In this paper I want to address an issue at the intersection of the philosophy of personal identity and the philosophy of transgender identity: the fact that, on one influential way of framing the transgender experience, it is incompatible with, and therefore constitutes a challenge for, physiological continuity theories of personal identity. To see this, I begin by outlining the relevant part...
According to higher order (HO) theories of consciousness, a mental state is conscious when there is a HO state about it. However, some HO states do not seem to be about other existing mental states. It is possible to resolve this problem since targetless HO states resemble HO states that misrepresent but the assumption that HO states always target other existing mental states is at odds with...