepresentation, they also do not imply
that it can, or ever does, occur.
So if one did have
suitable independent reason to think that it
cannot or never does occur, one could simply add that onto a
higher-order theory without any problem. What is important here is that adding
such a provision onto a higher-order theory would doubtless not satisfy those
who use misrepresentation by consciousness as an objection to such theories.
The question is why not. Adding on such a provision, especially if it were
based on a suitable independent reason,
delivers they result the objectors
ostensibly want. What more can they reasonably demand?
The quick answer is that these
objectors regard no theory as satisfactory
unless it rules out misrepresentation on its own, without any added provision. But that just pushes the question
back one step. If there is independent reason to rule it out, why must a theory do so on its own,
without appeal to any added provision?
It may
help to consider the standard form of the objection, and the reply higher-order theorists give. Joseph
Levine (2001, §4.4)
casts things in terms of a
case in which one has a sensation of red and a higher-order awareness of oneself as having a sensation of green. What, he asks, is it like for one
in such a case? If what it’s like is red, then the higher-order state is doing no work; if green, then the
first-order sensation is doing no work.
The standard
higher-order theorist’s answer in plain. On a higher-order theory, the sensation is not, on its own, conscious at all. A
sensation’s being conscious is a matter of one’s being aware of oneself as
having a sensation of the relevant sort. So the higher-order state determines
what it’s like for one; the only role a first-order state could play in
determining what it’s like for one would be causal, if the first-order state
caused a suitable higher-order awareness.
Though
first-order sensation plays no noncausal role in determining what it’s like for one, the sensation is not on that account
mentally inert; there is plenty for it to do. It figures
in priming, in which one’s being presented with a stimulus has various
psychological effects downstream even when the perceiving is wholly subliminal,
and so unconscious. It doubtless figures in Stroop effects, in which words for a color are harder to process
if written in a different
color. The sensation, independent of being conscious, would make a difference to reaction times
for subsequent stimuli,
and in very many other
testable results. On a higher-order theory, the first-order state figures in psychological functioning other than
consciousness, and the higher-order state constitutes subjective awareness.
Those who
object to higher-order theories because they don’t, by themselves, preclude
misrepresentation by consciousness, are channeling the idea that motivates
first-order theories of consciousness: that for qualitative mentality, the mental properties responsible for psychological functioning are the
same as those that determine subjective awareness.
But the only reason
ever offered for that insistence is that it seems that way subjectively. And that is not an
acceptable reason. Subjective awareness cannot by hypothesis access a state
that is not conscious on its own. So subjective awareness cannot determine what
role is played by a state that is not conscious on its own. A reliance
on subjective awareness begs the question against the standard, distinct-state version of higher-order theories. It is simply
an expression of a preference for a first-order theory.
Things are somewhat more delicate for
the same-order version of a higher-order theory, but the upshot is the same.
The higher-order content on that theory does access all the mental
properties of the state. But it is only
that higher-order content
that is responsible for what it’s like for one, not the state’s other mental properties. And though that is clear from the theory, it is
not evident simply from one’s subjective awareness.
One who
advances the possibility
of misrepresentation by consciousness as an objection to higher-order theories has no reason to
complain that a higher-order theorist could meet the objection simply by stipulating that such
misrepresentation cannot occur. But there is actually
reason to hold that such misrepresentation does actually occur.
And this reason
is wholly independent both of higher-order theories
and of the consideration that the property of being conscious is distinct from
a state’s other mental properties.
Coleman
(note 10, p. 36) cites my appeal to so-called dental fear, in which dental
patients subjectively take themselves to feel pain on drilling
even though anesthesia or absence of any relevant nerve makes that
impossible. When the patient
learns that the sensation is likely instead
just vibration plus fear, they subjectively experience
when drilling resumes, though strikingly they
also subjectively recall the earlier
sensation as pain. See Koyama et
al., (2005), and Anderson and Pennebaker (1980), for some independent empirical
substantiation.
Dental fear is useful
because it is a highly dramatic case in which our subjective awareness
misrepresents what is actually going
on in our mental life. Still, the case is exotic, and it would not be good if it were the main example of misrepresentation by consciousness. But
it is not; as I have argued elsewhere, consciousness misrepresents our mental
lives in plenty of everyday contexts.
When one
glances at a group of people,
one may see
some shirts colored red and some colored
blue. If one has simply taken in a crowd at a glance, what it’s like for one is
typically just seeing a generic red and a generic blue. It would be rare if
just a glance led to what it’s like for one being the seeing of a specific
shade of red or blue. Despite that, the visual states in question are
undoubtedly of whatever specific shades of red and blue result from the
relevant stimuli. This is a form of misrepresentation; what it’s like for one does
not accurately represent the visual color states.
Ned Block (2011, p.
