Thomas Metzinger

Why Is a Representationalist Analysis Useful? In this chapter I will briefly sketch the outline of a representationalist theory of subjective experience. (See also Metzinger 1993, forthcoming). A representationalist theory is one that chooses to analyze its target properties – those aspects of the domain which eventually are to be explained – on a certain level of description: by describing conscious systems as representational systems and conscious states as representational states, one hopes to achieve progress with regard to the relevant properties. This first background assumption is shared by many philosophers today (see, e.g., Dretske 1995; Lycan 1996; Metzinger 1993; Tye 1995), and one may interpret it as a weak version of Brentano’s intentionalism. William Lycan (e.g., 1996: 11) has called it the “hegemony of representation”: The explanatory base for all mental properties is formed by a definite, exhaustive set of functional and representational