The Epistemic Role of Consciousness
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research August 2, 2019 Peer reviewed DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780199917662.001.0001 via Semantic Scholar
Summary
Consciousness is essential for acquiring knowledge and justified beliefs about ourselves and the world. Unconscious beings that behave identically to conscious humans cannot have epistemic justification—they cannot truly know anything. All epistemic justification ultimately depends on phenomenal consciousness. The argument is built from two directions: from philosophy of mind (how consciousness functions in perception, cognition, and introspection) and from epistemology (general principles of justification). These converging arguments form a unified theory linking consciousness and knowledge.
Study at a glance
| Key finding | Consciousness is necessary for epistemic justification; unconscious creatures cannot have knowledge or justified beliefs. |
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Abstract
What is the role of consciousness in our mental lives? This book argues that consciousness plays an essential role in explaining how we can acquire knowledge and epistemically justified belief about ourselves and our surroundings. On this view, our mental lives cannot be preserved in unconscious creatures—zombies—who behave just as we do. Only conscious creatures have epistemic justification to form beliefs about the world. Zombies cannot know anything about the world, since they have no epistemic justification to believe anything. On this view, all epistemic justification depends ultimately on consciousness. This book builds a sustained argument for the epistemic role of phenomenal consciousness, which draws on a range of considerations in epistemology and the philosophy of mind. The book is divided into two parts, which approach the theory of epistemic justification from opposite directions. Part I argues from the bottom up by drawing on considerations in the philosophy of mind about the role of consciousness in mental representation, perception, cognition, and introspection. Part II argues from the top down by arguing from general principles in epistemology about the nature of epistemic justification. These mutually reinforcing arguments form the basis for a unified theory of the epistemic role of phenomenal consciousness, one that bridges the gap between epistemology and the philosophy of mind.