According to higher-order ("HO") theories, consciousness consists in HO awareness of being in mental states. While many objections to such theories have been addressed elsewhere, the most well-known seems to remain: the problem of so-called "empty" HO states, which holds that HO theory cannot explain cases wherein one is aware of mental states that do not exist. This paper offers a novel characterization of the classic HO theory, on which conscious states are appearances and so may exist only notionally. Though some critics allege this view is incoherent, we argue that the theory is workable by observing an ambiguity in expressions such as `appearance'. We thus aim not only to address this objection, but also to clarify how this HO theory operates.

Many claim that there is an important relationship between consciousness and welfare. Call this general view phenomenalism. One way of fleshing out phenomenalism is to hold that consciousness is what makes one the type of entity that can be noninstrumentally better or worse off in the first place. Consciousness is at least a necessary condition on welfare subjecthood. A different account holds that even if consciousness is not necessary for welfare subjecthood, conscious welfare subjects have a greater welfare capacity. We argue that the most likely source of support for either version of phenomenalism - hedonism about welfare goods and bads - provides no support at all. Along the way, we discuss an alternative view of welfare subjectivity and welfare capacity that does not appeal to consciousness but only to mentality, a view we call mentalism.

We normally assume that there's just one conscious individual per animal. Some question this, suggesting that there may be nonhuman taxonomic groups whose normal, adult members house more than one conscious subject. Call this the multitudes view ('MV)'. Our aim is methodological: we hope to understand how we might assess whether MV is true. To that end, we distinguish two strategies for counting conscious subjects: the duplication strategy and the mind-first strategy. We use human split-brain patients and octopuses to illustrate the prospects and limitations of each approach, as some have argued that both sets of individuals contain multitudes. We'll contend that while the duplication strategy is applicable to split-brain patients, it isn't apt for octopuses. The mind-first strategy fairs better here, but there's a catch: it requires, in a way the duplication strategy does not, numerous contentious assumptions about the nature of mentality, the individuation of minds, and consciousness to simply get off the ground. These difficulties clarify just what it would take to establish MV.

Birch (2022a) proposes a theory-light methodology for studying whether invertebrates have the capacity for (phenomenal) consciousness. The success of any such methodology turns on the positive markers it proposes, and whether they are genuinely ecumenical. After providing an account of what it is for a marker to be ecumenical, it is argued that one of the more influential set of markers offered - unlimited associative learning - clearly counts as positive evidence for consciousness on only a small handful of theories, rendering Birch's theory-light approach tacitly theory-heavy. What emerges is a broader lesson concerning what exactly is required for the theory-light framework to be successful.

When we watch movies, or are tricked by a trompe-l'oeil painting, we seem to be visually representing possible worlds; often non-actual possible worlds. This suggests that we really can visually represent possible worlds. The suggested claim is refined and developed here into a theory of visual experience that holds that all visual experiences, both veridical and non-veridical, represent possible worlds, many of which are non-actual.

The history of philosophy is a history of moral circle expansion. This history correlates with a history of expansionism about consciousness. Recently, expansionism about consciousness has exploded: to invertebrates, to plants, to logic gates, and to fundamental entities. The last of these expansions stems from a surge of interest in panpsychism. In an exploratory spirit, this paper considers some largely uncharted territory: the ethical implications of panpsychism. Our conclusion is that while panpsychism probably does significantly expand our moral circle, it's also probably short on anything of practical significance.

That Descartes’ God is not a deceiver is amongst the canonical claims of early modern philosophy. The significance of this (purported) fact to the coherence of Descartes’ system is likewise canonical, infused in how we teach and think about the Meditations. Though prevalent, both ends of this narrative are suspect. We argue that Descartes’ color eliminativism, when coupled with his analysis of the cognitive structure of our sensory systems, entails that God is a deceiver. It’s doubtful that Descartes recognized this, given his insistence that God is not a deceiver, and the role this plays in his system. But this is a concession Descartes can grant if we are careful about the kind of deception at play—a kind Descartes does recognize, albeit not without some ambiguity. On our story, Descartes’ metaphysics and epistemology are not driven by concerns about deception per se, but by concerns about God’s benevolence.

I am a person. But am I fundamentally and essentially a person? The animalist says no. So must the phenomenal continuity theorist, or so I'll argue. Even if, contra animalism, we cannot survive zombification, being a subject of experience is not sufficient for being a person, and phenomenal continuity is not sufficient for our survival as the same person. These observations point the way to a positive account of personhood, and provide further insight into the conditions under which literal survival preserves what matters.

