Metarepresentation and the qualia problem

The main two-level theories of consciousness are metarepresentationism and self-representationism. According to metarepresentationism, conscious states are conscious in virtue of being targeted by suitable higher-order representations. According to self-representationism, phenomenal consciousness is injected into the world when subject's internal states acquire the capacity to represent themselves. So the disagreement is over the question whether it is possible to experience something without being peripherally aware of experiencing it or not. Examining the relationship between these two opposing trends may occur instructive, because it suggests that the sense of a mental state being conscious that self-representationists have fixed on may not be the same that most others have in mind. The author of the paper defends here the view that intentionality is explanatorily prior to consciousness. The primary aim of this paper is to show that while the way the self-representationalist approach captures the fundamental facts about the phenomenon of permanent implicit self-awareness gives it prima facie phenomenological adequacy, there is no ultimate phenomenological evidence in favor of self-representationalism. The author's argument rests on a straightforward observation that there are two types of qualities which self-representationalists fail to distinguish. We must make a distinction between first-order perceptual qualia and second-order “what it is like” to experience these qualia. The second type requires awareness and so is something distinct from the quality itself. When we are careful to draw this distinction, the assumption that qualia are irreducible appears unjustified: first-order qualia are fully reducible to representational content, and second-order qualia can be defined in functional terms. The argument proceeds as follows. The author elucidates the irreducibility thesis and cases that support it. Further he argues that Galen Strawson's case for cognitive phenomenology and Searle's arguments do not extend to unconscious intentionality. The author closes with some considerations making metarepresentationism preferable to self-representationism.

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