Consciousness, Theory, and Mental Appearance

I contrast one-factor views of consciousness with two-factor views. On two-factor views a state’s being conscious consists in something distinct from the state itself; one-factor views deny that. Examples of one-factor views are the first-order theory of Fred Dretske, the first-order approach of Thomas Nagel, and Ned Block’s conception of phenomenal consciousness. Examples of two-factor views are a higher-order theory of consciousness, such as what I have defended elsewhere, and the global-workspace theories of Bernard Baars and of Stanislas Dehaene and Lionel Naccache. I argue that one-factor views preclude not only a useful explanation of consciousness but also any informative description of what it is for a mental state to be conscious. Because of that and other related factors, one-factor views are strongly anti-theoretical. I consider several indicators of this anti-theoretical attitude, including advocacy of a hard problem or explanatory gap and the appeal to allegedly pretheoretic intuitions. Some have found one-factor views appealing because they reject any coherent contrast between the mental appearance and the mental reality of conscious states. But denying that distinction derives from a misunderstanding of our commonsense conception of consciousness. And independently of that it is also theoretically indefensible. Examining the rejection of a distinction between the mental appearance and mental reality of conscious states helps us appreciate the shortcomings of a one-factor view.