Abstract

Works its way through a variety of different accounts of phenomenal consciousness, looking at the strengths and weaknesses of each. At the heart of the chapter is an extended critical examination of first-order representational theories, of the sort espoused by Dretske and Tye, arguing that they are inferior to higher-order representational accounts. Acknowledges as a problem for HOR theories that they might withhold phenomenal consciousness from most other species of animal, but claims that this problem should not be regarded as a serious obstacle to the acceptance of some such theory. Different versions of HOR theory are discussed, and the author’s own account is briefly elaborated and defended.