This interdisciplinary work contains the most sustained attempt at developing and defending one of the few genuine theories of consciousness. Following the lead of David Rosenthal, the author argues for the so-called 'higher-order thought theory of consciousness'. This theory holds that what makes a mental state conscious is the presence of a suitable higher-order thought directed at the mental state. In addition, the somewhat controversial claim that “consciousness entails self-consciousness” is vigorously defended. The approach is mostly 'analytic' in style and draws on important recent work in cognitive science, perception, artificial intelligence, neuropsychology and psychopathology. However, the book also makes extensive use of numerous Kantian insights in arguing for its main theses and, in turn, sheds historical light on Kant's theory of mind. A detailed analysis of the relationships between (self-)consciousness, behavior, memory, intentionality, and de se attitudes are examples of the central topics to be found in this work. (Series A)
2024. Revisiting Self-Operating Mathematical Universe (SOMU) as a Theory for Artificial General Intelligence, AGI and G+ Consciousness. In Brain-like Super Intelligence from Bio-electromagnetism [Studies in Rhythm Engineering, ], ► pp. 209 ff.
Tait, Izak, Joshua Bensemann & Trung Nguyen
2023. Building the Blocks of Being: The Attributes and Qualities Required for Consciousness. Philosophies 8:4 ► pp. 52 ff.
Yao, Zhihua
2023. Beyond Self-Representationalism: A Neo-Dignāgian Theory of Consciousness. In Varieties of Self-Awareness [Contributions to Phenomenology, 121], ► pp. 213 ff.
Antonelli, Mauro
2022. Consciousness and Intentionality in Franz Brentano. Acta Analytica 37:3 ► pp. 301 ff.
Giustina, Anna
2022. A Defense of Inner Awareness: The Memory Argument Revisited. Review of Philosophy and Psychology 13:2 ► pp. 341 ff.
Giustina, Anna
2024. Inner Acquaintance Theories of Consciousness. In Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Mind, ► pp. 334 ff.
Hashim, Hashim Talib, Mustafa Ahmed Ramadhan & Mehek Cheema
2022. Introduction. In The Psychology of Consciousness: Theory and Practice, ► pp. 1 ff.
Lang, Stefan & Klaus Viertbauer
2022. Editorial: Self-Consciousness Explained—Mapping the Field. Review of Philosophy and Psychology 13:2 ► pp. 257 ff.
Miller, William B.
2021. The First Minds: Caterpillars, Karyotes, and Consciousness. Philosophical Psychology 34:2 ► pp. 322 ff.
Razeev, Danil
2021. Personal Identity and False Memories. In Software Engineering and Formal Methods. SEFM 2020 Collocated Workshops [Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 12524], ► pp. 100 ff.
de Sá Pereira, Roberto Horácio
2020. Knowing qualia: reloading the displaced perception model. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications 7:1
Sebastián, Miguel Ángel & Marc Artiga
2020. Can Informational Theories Account for Metarepresentation?. Topoi 39:1 ► pp. 81 ff.
Chaturvedi, Madhu Mangal & A. V. Ravishankar Sarma
2019. Does Inner Awareness Always Accompany Outer Awareness During Perception?. Problemos 96 ► pp. 134 ff.
Kreuch, Gerhard
2019. Challenges in Current Philosophy of Self-Consciousness – The Heidelberg School. In Self-Feeling [Contributions to Phenomenology, 107], ► pp. 11 ff.
Kreuch, Gerhard
2019. A Brief Overview of Philosophy of Self-Consciousness. In Self-Feeling [Contributions to Phenomenology, 107], ► pp. 3 ff.
Kreuch, Gerhard
2023. Herausforderungen in der aktuellen Philosophie des Selbstbewusstseins – Die Heidelberger Schule. In Selbstgefühl, ► pp. 11 ff.
