2. The Anatomy of Consciousness

Author: O'Shaughnessy, Brian

Source: Consciousness and the World, January 2003 , pp. 68-102(35)

Publisher: Oxford Scholarship Online Monographs

Key:

- Free Content

- New Content

- Subscribed Content

- Free Trial Content

Abstract:

The topic is the state of wakeful consciousness. Of what kind is this state? It is the pre-eminent and ‘founding father’–species of the genus, state of consciousness, all other species (sleep etc.) being privative derivatives from the original. Consciousness, which is endowed with necessary properties, is constituted-by rather than the cause-of its necessary properties. These last include the negative properties of lacking an intentional object, of not being the perception of anything, and of being inexperiencable, together with the following positive properties: encompassing experience, accessibility of the perceptual attention, suitable mode of belief-formation, obligatory mental activeness together with immediate acquaintance with past and future, and conditional availability of the bodily will. This is a characterization of the consciousness of both rational and non-rational animals.

Keywords: perceptual attention; belief; time; intentional object; consciousness; perception; the will; rational animal; state of consciousness

Document Type: Research article

This article is hosted on another website.

You may be required to register, activate a subscription or purchase the article before you can obtain the full text.

Proceed