Fathoming the Depth of Awareness
Philosophia December 5, 2025 Ori Beck
A critical commentary on Neil Mehta's pluralist theory of conscious perception, which claims that conscious perception involves two distinct kinds of sensory awareness, including 'deep awareness.' The author raises three objections. First, Mehta argues that deep awareness explains how conscious states infallibly reveal essences of sensory quality universals; the author undermines part of that defense and argues that such revelation is false. Second, Mehta's 'E theory' uses deep awareness to explain hard problems of consciousness; the author argues this theory is false. Third, Mehta claims that being deeply aware of a universal partly constitutes an experience's phenomenal character; the author argues this is false.