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Consciousness and Higher-Order Thoughts: An Analysis of Rosenthal's HOT Hypothesis - Prof., Study notes of Introduction to Philosophy

California State University (CSU) - FullertonIntroduction to Philosophy
Prof. Jeeloo Liu

The higher-order thought (hot) hypothesis of consciousness, as proposed by rosenthal. The distinction between higher-order and first-order thoughts, the relationship between consciousness and belief, and objections to the hot hypothesis. The document also touches upon the concepts of p-consciousness and a-consciousness.

Typology: Study notes

Pre 2010

Uploaded on 08/16/2009

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Phil 490: Consciousness and the Self
Handout [11]
Alex Byrne: Some Like It HOT — Consciousness And
Higher-Order Thoughts
Professor JeeLoo Liu
Goals:
1. To examine Rosenthal’s version of the HOT hypothesis, and the arguments he
supplies to support it.
2. To argue that even if the hypothesis were true, it would not satisfactorily explain
phenomenal consciousness.
§ HOP vs. HOT
HOP: (The Perceptual Mode Theory; the Spotlight theory; the Inner Sense theory)
Locke: Consciousness is the perception of what passes in a man’s own mind.
Armstrong: Consciousness is no more than awareness (perception) of inner mental
states.
Difficulties:
A subject need not believe the testimony of his senses. In this respect perception
is unlike belief. If we take the inner eye story seriously, I should be able to doubt
the testimony of inner sense. But this does not seem to be possible...
Second-order:
I may believe that there is no tree before me ...
First-order:
It may appear to me that there is a tree before me ...
For this reason, the perceptual model of consciousness does not seem to me to be
promising.
HOT: higher-order thought hypothesis
1. Awareness = occurrent belief
pf3
pf4
pf5

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Download Consciousness and Higher-Order Thoughts: An Analysis of Rosenthal's HOT Hypothesis - Prof. and more Study notes Introduction to Philosophy in PDF only on Docsity!

Phil 490: Consciousness and the Self Handout [11] Alex Byrne: Some Like It HOT — Consciousness And Higher-Order Thoughts Professor JeeLoo Liu Goals:

  1. To examine Rosenthal’s version of the HOT hypothesis, and the arguments he supplies to support it.
  2. To argue that even if the hypothesis were true, it would not satisfactorily explain phenomenal consciousness. § HOP vs. HOT HOP: (The Perceptual Mode Theory; the Spotlight theory; the Inner Sense theory) Locke: Consciousness is the perception of what passes in a man’s own mind. Armstrong: Consciousness is no more than awareness (perception) of inner mental states. Difficulties: A subject need not believe the testimony of his senses. In this respect perception is unlike belief. If we take the inner eye story seriously, I should be able to doubt the testimony of inner sense. But this does not seem to be possible... Second-order: I may believe that there is no tree before me ... First-order: It may appear to me that there is a tree before me ... For this reason, the perceptual model of consciousness does not seem to me to be promising. HOT: higher-order thought hypothesis
  3. Awareness = occurrent belief
  1. Consciousness is no more than awareness (belief) of inner mental states by the person whose states they are. § P - Consciousness vs. A-consciousness [ P - consciousness] A mental state that is phenomenally conscious is a state that there is something it is like to be in. [ A - consciousness] An access conscious state is one whose content is available for various cognitive operations: action, reasoning, and verbal report. On focus here will be on whether the higher-order thought hypothesis can explain phenomenal consciousness in terms of certain kinds of nonconscious mental states. § The Higher-order Thought Hypothesis A higher-order thought, or HOT, is a thought about some mental state. HOT Mental state Rosenthal’s Theses:
  2. A mental state is conscious just in case one has a roughly contemporaneous thought to the effect that one is in that very mental state.
  3. Rosenthal is committed, as he of course recognizes, to the existence of nonconscious states that have sensory qualities – nonconscious headaches, visual experiences, and so forth.
  4. A higher-order thought itself may well not be the object of a further higher-order thought, and if it is not, then it is not conscious. Typically one’s higher-order thoughts are not themselves conscious thoughts. I have a headache.

Q : The conscious content of a mental state is the content specified by the higher-order thought about that state. Now there is no problem here for conscious thoughts. But can the content of a visual experience – for instance my visual experience as I gaze on a sunny day towards the San Gabriel mountains – be captured in a single thought? Rosenthal’s reply: § Byrne’s Objections:

  1. The inexpressibility problem : The concepts that I can deploy in thought may be inadequate to characterize fully the content presented by the visual sensuous manifold, just as one may lack the resources to describe exhaustively the content of a painting.
  2. The problem of the unthinkable thought : There seems no reason to suppose that the proposition describing the content of my visual experience is one that I could think, for it would surely be an immensely complex thought (imagine the length of a sentence of English that expresses it).
  3. The problem of introspection : If I do actually have such an unwieldy thought, by introspection I ought to be able to make it conscious. Yet when I try to become aware of my awareness of my visual experience, I do not stumble on such a monstrous thought.
  4. The problem of mistaken HOT : What about cases where the higher-order thought gets matters wrong? We’re seldom if ever conscious of all the detail that’s represented in our sensory states, even sensory states at the center of our visual field. And the amount of detail we’re conscious of often changes. When that happens, moreover, it needn’t be the sensory state that changes, but only the way we’re conscious of that state. The higher-order thought hypothesis explains these things. Higher-order thoughts represent sensory states in greater or lesser detail. So a higher-order thought might represent one’s sensory state as being just of a bookcase with lots of things on it. But the higher-order thought might instead represent the sensory state in greater detail, as including a thimble. In the first case one is conscious of seeing the bookcase but not the thimble; in the second case one’s conscious of seeing both (MD, 915). Evidently, given the distinctness of the higher-order thought and the mental state it is about, such cases are possible. For instance, I may be seeing that there’s a cat on the mat, and my higher-order thought may be that I am seeing that there’s a dog on the mat. What would happen then? What would I consciously experience? (p. 119) Suppose I have the higher-order thought that I am in a certain sensory state, and suppose I’m not in this state. Having got this far, there is only one answer to the question of what I will consciously experience: it will seem to me, phenomenologically, that I am in this sensory state. (p. 121)

§ Conclusion:

1. There are cases where the higher-order thought only partially captures the **content of the mental state it is about (esp. with sensory states).

  1. There may be cases where the higher-order thought is mistaken about the** **content of the conscious mental state.
  2. So I judge the higher-order thought hypothesis to be a heroic failure when it** comes to phenomenal consciousness.