Kreuch, Gerhard
2023. Ein kurzer Überblick über die Philosophie des Selbstbewusstseins. In Selbstgefühl, ► pp. 3 ff.
Benovsky, Jiri
2018. Subjectivity. In Mind and Matter [SpringerBriefs in Philosophy, ], ► pp. 27 ff.
Jordan, Maiya
2017. Representation and Regress. Husserl Studies 33:1 ► pp. 19 ff.
Mylopoulos, Myrto
2017. A cognitive account of agentive awareness. Mind & Language 32:5 ► pp. 545 ff.
Ortiz Medina, Esteban Diego
2017. La conciencia como puente temático entre la fenomenología y la filosofía analítica. Mutatis Mutandis: Revista Internacional de Filosofía 1:9 ► pp. 125 ff.
Picciuto, Vincent
2017. Keeping it Real: Intentional Inexistents, Fineness‐of‐Grain, and the Dilemma for Extrinsic Higher‐Order Representational Theories. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 98:4 ► pp. 555 ff.
Kirkeby-Hinrup, Asger
2016. Change Blindness and Misrepresentation. Disputatio 8:42 ► pp. 37 ff.
Kirkeby-Hinrup, Asger
2024. Quantifying empirical support for theories of consciousness: a tentative methodological framework. Frontiers in Psychology 15
Katsafanas, Paul
2015. Nietzsche on the Nature of the Unconscious. Inquiry 58:3 ► pp. 327 ff.
Berkovich-Ohana, Aviva & Joseph Glicksohn
2014. The consciousness state space (CSS)—a unifying model for consciousness and self. Frontiers in Psychology 5
Kotchoubey, Boris
2014. Objectivity of human consciousness is a product of tool usage. Frontiers in Psychology 5
Kozuch, Benjamin
2014. Prefrontal lesion evidence against higher-order theories of consciousness. Philosophical Studies 167:3 ► pp. 721 ff.
Kozuch, Benjamin
2022. Underwhelming force: Evaluating the neuropsychological evidence for higher‐order theories of consciousness. Mind & Language 37:5 ► pp. 790 ff.
Kozuch, Benjamin
2024. An embarrassment of richnesses: the PFC isn’t the content NCC. Neuroscience of Consciousness 2024:1
Kozuch, Benjamin
2024. A Legion of Lesions: The Neuroscientific Rout of Higher-Order Thought Theory. Erkenntnis 89:8 ► pp. 3109 ff.
Kozuch, Benjamin
2026. Neuroscience undermines the higher-order theorists’ preferred solution to the targetless HOT problem. Philosophical Psychology► pp. 1 ff.
Sebastián, Miguel Ángel
2014. Not a HOT Dream. In Consciousness Inside and Out: Phenomenology, Neuroscience, and the Nature of Experience, ► pp. 415 ff.
Sebastián, Miguel Ángel
2019. Drop it like it’s HOT: a vicious regress for higher-order thought theories. Philosophical Studies 176:6 ► pp. 1563 ff.
Sebastián, Miguel Ángel
2024. First-Person Perspective in Experience: Perspectival De Se Representation as an Explanation of the Delimitation Problem. Erkenntnis 89:3 ► pp. 947 ff.
Bogardus, Tomas
2012. What certainty teaches. Philosophical Psychology 25:2 ► pp. 227 ff.
Jagnow, René
2012. Colour Discrimination And Monitoring Theories of Consciousness. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 90:1 ► pp. 57 ff.
Klein, Stanley B.
2012. Self, Memory, and the Self-Reference Effect. Personality and Social Psychology Review 16:3 ► pp. 283 ff.
Matey, Jennifer
2011. Reduction and the determination of phenomenal character. Philosophical Psychology 24:3 ► pp. 291 ff.
Klein, Stanley B. & Moshe L. Lax
2010. The unanticipated resilience of trait self-knowledge in the face of neural damage. Memory 18:8 ► pp. 918 ff.
Sturm, Thomas & Falk Wunderlich
2010. Kant and the scientific study of consciousness. History of the Human Sciences 23:3 ► pp. 48 ff.
Weisberg, Josh
2008. Same old, same old: the same-order representation theory of consciousness and the division of phenomenal labor. Synthese 160:2 ► pp. 161 ff.