445) disputes this. An “obvious problem” with this claim, he maintains,
“is: why suppose that there can be an experience
of
red but not of any
shade of red?” But Block’s rhetorical question equivocates on the term,
‘experience’. We can use the term, ‘expr’ to refer either to the visual state
on its own, or to what it’s like for one. Block
is doubtless right
to doubt that there can be a visual state that is generically red; every
visual state of red likely is of a particular shade. But that doesn’t show that
what it’s like for one is not often quite generic.
Block would doubtless deny the equivocation, insisting that the visual
state and what it’s like for one are not distinct. But that is simply what is
at issue, and without any reason to deny that the mental quality
is distinct from the property of being conscious,
there is no reason to accept his insistence.
Block (2011, p. 445) offers a second objection, that if “there is no such
thing as a generic experience as of colour, i.e. an experience as of colour but
not any specific colour,” there couldn’t be a HOT of a generic experience. It sounds better to deny that
there could be an experience that is generic in respect of color, say, red vs.
blue, than to deny that an experience could be generic in respect of specific
shades of, say, red or of blue.
But that
aside, Block is still running together
the visual state
that figures in seeing a colored
object with what it’s like for one to see that object.
Block’s objections to cases of misrepresentation that derive from
generic subjective awareness assumes that subjective awareness must match the
nature of the visual state. And that assumption simply amounts to supposing
question- beggingly that misrepresentation by consciousness cannot occur.
The case that
involves generic subjective awareness of color shades plainly generalizes. But
there is an abundance of other types of case. When pain results from the
behavior of another that one perceives to be the intentional inflicting of a
pain, the subjective experience is of a more intense pain than when pain results from the same stimulus but one does not perceive the behavior as an intentional
inflicting of pain (GRAY; WEGNER, 2008). Since identical stimuli presumably
result in identical pains, psychological factors other than the pain itself
must be affecting subjective awareness, which accordingly misrepresents the
intensity of pain in one case or the other.
Misrepresentation by consciousness evidently does
occur. And even
if it didn’t or couldn’t, higher-order theories could readily
accommodate an added provision to that effect.
Why, then, does the objection
seem so compelling to some?
Coleman’s discussion helpfully points to how we might explain this.
ii intiMacy and higher-order theories
Those who
raise the objection from misrepresentation resist simply adding a provision
that the higher-order awareness cannot misrepresent because they see patching
the theory in that way as missing
the difficulty that misrepresentation reveals.
As opponents of the theory see it, the property
of a state’s being conscious
is not independent of the state’s other mental properties
in a way that allows
for consciousness to misrepresent those
other properties.
The possibility of misrepresentation strikes
many as a telling objection to higher-order theories because
they either reject
the idea that the property
of a state’s being
conscious is not distinct from the state’s
other mental properties or because they see a strong
tie between those properties. So a theory on which the property of being conscious
is independent of a state’s
other mental properties in a
way that allows misrepresentation cannot, according to these objectors do
justice to the nature of conscious states.
And patching the
theory by providing that misrepresentation cannot occur would do nothing to
redress the way theory misdescribes things according to these objectors. The
objection from misrepresentation merely reveals, on this view, a symptom
of the underlying difficulty. And that indeed is how Coleman sees the situation.
Some
objectors doubtless believe that the property of being conscious is not
distinct from a state’s other mental properties; there is reason to think that
this is Levine’s view (2001) and Thomas Nagel’s (1974). But there are powerful
reasons rehearsed above for holding that the property of a state’s being conscious is distinct from the state’s
other mental properties. And short of identity
of being conscious
with other mental properties, misrepresentation would also be precluded if there were some special
tie between those
properties that made it impossible.
And according to
Coleman, such a special tie does obtain. Coleman uses Uriah Kriegel’s term
(2009, p. 108), ‘intimacy’, to refer to that special tie between a state’s
being conscious and the state’s other mental properties. Indeed, Kriegel
himself describes the issue about
misrepresentation in terms of
such intimacy. The objection about
misrepresentation, he urges,
is one way to call attention to the lack of intimacy
between consciousness and other mental properties that standard
higher-order theories imply.
Standard higher-order theories explain
a mental state’s
being conscious as one’s being
aware of oneself as being in that state. And they explain that awareness, in
turn, as a matter of one’s being in a distinct mental state that represents one
as being in the target state. The relevant intimacy between consciousness and
the other mental properties consists, according to Kriegel (2009, p. 107), in there being
a tie between subjectivity and the target
mental state that is closer in some significant way than can be captured
by appeal to the relation between a representation and what it represents.
Kriegel’s same-order
theory, on which the higher-order content is a property of the same state that the higher-order content makes one aware of, is
presumably motivated in part by the thought
being props of the same state can capture this intimacy. But it is unclear how positing the higher-order content as a property of the target
state can, by itself, capture
any such intimacy. Even if the higher-order content is a property of the target
state, it represents that state as having other mental properties. So the tie
between a state’s being conscious and the state’s other mental properties will be representational, as it is if the
higher-order content is a property of a distinct state.
