The persistent problem of targetless thought.

Targetless thought—where a subject represents herself as being in a mental state she does not actually have—poses a challenge for higher-order theories of consciousness. Some proponents of the higher-order view argue that such cases are possible and have offered empirical evidence for them. This paper provides an alternative explanation of that evidence that does not require positing targetless thoughts. The argument shows that the empirical evidence does not distinguish between first-order and higher-order theories of consciousness, thereby undermining the empirical case for the higher-order view.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Targetless thought raises a persistent problem for higher-order theories of consciousness. In cases of targetless thought, a subject represents herself as being in a mental state that she in fact lacks. One popular response among proponents of the higher-order theory is to say that it can appear to a subject that she is in a conscious mental state, even though that mental state doesn't exist (Picciuto, 2017; Rosenthal 1997, 2011; Weisberg, 2010). Recently Brown and Lau (2019) and Lau and Rosenthal (2011) have shifted the debate to empirical ground, and offered evidence for real-world cases of targetless thought. In this paper, I give an alternate explanation of the evidence which avoids the need to posit targetless thoughts. As I argue, this challenges the empirical argument for the higher-order view because it shows that the evidence on offer does not discriminate between the first-order and higher-order theories of consciousness.