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2 results

  • Chapter 1 - Awareness and identification of self

  • Edited by JeeLoo Liu, California State University, Fullerton, John Perry, Stanford University, California
  • Book:
    Consciousness and the Self
    Published online:
    05 December 2011
    Print publication:
    17 November 2011, pp 22-50

  • Summary

    The higher-order thought (HOT) theory holds that a state's being conscious consists in one's having a suitable thought that one is, oneself, in that state. The HOT theory explains not only how we are aware of our conscious mental states, but also how it is that we are thereby aware of ourselves. This chapter shows how HOTs can accommodate essentially indexical awareness of oneself without invoking any special, antecedent self-awareness. It argues that a crucial assumption that underlies the claim of immunity to error through misidentification is unfounded, namely, the assumption that no self-identification figures in our awareness of our own conscious states. Finally, the chapter discusses the particular kind of identification of self that figures in our higher-order awareness of our conscious states and how that relates to the self-identification that underlies our first-person thoughts generally.

  • 10 - Animals, consciousness, and I-thoughts

  • Edited by Robert W. Lurz, Brooklyn College, City University of New York
  • Book:
    The Philosophy of Animal Minds
    Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    03 September 2009, pp 184-200

  • Summary

    This chapter discusses and elaborates upon the evidence for higher-order thoughts (or I-thoughts) in animals. It also shows that the higher-order thought (HOT) theory is indeed consistent with animal consciousness. The chapter argues that recent experimental evidence on animal memory and metacognition strongly suggests that many animals have the self-concepts and mental-state concepts necessary to form I-thoughts. It answers to the claim that having I-thoughts requires having thoughts (and thus concepts) directed at others' mental states. The stakes are high because if the HOT theory is true, any evidence indicating the absence of I-thoughts would also cast doubt on animal consciousness itself. The very concept of "consciousness" is notoriously ambiguous, but perhaps the most commonly used contemporary notion of a "conscious" mental state is captured by Thomas Nagel's famous "what it is like" sense.