Phenomenologists Actualist Higher Order Thought Theory

A pre-reflective self-consciousness is frequently endorsed by phenomenologists. This indicates that from the perspective of a phenomenologist, an awareness takes place before any reflection of our experiences occurs; as a result, this cognizance is implicit and of the first kind. Instead of being thought of as a brand-new awareness, this self-consciousness should be seen as a persistent, fundamental characteristic of conscious experience. As a result, for phenomenologists, the empirical dimension is always pre-reflective implicit self-consciousness because what reflection finds seems to have always existed; otherwise, reflection would not have discovered the experience of awareness but would have created it.

The phenomenological mind by Gallagher & Zahavi presents a number of higher-order theories of self-consciousness, such as: Higher Order Perception Theory

This theory states that human beings have two ways of obtaining information; perception and reflection. Perception involves understanding whatever is going on in our thoughts and environment while reflection involves perceptions of our mental state through the inner senses, for instance, the perception of pain. This perception is sometimes known as the inner sense theory. One important thing about this theory is that, it can describe how it is probable for one to obtain only recognition notions of experience. This is important because, if one has higher-order perceptual mental objects, then it must be likely for one to learn to identify the happenings of their own perceptual states at once, based on those higher-order conscious mental objects.

Actualist Higher Order Thought Theory

This theory proposes that phenomenally aware mental state is a state of a particular kind and is the subject of higher-order thought. It proposes that an individual is conscious when they are aware and mentally receptive to sensual response, if not they are unconscious. This kind of consciousness appears every so often in ordinary conversations of one’s conscious mental state, and is a state that essentially causes a non-conscious triggered conviction that one has experienced something. This is learned non-inferentially by one noting and inferring their own behavior.

Dispositionalist Higher Order Thought Theory

This theory reflects the actualist opinions with the exception that the first-order mental state does not need to really be reflected upon, but only have to be obtainable to potentially be reflected on. The theory suggests that a conscious mental occurrence experienced by a person, is one that is liable to non- inferentially cause a non-conscious triggered belief that one has experienced a situation.

Self-Representational Higher Order Theories

There are basically two types of self-representational theory and this depends on whether the relationship between the aware and the higher-order state is constitutive or internal. The two theories are representational theory of consciousness and the higher-order monitoring. This theory can therefore, be described as a phenomenally self-aware mental state that considers the higher-order state to be constitutive or internal to its first-order state.

One mistake that the authors have made is that they are not clear about how the analytic institution use the term ’consciousness’. Given that the authors’ intentions are to offer an introduction to philosophy of mind, they should not be vague as this will mislead the reader. For instance, they have used several terms interchangeably like “intentionality of consciousness” and “consciousness”, “phenomenality” and “phenomenal feature”, and this confuses the reader as to what the authors really mean. Hence, the book is not suitable for introductory work as the title of the book suggests.

Bibliography

Gallagher, Shaun, and Dan Zahavi. The Phenomenological Mind:An Introduction to Philosophy of Mind and Cognitive Science. London: Routledge, 2008.

Lyyra, Pessi. Higher-Order Theories of Consciousness: An Appraisal and Application. Thesis, University of Jyvaskyla, 2010.