Weisberg, Josh
2011. Misrepresenting consciousness. Philosophical Studies 154:3 ► pp. 409 ff.
Carruthers, Peter
2007. Higher-Order Theories of Consciousness. In The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness, ► pp. 277 ff.
Carruthers, Peter
2017. Higher‐Order Theories of Consciousness. In The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness, ► pp. 288 ff.
Lycan, William G.
2007. Phenomenality without access?. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 30:5-6 ► pp. 515 ff.
Lycan, William G.
2012. Consciousness. In The Cambridge Handbook of Cognitive Science,
Rosenthal, David M
2006. Consciousness and Higher‐Order Thought. In Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science,
Bailey, Andrew
2005. What is it Like to See a Bat? a Critique of Dretske’s Representationalist Theory of Qualia. Disputatio 1:18 ► pp. 151 ff.
Janzen, Greg
2005. Self-Consciousness and Phenomenal Character. Dialogue 44:4 ► pp. 707 ff.
JANZEN, GREG
2011. IN DEFENSE OF THE WHAT‐IT‐IS‐LIKENESS OF EXPERIENCE. The Southern Journal of Philosophy 49:3 ► pp. 271 ff.
Janzen, Greg
2013. An adverbialist–objectualist account of pain. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 12:4 ► pp. 859 ff.
Lurz, Robert W.
2004. In search of the metaphor of the mind: a critical review of Baars'in the theater of consciousness. Philosophical Psychology 17:2 ► pp. 297 ff.
Winkelman, Michael
2004. Understanding Consciousness Using Systems Approaches and Lexical Universals. Anthropology of Consciousness 15:2 ► pp. 24 ff.
Kriegel, Uriah
2003. Consciousness as Intransitive Self-Consciousness: Two Views and an Argument. Canadian Journal of Philosophy 33:1 ► pp. 103 ff.
Kriegel, Uriah
2003. Consciousness as sensory quality and as implicit self-awareness. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 2:1 ► pp. 1 ff.
Kriegel, Uriah
2003. Is Intentionality Dependent upon Consciousness?. Philosophical Studies 116:3 ► pp. 271 ff.
Kriegel, Uriah
2003. Consciousness, Higher-Order Content, and the Individuation of Vehicles. Synthese 134:3 ► pp. 477 ff.
KRIEGEL, URIAH
2005. Naturalizing Subjective Character. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 71:1 ► pp. 23 ff.
Kriegel, Uriah
2007. Philosophical theories of consciousness: contemporary Western perspectives. In The Cambridge Handbook of Consciousness,
Kriegel, Uriah
2009. Self-representationalism and phenomenology. Philosophical Studies 143:3 ► pp. 357 ff.
Talvitie, Vesa & Juhani Ihanus
2003. Response to commentaries. Neuropsychoanalysis 5:2 ► pp. 153 ff.
Gennaro, Rocco J.
2002. Jean-Paul Sartre and the HOT Theory of Consciousness. Canadian Journal of Philosophy 32:3 ► pp. 293 ff.
Gennaro, Rocco J.
2008. Representationalism, peripheral awareness, and the transparency of experience. Philosophical Studies 139:1 ► pp. 39 ff.
Gennaro, Rocco J.
2018. Consciousness. In Encyclopedia of Animal Cognition and Behavior, ► pp. 1 ff.
Gennaro, Rocco J.
2022. What is the Structure of Self-Consciousness and Conscious Mental States?. Review of Philosophy and Psychology 13:2 ► pp. 295 ff.
Gennaro, Rocco J.
2022. Consciousness. In Encyclopedia of Animal Cognition and Behavior, ► pp. 1625 ff.
Gennaro, Rocco J.
2024. Consciousness and Implicit Self-Awareness: Eastern and Western Perspectives. In Consciousness Studies in Sciences and Humanities: Eastern and Western Perspectives [Studies in Neuroscience, Consciousness and Spirituality, 8], ► pp. 43 ff.
Zahavi, Dan
2002. First-person thoughts and embodied self-awareness: Some reflections on the relation between recent analytical philosophy and phenomenology. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 1:1 ► pp. 7 ff.
Rowlands, Mark
2001. The Nature of Consciousness,
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