Theories of Consciousness as Reflexivity

Introduction Consciousness is best understood in context, as one element of an interactive waking state in which the greater part of cognitive processing takes place in a nonconscious fashion. But if conscious and nonconscious processing are combined in the waking state, what distinguishes the former form the latter, what is consciousness, and what is its purpose? The answer to the second question depends crucially on our conclusion regarding the first. What is the property in virtue of which a state is conscious rather than nonconscious? In the following, it will be argued that of the answers most frequently proposed— 2 intentionality, subjectivity, accessibility, reflexivity—only the final characteristic, reflexive, autonoetic awareness, is unique to the conscious state. Reflexivity can best be explained not as the product of a self-representational data structure, but as the expression of a recursive processing regime, in which cognition registers the properties of the processing state to a greater extent than properties of the content represented. And the principal characteristic of a reflexive processing state is cognitive reflexivity or autonoetic awareness. Philosophy of mind, has over recent decades, been focused to a large extent on understanding consciousness as the expression of a particular cognitive modality—as the expression of either intentionality, accessibility, subjectivity or reflexivity. That is to say, consciousness has been equated either with (1) internal cognitive representation as such (intentionality); or (2) with the accessibility of primary informational content to various kinds of secondary processing (global broadcasting, logical thinking. . .); or (3) alternatively, on a minimalist interpretation of Nagel, with subjectivity or first-person perspective as such; or, finally and more recently (4), with reflexivity—the capacity for autonoetic or recursive, self-monitoring awareness—as the defining characteristic of consciousness. Of these four proposed primary indices of consciousness, however, only the latter— 3 reflexivity—is unique to consciousness, while the other three features characterize intentional cognitive representation as such, both conscious and nonconscious. Intentionality or representationalism holds that conscious awareness can basically be equated with representational activity as such. 1 However, as several critics have pointed out, 2 the assertion that conscious awareness and representational content are one and the same amounts to the claim that all intentional states are conscious as a consequence of their having intentional content, which in effect nullifies the distinction between conscious and unconscious representational states, and consequently fails as a distinguishing characteristic of the former. Subjectivity was originally hailed as the index of consciousness …