Editorial: Consciousness and Inner Awareness (original) (raw)

Inner Awareness as a Mark of the Mental

Phenomenology and Mind, 2022

While for Brentano it is a mark of the mental that any mental state is an object of inner awareness, this suggestion is notably rejected by the Higher-Order Thought Theory (HOTT) of consciousness that posits non-conscious inner awareness, which ordinarily isn't an object of inner awareness, and yet is mental. I examine an objection against the HOTT, according to which inner awareness is phenomenally present in ordinary consciousness. To assess the objection, I investigate arguments of Chalmers and Montague in favor of this phenomenal presence. I argue that while these arguments may show that experience is not transparent, they crucially fail to demonstrate that 'inner transparency' must be false too, i.e. that inner awareness is phenomenally present. I conclude that non-conscious inner awareness is an open possibility and Brentano's posit of inner awareness as a mark of the mental thus looks unpromising.

Review of 'Consciousness and Self-Awareness

Academia.Edu (© R. Schleyer, M.A.), 2021

An invited critical review of Robert Valenza's recent contribution to 'Academia Letters' demonstrates that the fundamental intuitions of Mankind about the inwardness of contemplative self-guidance have a provable basis in microphysics. Thus, the long quest for self-comprehension in Mankind through physics did indeed find or discover the infinitely deep source and locus of the Self and the Way that Lao Tzu, like his spiritual soulmate Pythagoras, were seeking, each in his own manner. (Prof. Valenza's paper has now been finalized and can be found at https://www.academia.edu/49863728/Consciousness\_and\_Self\_awareness) Readers are recommended to consult our expanded version of this review containing several additional perspectives and new illustrations: https://www.academia.edu/61260748/The\_Origin\_of\_Consciousness\_in\_Brief

Consciousness from the Outside-In and Inside-Out Perspective

Journal of Consciousness Explorations & Research, 2019

In this paper I adopt a multidisciplinary perspective and the main aim is to increase our understanding of consciousness and to give us an overall view of this multifaceted term. I distinguish between the outside-in and inside-out methodological approach to the study of consciousness and I qualify what I mean by these two terms. The outside-in approach, including the neuroscientific method involving the study and mapping of the brain and psychological approach, which is based on observations of patients in psychotherapy, leads to theories based mainly on our senses or extensions of them and inductive and deduction reasoning. The phenomenological inside-out approach where people study the nature of their own consciousness, involves going below or above the thinking mind guided by intuition. This gives rise to theories based on intuitive insight and experience. Among other things, how different cultures view consciousness is also considered and I point out that whatever metaphysical position we take regarding the origin of consciousness will have an effect on what we consider as ethically permissible conduct in scientific explorations and experiments.

SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS AS THE MONITORING OF COGNITIVE STATES: A THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVE

Following a review of introspectionist, dualist, and functionalist theories of self-consciousness, a mind-brain monitoring theory is developed. According to monitoring theory, self-consciousness is one's tacit knowledge that one is experiencing sensations: in particular, that one is imaging sensations or that one is perceiving them. Such knowledge is the phenomenal consequence of neurally monitoring whether one's sensations are centrally innervated images or peripherally innervated percepts. As a corollary of the present theory, dream images are interpreted as unmonitored images. Other hallucinations, which also arise in the absence of self-consciousness, are similarly interpreted. As another corollary, "subconscious" percepts are interpreted as unmonitored percepts. Experimental and clinical evidence in support of these and other corollaries is reviewed. This article sets forth a theoretical approach to the problem of self-consciousness and explores the empirical implications for various cognitive phenomena. In the first section of the article, the problem of self-consciousness is defined, and the history of theoretical approaches to the problem is critically reviewed. The second section develops the present theory: that, during self-consciousness, we monitor whether our sensations are centrally innervated images or peripherally innervated percepts. This theory's implications for research on hallucinating, "subconscious" perception, and repression are explored in the final three sections. HISTORY OF THE PROBLEM The present inquiry addresses the problem of self-consciousness, as opposed to the problem of consciousness. Theories of consciousness, such as those previously reviewed by Kunzendorf [1,2] and by Sheikh and Kunzendorf [3] , 3