The Problem of the Rock and the Grammar of Consciousness
The “Problem of the Rock” (PoR) is a famous objection to Higher-Order (HO) theories of consciousness. According to PoR, the HO theorists’ claim that a mental state is conscious iff there is a higher-order mental state about it implies that a rock is also conscious iff there is a higher-order mental...
| Autor principal: | |
|---|---|
| Formato: | article |
| Idioma: | eng |
| Publicado em: |
2017
|
| Assuntos: | |
| Texto completo: | http://hdl.handle.net/10451/28334 |
| País: | Portugal |
| Oai: | oai:repositorio.ul.pt:10451/28334 |
| Resumo: | The “Problem of the Rock” (PoR) is a famous objection to Higher-Order (HO) theories of consciousness. According to PoR, the HO theorists’ claim that a mental state is conscious iff there is a higher-order mental state about it implies that a rock is also conscious iff there is a higher-order mental state about it. In this paper I show that this argument confuses two grammatically distinct attributions of consciousness, and that if the consequent equivocation fallacy is avoided, PoR is either a straw man argument or has an unproblematic conclusion. |
|---|