Indeed, Kriegel
acknowledges that the higher-order content could misrepresent the other mental properties of the relevant
state. But he rightly notes that the higher-order content
cannot occur in the absence of the state it is about, since the higher-order content
is a property of that
state. On the standard higher-order theory, by contrast, the higher- order
content could occur in the absence of the state it is about, since that content belongs
to a distinct state. But the difference here is trivial.
On the same-order version of a higher-order theory, the higher-order
content could still represent the state it is about as having other mental
properties even if lacks all those other properties.
Both the
same-order theory and standard higher-order theories that appeal to distinct higher-order states rely on
higher-order content that represents one as being in a state with certain
mental properties. That representation relation explains how it is we are aware
of those of our mental states that are conscious. So neither theory
posits a relation
between consciousness and other
mental properties that is more intimate than the relation
posited by the
other.
Coleman finds
this unsatisfactory. His
goal is a relation between a state’s being conscious and other mental properties that is more
intimate than the representation relation. He casts this dissatisfaction in terms of a distinction
between one’s being
aware of something and one’s merely being aware as of something.
A representation relation, he urges, cannot capture one’s being aware of a
target mental state, but only one’s being aware as of a state.
I find Coleman’s his distinction between
awareness as of and awareness of highly puzzling. Coleman
uses vision as a model
to explain the distinction.
On one understanding of seeing,
one sees something
only if that thing is there
to be seen. Similarly, Coleman
urges, being aware
of something requires
that the thing be present for one to be aware
of. By contrast, one can be aware
as of something even
if that thing isn’t there at all.
I think Coleman is trading on a feature
of the way we do actually speak and
think about awareness, but that the way he construes that feature does not
fit with higher-order theories in the way he thinks. If I am aware of a table,
the table has to be there. So being aware of something has a factive aspect of the sort Coleman notes.
But that factive
aspect does not carry through
to the properties of whatever
it is one is aware of. I can be aware of a table as being brown even if it is green,
or aware of it as being rectangular or tall even if it is
oval in shape and short. Being aware of something is factive in respect of the
object’s being present, but not in respect of what properties that object has.
This works
well for the
HOT theory. On that theory, a state is conscious only if one is aware
of oneself as being in that state. The object that one is thereby aware
of is oneself, and that is conveniently guaranteed to be present
for one to be aware of. One is, in addition, aware of oneself as being in some
mental state, and being in that mental state is a property
of oneself, that is,
a property of the object one is aware of. And one can be in error about the
properties of the object one is aware of, and hence whether
one is in that state.
That
representation relation is, moreover, perfectly suited to help capture being
aware of. Take again, following Coleman, a visual case of awareness. If I see a
table, my visual state represents a table as being present, though my visual
state might also represent the table as tall when it is short or brown when it
is green. The object I see might even be a box, though my visual state
represents it as being a table. I won’t count as being aware of the table if
the table isn’t actually there; nor on many accounts would I count even as seeing it at all if it isn’t there.
But I will count as being aware
of it and as seeing it even if I misperceive some or even many of its
visible properties.
Representation is of course
weaker than being
aware of or than seeing.
I can represent a tree as being present
even if it isn’t, but I count
as being aware
of a tree or seeing
it, on the construal of seeing under discussion, only if the tree actually
is present. Having
a thought about
something is on a par in these respects with representing it. I
can have a thought about something I take to exist, and it can go out of
existence while I’m having that thought, without affecting the nature of my
thought and, in particular, whether my thought is about that thing.
HOTs operate
in exactly that way. But since the content of a HOT is
that one is in the mental state in question,
there is no issue about whether the item the HOT is about exists; the HOT
is about the thinker of the thought, and that ensures its existence. This
feature of HOTs ensures that they are suitable for the higher-order awareness
that figures in a mental state’s being conscious. Having a thought
about something constitutes being aware of that
thing only if one thinks about the thing as being present; having a thought
about Julius Caesar or Saturn does not make one aware of those things. But when one has a thought that
one is in a particular mental state, one automatically thinks of oneself as
being present.
Coleman’s contrast
between being aware of and merely being aware as of misconstrues being aware
of as factive not just in respect
of the presence of the
relevant object, but in respect of accuracy about that object’s properties.
Once we take into account that distinction and what the content of a HOT is,
the theory does capture the way one is aware of those of one’s mental states
that are conscious. One is aware of oneself as being in the target state. The
intimacy revealed by the relation of being aware of is intimacy between the
individual who is aware of something and the object of which that individual is
aware.
iii
Mental quotation
But this
will not satisfy Coleman, who is after a kind of intimacy between consciousness
and a mental state’s other mental properties that the representation relation
cannot capture. And he seeks to establish the kind of intimacy he finds lacking
in any representation relation by appeal to a device of mental quotation.
Putting aside whether this quest for intimacy is well- founded, I have
independent doubts about this strategy.
