Infants, the marker method, and the nature of consciousness
Philosophy and the Mind Sciences July 6, 2026 Jacob Berger, Lori M. Curtindale
A new method for determining whether nonverbal organisms such as human infants have consciousness has recently emerged. According to this so-called marker methodology, we do not use theories of consciousness to assess whether creatures are conscious by meeting the conditions set out by those theories. Rather, we identify a range of markers that putatively correlate with consciousness to make...