Functionalism and consciousness.
Ciba Foundation symposium January 1, 1993 S Shoemaker
The common view that mental states and introspective beliefs about them are only contingently connected is challenged. The paper argues that introspective blindness—being unable to access one's own mental states of a certain type—is impossible for beliefs and sensory states in creatures with sufficient conceptual and cognitive resources. This impossibility arises because introspective access is essential to the functional roles that define such states, as required by rationality. The argument supports a version of the view that these states are necessarily self-intimating and opposes the perceptual model of introspection.