Belief, Desire, and the Physical
Gerald Vision
The MIT Press eBooks July 29, 2011 DOI: 10.7551/mitpress/9780262015844.003.0005 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Key points | Argues that certain effects or instances of behavior are not possible without access-conscious causes, and that phenomenal awareness is best understood as an ingredient of access-conscious properties rather than a distinct category. Proposes that access consciousness contrasts with features of sentient life rather than with a lack of inner recognition and transparency, and that an emergentist theory covers all cases where a mental episode is directly available to its subject for behavior and reasoning. |
Abstract
This chapter explains the argument positing that certain effects or instances of behavior are not possible without access-conscious causes. Some claim that phenomenal awareness is not a distinct category of items but an ingredient of access-conscious properties. The natural contrasts of access consciousness would not be a lack of unmediated inner recognition and transparency, but it would contrast with features of sentient life. The important thing to consider here is that the emergentist theory covers the entire spectrum of cases in which the mental episode is directly available to its subject for behavior and reasoning. This chapter sets some preliminary distinctions surrounding the conception of physicality that are found in philosophy that will help in paving the way for the arguments and their objections.