The University of Western Australia
29 papers in the library · 670 citations · publishing 2016-2024
Philosophy and the Mind Sciences March 24, 2020 Chris Letheby 18 citations
Can there be phenomenal consciousness without self-consciousness? Strong intuitions and prominent theories of consciousness say “no”: experience requires minimal self-awareness, or “subjectivity”. This “subjectivity principle” (SP) faces apparent counterexamples in the form of anomalous mental states claimed to lack self-consciousness entirely, such as “inserted thoughts” in schizophrenia and...
Zygon® August 18, 2017 Chris Letheby 18 citations
A pressing philosophical problem is how to respond to the existential, anxiety and disenchantment resulting from a naturalistic worldview that eschews transcendent foundations for meaning and value. This problem is becoming more urgent as the popularization of neuroscientific findings renders a disenchanted conception of human beings ever more vivid, compelling, and widespread. I argue that the...
Neuroscience of Consciousness 2017 Chris Letheby, Philip Gerrans 280 citations
Users of psychedelic drugs often report that their sense of being a self or 'I' distinct from the rest of the world has diminished or altogether dissolved. Neuroscientific study of such 'ego dissolution' experiences offers a window onto the nature of self-awareness. We argue that ego dissolution is best explained by an account that explains self-awareness as resulting from the integrated...
Consciousness and Cognition 2016 Chris Letheby 68 citations
One recent development in epistemology, the philosophical study of knowledge, is the notion of 'epistemic innocence' introduced by Bortolotti and colleagues. This concept expresses the idea that certain suboptimal cognitive processes may nonetheless have epistemic (knowledge-related) benefits. The idea that delusion or confabulation may have psychological benefits is familiar enough. What is...