Coleman likens
the mental quotation
he invokes to the mental quotation that advocates
of so-called phenomenal concepts some appeal to. Phenomenal
concepts are cast as
concepts that apply to conscious qualitative properties, and whose
mode of presentation for each concept
is the very conscious mental quality that concept applies to
(BALOG, 2012; PAPINEAU, 2002, 2007). Coleman’s proposal is that a qualitative
state is conscious if the higher-order content in virtue of which one is aware
of being in that state contains a quotation of the mental quality in virtue of
which the state is conscious.
But it is at all
obvious what such mental quotation could consist in. Quotation is a linguistic
device. So we need a linguistic model of quotation by appeal to which to
understand mental quotation. There are a number of different types
of quotation and various accounts
of those types.
(For a survey of the issues, see, e.g., Lepore, 1999, Cappelen and
Lepore 1997, 2012). But it’s not clear
that any of those types
offer a suitable model for mental quotation that would serve Coleman’s
purposes.
For a mental quotation of a qualitative property to serve
his purposes, the qualitative
property must figure in the higher-order content in which the mental quotation occurs. So the type
of quotation typically used to capture the distinction between the use and mention
of linguistic expressions won’t do, since on standard
accounts the quotation itself is syntactically atomic. The quotation simply mentions the linguistic expression, and that expression itself play no semantic role in the quotation. By analogy,
if a mental quotation of a qualitative property occurred in a higher-order
content, the qualitative property on that model of quotation would play no role
in that higher-order content.
Perhaps
ordinary direct-discourse quotation provides a more promising model,
since in direct discourse the quotation of a linguistic expression is taken not
just to represent the exact words, but also to exhibit the words as they are ordinarily used.
But it is problematic how direct-discourse quotation plays that dual role. Simply stipulating that it does won’t help, since we need
a linguistic model to help understand how the relevant mental quotation is supposed to work. It is no clearer how mental quotation
would both refer to and exhibit a qualitative
property. And without understanding how the mental quotation of the sort
Coleman appeals to could work, the appeal simply stipulates that an intimacy
relation obtains, rather than explaining what such intimacy consists in.
Coleman presumably
means for mental quotation to do two things. The mental quotation that occurs in any particular higher-order content
must refer to the type of mental quality
an instance of which is being quoted. Otherwise, the higher-order content
won’t make one aware of oneself as being
in a state of the relevant type.
But when a mental
quotation of a qualitative property occurs in a higher-order content,
that qualitative property must also figure in its own right. Otherwise there is no intimacy of being conscious
with a state’s other mental properties beyond that which occurs
in connection with the representation relation. It is the goal of having mental
quotation do both of these things that makes the direct-discourse model of
linguistic quotation appealing. But without
an explanation of how direct
discourse works that can transfer
to the case of mental
quotation, we are left without any informative account of the intimacy Coleman
is after.
Coleman likens
the mental quotation he wants to invoke to the notion of a display sentence that Kriegel
describes. Kriegel’s example is of seeing the words ‘under construction’ painted
on the roadway of a bridge, and thinking
as a result that this bridge is under construction. “[T]he combination of the
words and the bridge whereupon
they are painted
that vehicles the full-blown
proposition.” (KRIEGEL, 2009, p. 163). The vehicle of the proposition, Kriegel
urges, is the bridge itself together with the words painted on its roadway. If
either the words or the bridge were missing, or they were not physically related
in the right way, the relevant content
would not be tokened.
In Kriegel’s
case, the bridge as it occurs in the composite
vehicle of the overall content refers to the bridge itself. But it’s not clear on that account
that we should describe this as a case of quoting the bridge. The
overall content refers to the bridge, and it is physical contiguity of the words
with the bridge that enables them all to
constitute a vehicle for that content.
So working
with Kriegel’s display-sentence model suggests a model on which the qualitative property is somehow spliced into the
intentional content of the higher-order awareness, not a model on which a
quotation of the qualitative property
occurs in that higher-order content.
The higher-order intentional content
would have a referential space
that can be filled in by the mental quality itself.
Again, the bridge in
Kriegel’s example does not refer to itself; what refers to the bridge
is the overall content of which the bridge is merely part of
the vehicle. Similarly, when the higher-order content
is completed by splicing
in a qualitative property, it is that completed intentional content that would,
on this model, refer
to qualitative properties of the type spliced in. It is the splicing
in of a token qualitative property that is supposed to yield the intimacy
Coleman is after between consciousness and a state’s
other mental properties.
But the overall
higher-order intentional content would, on this model, represent qualitative properties of the relevant type.
Otherwise, the higher-order content could not make one aware of being in that
type of qualitative state. So it is not right
to describe Coleman’s proposal, as he does,
as “abandoning representation as the means by which the higher-order thought
targets the first-order state” (COLEMAN, 2018, p. 44; emphasis Coleman’s).
