ISSN 0140-525X, 1469-1825
225 papers in the library · 5,900 citations · publishing 1990-2026
Behavioral and Brain Sciences June 1, 1995 Daniel C. Dennett 30 citations
Abstract The differences Block attempts to capture with his putative distinction between P-consciousness and A-consciousness are more directly and perspicuously handled in terms of differences in richness of content and degree of influence. Block's critiques, based on his misbegotten distinction, evaporate on closer inspection.
Behavioral and Brain Sciences June 1, 1995 Nicholas K Humphrey 27 citations
Abstract Block's notion of P-consciousness catches too much in its net. He would do better to exclude all states that do not have a sensory component. I question what he says about my work with the “blind” monkey, Helen.
Behavioral and Brain Sciences June 1, 1995 Bernard W. Kobes 22 citations
Abstract Block's cases of superblindsight, the pneumatic drill, and the Sperling experiments do not show that P-consciousness and Aconsciousness can come apart. On certain tendentious but not implausible construals of the concepts of P- and A-consciousness, they refer to the same psychological phenomenon.
Behavioral and Brain Sciences June 1, 1995 Antti Revonsuo 14 citations
Abstract I criticize Block's examples of P-consciousness and A-consciousness for being flawed and the notion of A-consciousness for not being a notion of consciousness at all. I argue that an empirically important distinction can be made between behavior that is supported by an underlying conscious experience and behavior that is brought about by nonconscious action-control mechanisms. This...
Behavioral and Brain Sciences June 1, 1995 J. A. Church 13 citations
Abstract To demonstrate that a fallacy is committed, Block needs to convince us of two things: first, that theconceptof phenomenal consciousness is distinct from that of access consciousness, and second, that it picks out a different property from that of access consciousness. I raise doubt about both of these claims, suggesting that the concept of a phenomenal property is the concept of a...
Behavioral and Brain Sciences June 1, 1995 William G. Lycan 12 citations
Abstract Block contends that the concept of consciousness is a mongrel concept and that researchers go astray by conflating different notions of “consciousness.” This is certainly true. In fact, it is truer than Block acknowledges, because his own notion of P-consciousness runs together two, or arguably three, quite different and separable features of a sensory state.
Behavioral and Brain Sciences June 1, 1995 Patricia Kitcher 6 citations
Abstract This commentary offers two criticisms of Block's account of phenomenal consciousness and a brief sketch of a rival account. The negative points are that monitoring consciousness also involves the possession of certain states and that phenomenal consciousness inevitably involves some sort of monitoring. My positive suggestion is that “phenomenal consciousness” may refer to our ability...
Behavioral and Brain Sciences June 1, 1995 5 citations
Consciousness is a mongrel concept: there are a number of very different "consciousnesses."Phenomenal consciousness is experience; the phenomenally conscious aspect of a state is what it is like to be in that state.The mark of access-consciousness, by contrast, is availability for use in reasoning and rationally guiding speech and action.These concepts are often partly or totally conflated,...
Behavioral and Brain Sciences June 1, 1995 Leonard Katz 4 citations
Abstract One can share Block's aim of distinguishing “phenomenal” experience from cognitive function and agree with much in his views, yet hold that the inclusion of representational content within phenomenal content, if only in certain spatial cases, obscures this distinction. It may also exclude some modular theories, although it is interestingly suggestive of what may be the limits of the...
Behavioral and Brain Sciences June 1, 1995 Roger N. Shepard 3 citations
Abstract If phenomenal consciousness is distinct from the computationally based access-consciousness that controls overt behavior, how can I tell which things (other than myself) enjoy phenomenal consciousness? And if phenomenal consciousness 'plays no role in controlling overt behavior, how do human bodies come to write target articles arguing for the existence of phenomenal consciousness?
Behavioral and Brain Sciences June 1, 1995 Georges Rey 3 citations
Abstract Block's P-/A-consciousness distinction rules out P's involving a specific kind of cognitive access and commits him to a “strong” Pconsciousness. This not only confounds plausible research in the area but betrays an anosognosia about Wittgenstein's diagnosis about our philosophical “introspection” of mysterious inner processes.
Behavioral and Brain Sciences June 1, 1995 Talis Bachmann 3 citations
Abstract Additional experiments show that P-consciousness and A consciousness can be empirically dissociated for the theoretically so phisticated observer. Phenomenal consciousness can have several degrees that are indirectly measurable.
