%A Peter Carruthers
%J Naturalism, Evolution and Mind.
%T Consciousness: explaining the phenomena.
%X Can phenomenal consciousness be given a reductive natural explanation? Many people argue not. They claim that there is an 'explanatory gap' between physical and/or intentional states and processes, on the one hand, and phenomenal consciousness, on the other. I reply that, since we have purely recognitional concepts of experience, there is indeed a sort of gap at the level of concepts; but this need not mean that the properties picked out by those concepts are inexplicable. I show how dispositionalist higher-order thought (HOT) theory can reductively explain the subjective feel of experience by deploying a form of 'consumer semantics'. First-order perceptual contents become transformed, acquiring a dimension of subjectivity, by virtue to their availability to a mind-reading (HOT generating) consumer system.
%K phenomenal consciousness
higher-order experience
consciousness
higher-order thought
%P 61-85
%E Denis Walsh
%D 2002
%I Cambridge University Press
%L cogprints2235

<script src='//archive-bar.soton.ac.uk/archive-bar.js'></script>