Whether what’s operative is mental spicing or mental quotation, unless the
overall higher-order content represents qualitative properties of the relevant
sort, such content cannot make one aware of oneself as being in a state with
those qualitative properties. Neither quotation nor splicing can obviate the
need for a representation relation.
It is not obvious
that there is an informative account of a kind of mental quotation that would
do the job Coleman sets for it. But splicing is hardly any better on that
score. There is no informative or credible account of intentional content whose
referential spaces could be filled in by mental qualities. Nor is it obvious
what the relation could be between the mental quality that would fill in that referential space in the higher-order intentional content the mental quality
of the target state. If the quality
that figures in the
higher-order content is a distinct token from that of the target qualitative
state, some mechanism must be stipulated to ensure that the two tokens are of
the exact same type; otherwise
intimacy is not achieved. And if the same token figures in both target state and higher-order content,
we need an explanation of how
a single token quality could figure in both.
Mental quotation
might seem to get around this last difficulty; the mental quoting mechanism, one
might imagine, would simply reach from higher-order content down to the target
state and quote that state’s mental quality. But this raises questions for
either a quotational or a splicing model. Quotation operates on a token of what
is quoted, and if the token is a property of a distinct state, machinery would
have to be posited of a wholly unclear type.
Nor can it help to have the higher-order content and the quoted mental quality be properties of a single
state. Since they are distinct properties, it is unclear how quotation could reach from one to the other.
For any of this to be
more than a mere stipulation of the intimacy
Coleman is after,
we need some independent understanding of how the
mental quotation or splicing works, independent, that is, of the stipulation that that’s what happens in these cases.
The questions
posed about mental
quotation and about
mental splicing may have perfectly good answers. But to make good on the intimacy
Coleman wants, we need to have those answers.
And the answers
cannot rest simply
on the ability to generate the desired intimacy; we must have reason independent of that to think that the answers fit with a theoretically sound picture of how
intentional content and mental qualitative character work. That is the heavy
theoretical burden that a mental splicing or mental quotation model must discharge.
A quotational or splicing model may seem appealing to one who is already committed to some type of
intimacy between the property of a state’s being conscious and the mental
properties in respect of which one is aware of that state. But it is unclear
what the reason for that commitment would be. Coleman’s distinction between
being aware of and aware as of does not underwrite a commitment to intimacy.
And without reason for holding that such intimacy occurs, it is unclear that we
should hold a theory of consciousness hostage to the insistence that intimacy
occurs, nor to the significant theoretical burden of explaining in an
informative way what it is.
In the
final section, I’ll ask what the apparent appeal is of holding that such intimacy
does occur. I’ll argue that it seems inviting only if
one tacitly adopts a central aspect of first-order approaches to thinking about consciousness. If so, the quest for
intimacy and the objection from misrepresentation both in effect
beg the question
against higher-order theories of consciousness by taking
for granted an assumption that underlies first-order approaches.
iV intiMacy and Mental
appearance
Higher-order
theories rely on two things. One is the recognition that the property of a
mental state’s being conscious is distinct from those other mental properties
in respect of which a mental state is conscious. When one consciously sees a
red square, the property of that state’s being conscious is distinct from the
state’s mental qualities of color and shape. It is plain that this is so if such qualitative states can occur without being conscious. But as
argued
in section I, there are reasons independent of that to hold that these
properties are distinct.
The other
thing higher-order theories rely on is that if we have independent reason to
think somebody is in some mental state, a reliable indicator that the state is not conscious is that the individual is not in a
way aware of being in that state. If one is not aware of oneself as being in a
mental state, that state is not conscious. And as noted at the outset of section
I, contraposition delivers the conclusion that if a state is conscious, one is
in some way aware of being in it. The higher-order state is posited
to explain that awareness.
Coleman sees HOT
theory as failing to capture the desired intimacy because of a shortcoming in the way it describes
that higher-order awareness; the appeal to mental quotation
is intended to remedy that. It is unclear that that device or a related device
of mental splicing can be understood in a way that would help. But our current
concern is instead about what the intimacy Coleman and others are after consists
in, and why we should want or expect a theory of consciousness to accommodate
it.
Coleman points in
several passages to his answer. “The fabric of a Rosenthalian HOT,” he writes,
“is simply too ‘thick’ for first-order targets ever to penetrate
to the subject’s stream of consciousness.” (COLEMAN,
2018, p. 39). “[S]ince
the relevant appearances supplied to the stream of consciousness
remain intact with the first-order state removed, it follows that the latter was contributing no appearances to
subjective mental life even while it was present.” (COLEMAN, 2018, p. 39). What Coleman urges
is, instead, an “an
account on which first-order contents
are not screened off from consciousness
by the contents of higher-order representations.” (COLEMAN, 2018, p. 45).
Higher-order
theories proceed by divide and conquer (WEISBERG, 2011). Since the property
of a state’s being conscious
is distinct from its other mental properties, we can posit a higher-order state that captures
what it’s like for one, and hence the property of
consciousness. The first-order state, then, exhibits the other relevant mental
properties. In the case just mentioned, the first-order state exhibits the
qualitative character of redness and squareness, but independently of those
mental qualities’ being conscious. The property of being conscious results
from the higher-order awareness of one’s
being in a state with those properties.
