creators_name: Velmans, Max
type: journalp
datestamp: 1998-03-13
lastmod: 2011-03-11 08:53:46
metadata_visibility: show
title: Is the Mind Conscious, Functional or Both?
ispublished: pub
subjects: cog-psy
subjects: phil-epist
subjects: phil-mind
full_text_status: public
keywords: Searle, connection principle, consciousness, functionalism, mind, first person, third person, aspectual shape, unconscious
abstract: What, in essence, characterizes the mind? According to Searle, the potential to be conscious provides the only definitive criterion. Thus, conscious states are unquestionably "mental"; "shallow unconscious" states are also "mental" by virtue of their capacity to be conscious (at least in principle); but there are no "deep unconscious mental states" - i.e. those rules and procedures without access to consciousness, inferred by cognitive science to characterize the operations of the unconscious mind are not mental at all. Indeed, according to Searle, they have no ontological status - they are simply ways of describing some interesting facets of purely physiological phenomena.
date: 1990
date_type: published
publication: Behavioral and Brain Sciences
volume: 13
number: 4
publisher: Cambridge University Press
pagerange: 629-630
refereed: TRUE
citation:   Velmans, Max  (1990) Is the Mind Conscious, Functional or Both?  [Journal (Paginated)]     
document_url: http://cogprints.org/245/1/velmans8.html