The Epistemic Role of Consciousness

In the era of specialisation or even hyper-specialisation, it is common for epistemology and philosophy of mind to neglect each other. Famous exceptions include Fred Dretske, Alvin Goldman and John McDowell, more recently there have been Susanna Siegel, Nico Silins and Susanna Schellenberg—and now Declan Smithies. Smithies’ new monograph is difficult to summarise, given the richness of its contribution to epistemology and philosophy of mind. The most salient idea is that phenomenal consciousness in humans is not only not an epiphenomenon, i.e., it has causal powers and functions, as Dretske (1997) and others have argued; what is more, phenomenal consciousness has a unique function in us. To put it bluntly, it makes justification and knowledge possible, and its role cannot be replaced by any other things: phenomenal consciousness plays a unique role. To back up this general claim, Smithies argues for phenomenal mentalism, which he formulates as follows: ‘Necessarily, which propositions you have epistemic justification to believe at any given time is determined solely by your phenomenally individuated mental states at that time.’ (p. 25, emphasis added).

Consciousness · Epiphenomenon · Epistemology · Metaphysics · Philosophy of mind · Physicalism · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics · Philosophy