Even if one assigns all those mental properties to a single state, as on Kriegel’s same-order theory, the
distinct types of property operate independently. As Coleman notes,
assigning all the properties to a single
state does not by itself achieve
the intimacy he is after. At most it simply generates
an appearance of intimacy. And by creating
an appearance without
the reality, it arguably
does a measure of theoretical damage for one concerned to capture
some type of intimacy.
If there
are two distinct mental states, one exhibiting the property of being conscious
and the other exhibiting the other mental properties, the higher-order state will bear the burden of there being something
it’s like for one to be in the
relevant type of state and the first-order state will be responsible for the
other mental properties of the relevant state. The desire for intimacy, as
Coleman sees it, is for the first-order mental properties to play some suitable role in the state’s being conscious. We want, he urges, “an account on which first-order contents are not screened off from consciousness by the contents of
higher-order representations.”
Coleman’s
mental quotation, or a related device of mental splicing, would undermine
the recognition that the property of a state’s being conscious
is distinct from its other
mental properties. Those
devices seek to import into the higher-order content a token of
the mental quality that characterizes the first-order state. In that way they
go a step further than Kriegel’s same-order theory. That theory assigns both
higher-order content and the other mental properties to a single state; Coleman
actually imports first-order mental properties into the higher-order content.
Can we prevent the
screening off Coleman objects to while still accompanying the distinctness of
the property of being conscious from other mental
properties? A natural
way to do so is to assume
that in standard cases the first-order properties
have a causal impact on which consciousness property is instantiated. Cast in higher-order terms, the properties of the first- order state, such as qualitative
red, will affect the content of the higher-order awareness that one is in a
state of a particular type. In standard cases such a first-order property will
cause one to have a higher-order awareness of being in a state of seeing red.
And something along these lines
must occur. It cannot be an accident that we typically are aware of
ourselves as seeing something red and square when presented with a stimulus that we can expect gives rise to a first-order
visual state of
seeing a red square. A robust causal tie between first-order and higher-order
states must generally hold.
But Coleman
evidently finds a robust causal
tie wanting, and demands
instead a constitutive tie. It is unclear why. What reason is there to think that the intimate connection between
first-order mental properties and the property
of a state’s being conscious
consists in something
more than a strong
causal tie? And the constitutive tie Coleman wants plainly flies in the face of
the evident distinctness of the property of being conscious from a state’s
other mental properties. If one imports first-order properties into the
higher-order content that constitutes consciousness, the property of being
conscious is no longer distinct from the first-order properties.
Coleman’s distinction
between being aware of and being aware as of cannot help
establish a need for the constitutive intimacy he proposes. For one thing,
being aware of is not different from being as of, on Coleman’s
construal, except for the guarantee that the thing one is aware of is present,
and as Coleman sees things the additional guarantee that it has the properties
one is aware of it as having.
Put aside whether
the provision about
properties corresponds to our ordinary understanding of what being aware of something
consists in. Even granting Coleman
both guarantees, there
is no need to adjust the nature of the higher-order awareness. The guarantees can simply be added
provisions about the relation between higher-order and first-order states,
leaving their mental properties intact.
One way to
see this is to stress one of the challenges raised in section III about mental
quotation or mental splicing. Suppose we understand how those devices operate,
and a token of a mental quality is quoted in or spliced into the content of a
higher-order awareness. What guarantee do we have that the token quoted or
spliced is of the exact same type as the token that characterizes the
first-order state?
And as noted in
section III, we cannot say without additional explanation that the higher-order
content quotes or splices the first-order token itself. Quotation and splicing both operate on a distinct
token, and the first-order token is a distinct mental
property from the higher-order content. Importing the first-order token,
whether by splicing or quotation, into the higher-order content leaves open the
question of whether that importation results
in two tokens of the exact same mental type,
the intimacy Coleman
is after will not result.
On a
first-order approach to consciousness (BLOCK, 1995, 2011; NAGEL, 1974; LEVINE, 2001; KRIPKE, 1982, p. 144-155),
the property of
being conscious
is not, after all, distinct
from the qualitative mental properties of a
qualitative state. The property of being conscious is built into those
qualitative properties; being conscious is an aspect of any state’s qualitative
properties. I’ve argued in section I that this assimilation of properties is
mistaken. I’ll return in a moment to the apparent reasons the first-order
approach is committed to that assimilation.
Coleman’s approach
goes somewhat in the opposite direction, but to much the same effect. Rather than insist that the property
of being conscious is built into qualitative mental
properties, Coleman holds
that mental properties other than that of being
conscious must figure somehow in the higher-order awareness in virtue of which
a state is conscious. And because the way those other mental properties figure
in the higher-order awareness is not merely causally, but in some way
constitutive, the result is much the same as the assimilation of those
properties by a first-order approach.
