Representational Theories of ConsciousnessOne frequent objection to FOR is that it cannot explain all kinds of conscious states. Some
conscious states do not seem to be “about” or “directed at” anything, such as pains, itches, anxi-
ety, or after-images, and so they would be non-representational conscious states. If so, then con-
scious states cannot generally be explained in terms of representational properties (Block 1996).
Tye responds that pains and itches do represent, in the sense that they represent parts of the body.
After-images and hallucinations either misrepresent (which is still a kind of representation) or
the conscious subject still takes them to have representational properties from the first-person
point of view. Tye (2000) responds to a whole host of alleged counter-examples to FOR. For
example, with regard to conscious emotions, he says that they “are frequently localized in par-
ticular parts of the body...For example, if one feels sudden jealousy, one is likely to feel one’s
stomach sink... [or] one’s blood pressure increase” (2000: 51). Tye believes that something similar
is true for fear or anger. Moods, however, seem quite different and not localizable in the same
way. But, still, if one feels, say, elated, then one’s overall conscious experience is changed.^2
Others use “inverted qualia” arguments against FOR. These are hypothetical cases where
behaviorally indistinguishable individuals have inverted color perceptions of objects, such as per-
son A visually experiences a lemon in the same way that person B experiences a ripe tomato,
likewise for all yellow and red objects. If it is possible that there are two individuals whose color
experiences are inverted with respect to the objects of perception, we would have a case of different
phenomenal experiences with the same represented properties. The strategy is to think of counter-
examples where there is a difference between the phenomenal properties in experience and the
relevant representational properties in the world. These objections can perhaps be answered by Tye
(e.g. in Tye 2000) and others in various ways, but significant debate continues. Moreover, intui-
tions dramatically differ as do the plausibility and value of these so-called “thought experiments.”
A more serious objection to Tye’s theory might be that what seems to be doing most of
the work on his account is the functional-sounding “poised” notion, and thus he is not really
explaining phenomenal consciousness in entirely representational terms (Kriegel 2002). It is also
unclear how a disposition can confer actual consciousness on an otherwise unconscious mental
state. Carruthers, for example, asks: “How can the mere fact that an [unconscious state] is now
in a position to have an impact upon the...decision-making process [or beliefs and desires]
confer on it the subjective properties of feel and ‘what-it-is-likeness’ distinctive of phenomenal
consciousness?” (2000: 170).^3
3 Higher-Order RepresentationalismRecall the key question: What makes a mental state a conscious mental state? There is also a tradi-
tion that has attempted to understand consciousness in terms of some kind of higher-order aware-
ness and this intuition has been revived by a number of contemporary philosophers (Armstrong
1981; Rosenthal 1986, 1997, 2002, 2005; Lycan 1996, 2001; Gennaro 1996, 2004a, 2012). The
basic idea is that what makes a mental state M conscious is that it is the object of a higher-order
representation (HOR). A HOR is a “meta-psychological” state, that is, a mental state directed
at another mental state. So, for example, my desire to write a good chapter becomes conscious
when I am (non-inferentially) “aware” of the desire. Intuitively, it seems that conscious states,
as opposed to unconscious ones, are mental states that I am “aware of ” being in. So conscious
mental states arise when two (unconscious) mental states are related in a certain way, namely, that
one of them (the HOR) is directed at the other (M).
This intuitively appealing claim is sometimes referred to as the Transitivity Principle (TP):
(TP) A conscious state is a state whose subject is, in some way, aware of being in the state.