Theories Of Conciousness

THEORIES OF CONSCIOUSNESS 1

Theories of Consciousness

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THEORIES OF CONSCIOUSNESS 2

Introduction

Consciousness is described by the ability of a human being to be well aware of what is going

on around them. Various theories have been developed through the years to explain the concept

of consciousness. To be aware of what is around them, human beings relate to their thoughts

and perception. It is on these two grounds that the two main theories of consciousness are

developed.

The Higher-order perception and higher-order thought theories of consciousness

The higher-order perception of consciousness was first developed by John Locke in 1690.

Recently, scholars such as Armstrong (1968 and 1984) have sort to further develop the theory

so that it brings a more relevance to the modern world. The higher-order perception theory of

consciousness suggests that human beings possess not only one, but two systems of analog

perception of their environment or state. These include the first and second analog perceptions.

In addition to these, the development of Lycan (1996) on the theory presents that human beings,

and some of the other animals, possess an inner sense beyond the two analog perceptions. The

function of this inner sense is to analyze and integrate the analog perceptions and bring forth

relevant conclusions about the state of the person. The higher-order perception theory is the

first one to be developed to explain consciousness. This theory is also referred to as the ‘state

consciousness theory as it represents consciousness as a result of mental states. The theory

suggests that it is impossible for an individual to attend to their mental state, which brings a

major problem to the acceptance of the theory. According to the higher-order perception

concept, people are only able to feel pain when the higher-order is stimulated through the ‘inner

senses’. The inner senses, however, are not subject to one particular organ in the body, states

Lycan (1996).

The higher-order thought theory, on the other hand, has its measure of opinion concerning

consciousness. The theory was first developed by Rosenthal (1986). Through the years, the

THEORIES OF CONSCIOUSNESS 3

theory has been updated and developed to the most recent account of Rosenthal (2005). This

theory of consciousness presents that a mental state of a person is said to be conscious if and

only if, there is a thought about it in their mind. The possible suggestion for this is the feeling

of pain, not because it is essentially present, but because a thought of the pain exists. The theory

opines that the consciousness, in order to be recognized, must be immediate. This is to mean

that in the time one is thinking of one state, they do not think of anything else. For instance, if

a person is in pain, at that conscious moment, they only think about that pain and nothing else.

The second presentation of the theory is the relational property concept. The relational property

concept states that the point in time when thought consciousness is applied, no intrinsic features

of a person are changed. For instance, if at one person someone says something about your

physical features, it influences the relations and state at that time. However, none of your inner

features would change, even though you would be conscious of your body, and would be seen

in a new way. Rosenthal also builds the higher-order thought theory on the concept that high-

order thoughts are occurrent and assertoric. These mean that a person in applying high-order

thoughts of consciousness must assert, be confident and not fear. The conclusion of Rosenthal

as pertains to this theory is that higher-order thoughts are introspective and therefore, it is

possible that most people are unaware of them.

The central difference between these two theories of consciousness it their manner of defining

consciousness and its context. While HOP theory suggests that the inner sense defines our

consciousness, the HOT theory seeks to provide an actual illustration of thoughts and how they

influence consciousness.

Conclusion

In this presentation, I have presented a discussion of the HOP and the HOT theories of

consciousness and provided the main difference between the two. While higher-order

perception undergoes more scrutiny and opposition, the higher-order thoughts theory

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seamlessly fits into an actual representation of the everyday lives of people. For this reason,

and due to the fact that there are more than one approaches to it, I opine that the higher-order

thought theory of consciousness is more plausible. It gives a clear explanation of mental states

and how they operate to make us aware of our environment, state, and experiences.

References

Armstrong, D. (1968). A Materialist Theory of the Mind. London. Routledge.

Lycan, W. (1996). Consciousness and Experience. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Rosenthal, D. (1986). A Theory of Consciousness. Philosophical Studies. 49, 329-359.

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