Consciousness and Experience

Consciousness is wholly explained by intentionality, functional organization, and second-order representation of one's own mental states, according to the "hegemony of representation" thesis advanced in this philosophical work. The author extends his earlier functionalist theory of consciousness by engaging with critics and addressing new arguments that emerged during a fertile period in philosophy of mind. The book specifically targets the hard problems of subjectivity, qualia, and the felt aspect of experience, arguing that these phenomena require no extra ingredients beyond representational content and functional structure.

Study at a glance

Abstract

This sequel to Lycan's Consciousness (1987) continues the elaboration of his general functionalist theory of consciousness, answers the critics of his earlier work, and expands the range of discussion to deal with the many new issues and arguments that have arisen in the intervening years -- an extraordinarily fertile period for the philosophical investigation of consciousness.Lycan not only uses the numerous arguments against materialism, and functionalist theories of mind in particular, to gain a more detailed positive view of the structure of the mind, he also targets the set of really hard problems at the center of the theory of consciousness: subjectivity, qualia, and the felt aspect of experience. The key to his own enlarged and fairly argued position, which he calls the "hegemony of representation," is that there is no more to mind or consciousness than can be accounted for in terms of intentionality, functional organization, and in particular, second-order representation of one's own mental states.A Bradford Book