So Coleman’s
requiring a noncausal, constitutive intimacy of this type rests on the tacit endorsement of a
central tenet of first-order approaches to consciousness. On a first-order
picture, a state’s being conscious is of a piece with a state’s other mental
properties. The nature of those mental properties is, on that approach, revealed by consciousness, so that the mental properties cannot occur without being
conscious. ost first-order approaches of this
type apply only to states with mental qualitative character (NAGEL,
1974; BLOCK, 1995; LEVINE, 2001), though John R. Searle (1990) argues for that
approach in connection with intentionality.
Coleman’s demand
for an intimacy that rests
on the occurrence of first- order mental properties in the
higher-order content itself is accordingly of a piece with the way a first-order approach sees the property of being conscious as built into first-order mental
properties. So the demand for an intimacy of that type, as against a robust causal intimacy, in effect channels the picture that the
first-order approach counterposes against any higher-order theory. And without independent substantiation that demand simply begs the question
at issue between higher-order and first-order approaches.
That Coleman’s insistence on noncausal intimacy rests on a first-order approach to consciousness is already
evident in a passage quoted above: “[S]ince the relevant
appearances supplied to the stream of consciousness
remain intact with
the first-order state removed, it follows that the latter was contributing no appearances to subjective
mental life even while it was present.” (COLEMAN, 2018, p. 39).
Coleman sees the
first-order state as itself having mental appearances that contribute to one’s
subjective mental life. That would be so on a first- order picture.
And then a state’s other mental properties must in some way be inextricably and constitutively bound up with the state’s
being conscious. The point of a higher-order theory is to
enable us to treat the property of a state’s being conscious independently of
those other mental properties.
Coleman doesn’t see
it that way. On a higher-order theory, he writes, “all that a first-order state
contributes to the stream of consciousness is a proxy that represents it. […] It does not appear in consciousness.” “Therefore, on HOT theory, we are simply
not conscious of our first-order states.” (COLEMAN, 2018, p. 40).
This is puzzling. When I am aware of a physical
object, the object does
not itself figure in any mental state of mine. All that figures is some mental
proxy that represents that object. Being aware of something does not require
that the object one is aware of actually occur in the state of awareness, as
against being represented by that state. This applies to being aware of one’s
own mental states no less than of physical objects.
The demand that the first- order state appear in one’s awareness of it reflects
the first-order elision
of the property of being
conscious with a state’s other mental properties.
A state’s being
conscious is a matter of mental appearance, of how one’s mental goings on
mentally appear to one. It is natural to assume that how one’s mental goings on
actually are will play an outsized causal role in determining how those goings on appear to one mentally. What is going on in one’s
mind independently of consciousness will play a very substantial causal role in determining one’s stream of consciousness, in determining, that is, how one’s mental life consciously appears
to one.
One might
even hypothesize that
one’s mental goings
on independently of
consciousness would completely determine how those mental goings on consciously
appear to one. If so, consciousness would never misrepresent those mental
goings on. But there are reasons, such as those surveyed toward the end of
section I above, to think this is not so. These reasons may not be decisive,
but they are at the very least strongly suggestive.
But the
core issue is whether a theory of consciousness should distinguish the property of a state’s
being conscious from that state’s other mental properties. Confining
attention here to a state’s qualitative properties, what reason could there be
not to distinguish the two types of property? The core reason seems to be that
we learn the nature of mental qualities by way of their
being conscious; any third-person understanding of mental qualities is
indirect.
That
reason is not compelling. When you speak of my qualitative states, say, my being
in pain or seeing red, you are not talking
about something accessible only by way of my first-person access.
I am talking about something whose nature we both have an intersubjective grasp of. Only if that is so could
we both talk about my conscious qualitative states. An exclusively first-person account of the nature of mental qualities cannot do
justice to that.
And there is an
alternative to an exclusively first-person account, an account of mental
qualities that relies on the role they play in perceiving (ROSENTHAL, 2005, chs. 5-7, 2010; YOUNG
et al., 2014). Taking
perceptual
role into consideration underwrites the intersubjective grasp of mental
qualities that figure in our ordinary understanding of their nature.
Still, there seems to be a temptation, compelling to many, to deny that there is after all any distinction to be drawn between the way our mental goings on
actually are and the way they appear. As Nagel puts it, when it comes to
conscious experience, “[t]he idea of moving from appearance to reality seems to make no sense.” (NAGEL, 1974, p.
444). And if that distinction makes no sense, there
may be no reason to distinguish the property of a state’s
being conscious from its other mental properties, and perhaps indeed no
coherent way to do so.
Denying a distinction between
mental reality and how it appears allows us to rely exclusively on the
subjective aspect of mentality. But to rely on subjectivity is simply to rely
on mental appearance, and that has prevents us from even addressing the question of whether there is a mental reality
distinct from the way it appears.