The thesis of self-elusiveness says, roughly, that the self fails to be phenomenally manifest from the first-person perspective. This thesis has a long history. Yet many who endorse it do so only in a very specific sense. They say that the self fails to be phenomenally manifest as an object from the first-person perspective; they say that self-experience is not a species of 'object-consciousness'. Yet if consciousness outstrips object-consciousness, then we are left with the possibility that there is another sense in which the self is phenomenally manifest. Alas, efforts to articulate just what this form of self-experience comes to-often a holy grail of sorts for those in, and influenced by, the phenomenological tradition-have remained stubbornly obscure. This essay attempts a partial remedy. Taking a cue from Bernard Lonergan, I suggest that self-experience, while not a species of object-consciousness, is nonetheless partially grounded in it. The result is a view that is compatible with self-experience being representational and relational, contra tradition.

Large-scale, self-sufficient space colonization is a plausible means of efficiently reducing existential risks and ensuring our long-term survival. But humanity is by and large myopic, and as an intergenerational global public good, existential risk reduction is systematically undervalued, hampered by intergenerational discounting. This paper explores how these issues apply to space colonization, arguing that the motivational and psychological barriers to space colonization are a special—and especially strong—case of a more general problem. The upshot is not that large-scale, self-sufficient space colonization will never occur, but that, absent institutional change, the conditions under which it is most likely to occur are precisely those conditions where the threat of suffering risks might be most high.

I begin by developing a challenge for the Higher-Order Thought variant of Higher-Order representational theories of consciousness. The challenge is to account for the distinctive phenomenal character of visual experience-its presentational character. After setting out the challenge, I articulate a novel form of Higher-Order theory that can account for presentational character-the Map Theory of consciousness. The theory's distinctive claim is that the relevant higher-order representations have a cartographic format.

A correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-021-03218-0

Pitt (Analysis 77(4):735–741, 2017) has argued that reductive representationalism entails an absurdity akin to the “paramechanical hypothesis” Ryle (The concept of mind, Hutchinson, London, 1949) attributed to Descartes. This paper focuses on one version of reductive representationalism: the property-complex theory. We contend that at least insofar as the property-complex theory goes, Pitt is wrong. The result is not just a response to Pitt, but also a clarification of the aims and structure of the property-complex theory.

Ambitious Higher-order theories of consciousness - Higher-order theories that purport to give an account of phenomenal consciousness - face a well-known objection from the possibility of radical misrepresentation. Jonathan Farrell has recently added a new twist to an old worry: while higher-order theorists have the resources to respond to the misrepresentation objection, they do so at the expense of their ambitions. At best, they only account for phenomenal consciousness in the technical higher-order sense, not in the standard Nagelian sense. Building on the work of Berger and Brown, I contend that Farrell's argument fails. The upshot is not only that radical misrepresentation presents no threat to the ambitiousness of higher-order theories, but also a deeper insight both into higher-order theories themselves, and what the standard Nagelian construal of phenomenal consciousness does, and does not, commit us to.

Ian Stoner has recently argued that we ought not to colonize Mars because (1) doing so would flout our pro tanto obligation not to violate the principle of scientific conservation, and (2) there is no countervailing considerations that render our violation of the principle permissible. While I remain agnostic on (1), my primary goal in this article is to challenge (2): there are countervailing considerations that render our violation of the principle permissible. As such, Stoner has failed to establish that we ought not to colonize Mars. I close with some thoughts on what it would take to show that we do have an obligation to colonize Mars and related issues concerning the relationship between the way we discount our preferences over time and projects with long time horizons, like space colonization.

Perceptual experience is often said to be transparent; that is, when we have a perceptual experience we seem to be aware of properties of the objects around us, and never seem to be aware of properties of the experience itself. This is a (purported) introspective fact. It is also often said that we can infer a metaphysical fact from this introspective fact, e.g. a fact about the nature of perceptual experience. A transparency theory fills in the details for these two facts, and bridges the gap between them. We have three aims: to scrutinize Michael Tye's transparency theory (Noûs 36(1):137–151, 2002; Consciousness revisited: materialism without phenomenal concepts, MIT Press, Cambridge, 2009; Philos Stud 170(1):39–57, 2014a), introduce a new transparency theory, and advance a meta-theoretical hypothesis about the interest, and import, of transparency theories.

We can divide philosophical theories of consciousness into two main camps: First-Order theories and Higher-Order theories. Like all Higher-Order theories, many First-Order theories are mentalistic theories of consciousness: they attempt to reduce a mental state’s being consciousness using mental (but non-phenomenal) terms, such as being available to certain cognitive centers. I argue that mentalistic First-Order theories, once fully cashed out, collapse into some form of Higher-Order theory. I contend that not only are there general considerations in favor of this conclusion, but that the four most prominent mentalistic ‘First-Order’ theories are, in fact, Higher-Order theories in disguise. Given a strong assumption in favor of some form of mentalism, if this is right, what emerges is a powerful argument for the Higher-Order theory of consciousness.