Canadian Journal of Philosophy
June 3, 2026
Briana Toole
Despite the centrality of the achievement thesis within standpoint epistemology, thereare gaps in the literature on the epistemic significance of consciousness-raising and itsrole in providing access to knowledge that was previously inaccessible. To addressthese gaps, I argue that consciousness-raising is a transformative experience, one thatmakes us a different person. If, as the standpoint...
Canadian Journal of Philosophy
June 30, 2025
Jen Semler
Many views of moral agency include, implicitly or explicitly, a consciousness requirement—namely, the claim that phenomenal consciousness is a necessary condition of moral agency. This paper casts doubt on the consciousness requirement. I argue that consciousness is not necessary for instantiating four key capacities necessary for moral agency: action, moral concept possession, responsiveness...
Canadian Journal of Philosophy
April 1, 2025
Claudi Brink
Abstract In Transparency and Reflection , Matthew Boyle offers a Sartrean account of prereflective self-awareness to explain the essential link between self-consciousness and rationality, moving away from standard Kantian interpretations that he claims presuppose rather than explain this connection. I argue that Boyle’s account provides useful tools for re-interpreting Kant’s claim that the “I...
Canadian Journal of Philosophy
February 1, 2014
Mohan Matthen
33 citations
In this review of Hutto and Myin’s Radicalizing Enactivism, I question the adequacy of a non-representational theory of mind. I argue first that such a theory cannot differentiate cognition from other bodily engagements such as wrestling with an opponent. Second, I question whether the simple robots constructed by Rodney Brooks are adequate as models of multimodal organisms. Last, I argue that...
Canadian Journal of Philosophy
June 1, 2009
Gideon Yaffe
It was common enough in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to find philosophers holding the position that for something to be ‘in the mind’ and for that mind to be conscious of it are one and the same thing. The thought is that consciousness is a relation between a mind and a mental entity playing the same role as the relation of inherence found between a substance and qualities belonging...
Canadian Journal of Philosophy
December 1, 2006
Andrew Bailey
In its recent history, the philosophy of mind has come to resemble an entry into the genre of Hammer horror or pulpy science fiction. These days it is unusual to encounter a major philosophical work on the mind that is not populated with bats, homunculi, swamp-creatures, cruelly imprisoned genius scientists, aliens, cyborgs, other-worldly twins, self-aware Computer programs,...
Canadian Journal of Philosophy
March 1, 2003
Uriah Kriegel
190 citations
The word ‘consciousness’ is notoriously ambiguous. This is mainly because it isnota term of art, but a mundane word we all use quite frequently, for different purposes and in different everyday contexts. In this paper, I am going to discuss consciousness in one specific sense of the word. To avoid the ambiguities of the word ‘consciousness,’ I will introduce a term of art:intransitive...
Canadian Journal of Philosophy
June 1, 1983
Reinaldo Elugardo
And supposing there were a machine, so constructed as to think, feel, and have perception, it might be conceived as increased in size, while keeping the same proportions, so that one might go into it as into a mill. That being so, we should, on examining its interior, find only parts which work on one another, and never anything by which to explain a perception.Gottlieb Leibniz, The...