What are you conscious of when you have conscious experiences?
What are you conscious of when you have conscious experiences?
Various arguments in contemporary philosophical work on consciousness boil down to alleged conceptual connections between 'conscious' and 'conscious of'. To wit, some philosophers hold as pre-theoretically obvious what we can call "The Transparency Thesis":
When one has a conscious experience all that one is conscious of is what the experience is an experience of.
To explicate this thesis in terms of an illustration, it is the claim that when one has a conscious experience of a leafy tree one is only conscious of the leafy tree and need not be conscious of any state of oneself.
In opposition, other philosophers hold as pre-theoretically obvious what we can call "The Transitivity Thesis":
When one has a conscious experience one must be conscious of the experience itself.
To explicate this thesis in terms of an illustration, it is the claim that when one has a conscious experience of a leafy tree one must be conscious of one's own experience of the leafy tree and thus be conscious of a state of oneself. (Note this doesn't rule out that you are conscious of the leafy tree. It says that in addition to being conscious of the leafy tree you are also conscious of a state of yourself.)
Since each of these claims is alleged to be obvious, and since they are in opposition, I'd be interested in hearing what others think of the matter: Which is more obvious than the other?
Poll
Various arguments in contemporary philosophical work on consciousness boil down to alleged conceptual connections between 'conscious' and 'conscious of'. To wit, some philosophers hold as pre-theoretically obvious what we can call "The Transparency Thesis":
When one has a conscious experience all that one is conscious of is what the experience is an experience of.
To explicate this thesis in terms of an illustration, it is the claim that when one has a conscious experience of a leafy tree one is only conscious of the leafy tree and need not be conscious of any state of oneself.
In opposition, other philosophers hold as pre-theoretically obvious what we can call "The Transitivity Thesis":
When one has a conscious experience one must be conscious of the experience itself.
To explicate this thesis in terms of an illustration, it is the claim that when one has a conscious experience of a leafy tree one must be conscious of one's own experience of the leafy tree and thus be conscious of a state of oneself. (Note this doesn't rule out that you are conscious of the leafy tree. It says that in addition to being conscious of the leafy tree you are also conscious of a state of yourself.)
Since each of these claims is alleged to be obvious, and since they are in opposition, I'd be interested in hearing what others think of the matter: Which is more obvious than the other?
Poll