We need a grasp of mental reality
that is independent of subjectivity even to raise that question. For
mental qualities, an appeal to perceptual role provides that grasp.
Coleman denies that
his approach rests on denying a distinction between mental reality and the way it subjectively appears. His “theory is not motivated by the claim that mental appearance and reality cannot
diverge,”
but “by the desirability of an account on which first-order contents are not screened
off from consciousness by the contents of higher-order representations.”
(COLEMAN, 2018, p. 45).
But Coleman
builds too much into his notion of being screened off from. First-order mental
properties are not screened off causally from higher-order content on a
higher-order theory; it is simply that the theory countenances that first-order
properties are distinct from the higher-order content that constitutes
subjective awareness. Demanding that first-order properties actually occur in
the higher-order content, as mental quotation or splicing is intended to
provide, is following a first-order approach in eliding the distinction between
first-order mental properties and subjectivity.
The
phenomenological appearances that constitute subjectivity are of great
importance for fixing and describing the mental phenomena we want to explain, but phenomenology does not by itself explain
anything. It simply consists of mental appearances to focus on; its job is to fix things
descriptively, not to explain.
So a first-order approach
to consciousness, which elides the distinction
between our mental goings on and the subjective appearances we have of these
goings on, is not friendly
to theorizing. It instead rests
largely or entirely
with the kind of mental description that phenomenology affords.
This emerges in
Block’s colorful appeal, in saying what qualitative mental states are, to Louis
Armstrong’s remark about jazz: “If you gotta ask, you ain’t never gonna get to
know” (BLOCK, 1978, p. 281). There is on that
first-order picture nothing
informative to say about the nature of mental
qualities, and so nothing on which to base theorizing of any sort.
This also
emerges in Nagel’s insistence that “experience does not have, in addition to its subjective character, an objective
nature that can be apprehended from many different points of view.” (NAGEL,
1974, p. 443- 444). On a first-order view, we cannot theorize about conscious experience; we can know about it only by way of consciousness. And ironically, consciousness seems on this first-order
approach not to have anything articulate to tell us about the nature of
experience; it leaves experience ineffable, and so not susceptible to
theoretical treatment at all.
Block (2007)
has argued that his approach
does, after all, accommodate
a theoretical treatment of mental
qualitative character, since we determine
in
a theoretical way what the neural concomitants are of qualitative mental properties.
But the contrast between theorizing and mere phenomenological description pertains
not to neural concomitants, but to the nature of the
qualitative mental states in their own right. And Block has offered no
informative account of that since his Louis Armstrong appeal.
It is the nature of
qualitative mentality itself that first-order approaches offer no theoretical
explanation of, but at most just phenomenological description.
So the
objection from misrepresentation and the insistence that any suitable theory
accommodates the constitutive intimacy of the sort Coleman describes, arguably
both rest on an atheoretical, first-order approach to consciousness. Nagel
(1974, p. 443-444) is upfront about this; conscious “experience does not have, in addition
to its subjective character, an objective
nature that can be apprehended from many different points of view”. The
dependence of subjectivity on points of view in effect drives out objectivity,
and with it any possibility of a theoretical treatment.
The intuitive
sense that consciousness cannot misrepresent and the
demand that a state’s being conscious interact constitutively with the state’s
other mental properties both reflect the way a first-order approach ties consciousness to those other mental
properties. So the issue about misrepresentation and the demand for the kind of
intimacy Coleman is after both in some measure channel a kind of resistance to
theorizing at all about the nature of consciousness.
ROSENTHAL,
D. Representação errônea e aparência mental. Trans/Form/Ação, Marília,
v. 41, p. 49-74, 2018. Edição Especial.
resuMo: Começo por discutir uma objeção muitas vezes apresentada contra
as teorias da consciência de ordem
superior. A objeção é que essas teorias não impedem a consciência de
representar de modo errôneo as propriedades mentais
de nossos estados
conscientes. Eu argumento
que existem várias razões pelas quais essa objeção não pode ter sucesso. Sam Coleman (2019) concorda que a objeção
falha, mas a vê como apontando para uma objeção
relacionada, que ele argumenta apresentar dificuldades que o teórico do pensamento de ordem superior
não pode evitar.
Sua solução é uma variante
desta teoria, que invoca a “citação mental” como
conteúdo da consciência de ordem superior. Eu argumentarei que a citação
mental não pode ser entendida de alguma forma
que satisfaça tal objeção. Argumentarei também que a objeção que Coleman articula
incorre em petição
de princípio, uma vez que, na prática,
ela simplesmente escolhe
uma abordagem de primeira ordem
para a consciência, e não tem nenhuma
justificativa independente para isso.
palaVras-chaVe: Teorias da consciência de ordem superior. Representação errônea. Citação
mental. Teorias de mesma ordem. Aparência
mental.
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Recebido: 15/11/2018 Aceito:
15/11/2018