Behavioral and Brain Sciences June 1, 1995 Thomas Natsoulas 2 citations
Abstract In response to the objection that his “access-consciousness” is not really consciousness but a matter of the availability of certain information for certain kinds of processing, Block will probably have to argue that consciousness in a more basic, familiar, traditional sense is an essential component of any instance of access-consciousness and thus justifies the name.
Behavioral and Brain Sciences June 1, 1995 George Graham 2 citations
Abstract Should we distinguish between access and phenomenal consciousness? Block says yes and that various pathologies of consciousness support and clarify the distinction. The commentary charge that the distinction is neither supported nor clarified by the clinical data. It recommends an alternative reading of the data and urges Block to clarify the distinction.
Behavioral and Brain Sciences June 1, 1995 Dan Edward Lloyd 1 citation
Abstract The information processing that constitutes accessconsciousness is not sufficient to make a representational state conscious in any sense. Standard examples of computation without consciousness undermine A-consciousness, and Block's cases seem to derive their plausibility from a lurking phenomenal awareness. That is, people and other minded systems seem to have access-consciousness...
Behavioral and Brain Sciences June 1, 1995 Tiziana Zalla, Adriano Palma
Abstract In Feeling of Knowing cases, subjects have a form of consciousness about the presence of a content (such as an item of information) without having access to it. If this phenomenon can be correctly interpreted as having to do with consciousness, then there would be a P-conscious mental experience which is dissociated from access.
Behavioral and Brain Sciences June 1, 1995 Joseph Levine
AbstractBasically agreeing with Block regarding the need for a distinction between P- and A-consciousness, I characterize the problem somewhat diflerently, relating it more directly to the explanatory gap. I also speculate on the relation between the two forms of consciousness, arguing that some notion of access is essentially involved in phenomenal experience.
Behavioral and Brain Sciences June 1, 1995 Ned Block
AbstractWith some help from the commentators, a few adjustments to the characterizations of A-consciousness and P-consciousness can avoid some trivial cases of one without the other. But it still seems that the case for the existence of P without A is stronger than that for A without P. If indeed there can be P without A, but not A without P, this would be a remarkable result that would need...
Behavioral and Brain Sciences June 1, 1995 D. M. Armstrong
AbstractBlock's distinction between phenomenal and access consciousness is accepted, and it is agreed that one may be found without the other, but his account of the distinction is challenged. Phenomenal consciousness is perceptual consciousness, and it is a matter of gaining information of a detailed, nonverbal sort about the subject's body and environment. Access consciousness is good,...
Behavioral and Brain Sciences June 1, 1995 J. Van Brakel
AbstractBlocks distinction between “phenomenal feel” consciousness and “thought/cognition” consciousness is a cultural construction. Consciousness (and its “subspecies”) is not a natural kind. Some crosscultural data are presented to support this.
Behavioral and Brain Sciences June 1, 1995 Adam Morton
AbstractIn common sense consciousness has a fairly determinate content – the (single) way an experience feels, the (single) line of thought being consciously followed. The determinacy of the object may be achieved by linking Block's two concepts, so that as long as we hold on to the determinacy of content we are unable to separate P and A.
Behavioral and Brain Sciences June 1, 1995 Bernard J. Baars
AbstractBlock seems to propose untested answers to empirical questions. Whether consciousness is a “mongrel problem,” rather than a single core fact with many facets, is an empirical issue. Likewise, the intimate relationship between personal consciousness and global access functions cannot be decided pretheoretically. This point is demonstrated by the reader's private experience of foveal...
Behavioral and Brain Sciences June 1, 1995 Anthony P. Atkinson, Martin Davies
AbstractAlthough information-processing theories cannot provide a full explanatory account of P-consciousness, there is less conflation and confusion in cognitive psychology than Block suspects. Some of the reasoning that Block criticises can be interpreted plausibly in the light of a folk psychological view of relation between P-consciousness and A-consciousness.
Behavioral and Brain Sciences June 1, 1995 Richard M. Warren
AbstractBlock has attempted to reduce the confusion and controversy concerning the term “consciousness” by suggesting that there are two forms or types of consciousness, each of which has several characteristics or properties. This suggestion appears to further becloud the topic, however. Perhaps consciousness cannot be defined adequately and should not be considered as a topic that can be...
Behavioral and Brain Sciences December 1, 1990 John R Searle
AbstractCognitive science typically postulates unconscious mental phenomena, computational or otherwise, to explain cognitive capacities. The mental phenomena in question are supposed to be inaccessible in principle to consciousness. I try to show that this is a mistake, because all unconscious intentionality must be accessible in principle to consciousness; we have no notion of intrinsic...