The Epistemic Role of Consciousness

Bibliographic Data

ID23398407
AuthorsDeclan Smithies (0000-0002-6489-8580, Professor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, corresponding author)
Year2019
Pages424
Publication date2019-10-31
Open AccessNo
TypeBOOK
VenueEpistemic Role of Consciousness (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherOxford University PressNew York (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1093/oso/9780199917662.001.0001
OpenAlexW2969564117
Open LibraryOL28895227M
ISBN9780199917662
LanguageEN
Citations received94
References cited94

What is the role of consciousness in our mental lives? This book argues that consciousness plays an essential role in explaining how we can acquire knowledge and epistemically justified belief about ourselves and our surroundings. On this view, our mental lives cannot be preserved in unconscious creatures—zombies—who behave just as we do. Only conscious creatures have epistemic justification to form beliefs about the world. Zombies cannot know anything about the world, since they have no epistemic justification to believe anything. On this view, all epistemic justification depends ultimately on consciousness. This book builds a sustained argument for the epistemic role of phenomenal consciousness, which draws on a range of considerations in epistemology and the philosophy of mind. The book is divided into two parts, which approach the theory of epistemic justification from opposite directions. Part I argues from the bottom up by drawing on considerations in the philosophy of mind about the role of consciousness in mental representation, perception, cognition, and introspection. Part II argues from the top down by arguing from general principles in epistemology about the nature of epistemic justification. These mutually reinforcing arguments form the basis for a unified theory of the epistemic role of phenomenal consciousness, one that bridges the gap between epistemology and the philosophy of mind.

Argument (complex analysis) · Cognition · Consciousness · Creatures · Electromagnetic theories of consciousness · Epistemology · Introspection · Mental representation · Metaphysics · Natural (archaeology) · Philosophy of mind · Physicalism · Unconscious mind · Cognitive Science and Education Research · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics · Misinformation and Its Impacts · Philosophy · Psychology