Fathoming the Depth of Awareness
Philosophia December 5, 2025 Peer reviewed DOI: 10.1007/s11406-025-00932-8 via OpenAlex
Summary
A pluralist theory of conscious perception holds that perceiving involves two distinct kinds of sensory awareness. This commentary raises three objections to one of these, called deep awareness. First, deep awareness is supposed to explain how conscious states reveal the essences of sensory qualities, but revelation is false. Second, the theory that deep awareness explains hard problems of consciousness is also false. Third, the claim that being deeply aware of a universal partly constitutes the phenomenal character of an experience is false.
Study at a glance
| Design | theoretical or philosophical paper |
|---|---|
| Key finding | Three arguments show that the concept of deep awareness in Mehta's pluralist theory of conscious perception is problematic: revelation is false, the E theory is false, and deep awareness does not constitute phenomenal character. |
Abstract
Abstract Neil Mehta puts forward a pluralist theory of conscious perception, on which to consciously perceive is to deploy not just one, but two distinct kinds of sensory awareness in concert. Here I present three reservations regarding one of these kinds awareness - deep awareness. First, Mehta introduces deep awareness as a relation whose deployment explains the putative fact that conscious states unerringly reveal to us a substantial portion of the essences of sensory quality universals (“revelation” and “infallibility” theses). I both undermine a part of Mehta’s defense of revelation and infallibility, and argue that revelation is false. Second, the main theoretical purpose for which Mehta introduces deep awareness is to explain the presence of hard problems of consciousness. Mehta calls this explanation “the E theory”. I argue that this theory is false. Third, a central upshot of Mehta’s theory of deep awareness is that to have an experience in which you are deeply aware of a universal U is to have an experience whose phenomenal character is partly constituted by U. I argue that this is false.