Replies to Critics: Explaining Subjectivity

This article replies to the main objections raised by the commentators on Carruthers (1998a). It discusses the question of what evidence is relevant to the assessment of dispositional higher-order thought (HOT) theory; it explains how the actual properties of phenomenal consciousness can be dispositionally constituted; it discusses the case of pains and other bodily sensations in non-human animals and young children; it sketches the case for preferring higher-order to first-order theories of phenomenal consciousness; and it replies to some miscellaneous points and objections. My guess is that readers of this journal will not want a blow-by-blow response to every detail in the ten commentaries in my target paper 'Natural theories of consciousness' (1998a). I shall concentrate on three general themes which figure in many of the papers: (1) the role of empirical data, and an attendant charge that I have been engaged in bare a priori theorising; (2) a challenge to explain how mere dispositions to entertain higherorder thoughts (HOTs) about one's experiences could confer actual subjectivity on the latter; and (3) an argument that small children and other animals surely feel their bodily sensations, contrary to the (alleged) implications of HOT theory. I shall then (4) say something about the reasons for preferring higher-order to first-order accounts of phenomenal consciousness, before (5) closing with some miscellaneous defensive remarks. References by author alone (without date) are to the commentaries in this journal. 1. The Role of Empirical Data A number of the commentators (Cavalieri and Miller; Krause and Burghardt; Lyvers) take me to task for failing to consider the wealth of empirical evidence relevant to the question of animal consciousness; and they allege that I have been theorising in ignorance of the scientific facts, as philosophers so often do. In part, my response is simply that the paper on which they were commenting was originally intended for an exclusively philosophical audience, and was published in a philosophical journal. In fact none of the data cited came as news to me; and none gave me pause for more than a