Bibliographical data for


Title of Edited Collection

Open MIND

Publication Date

January 2015

Publication Place

Frankfurt am Main, Germany

ISBN

9783958570771

Abstract

Tobias Schlicht argues that subjective character derives from the integration of mental states into a complex of representations of the organism and that therefore there is no need try to account for subjective character in terms of “reflexivity” or self-acquaintance, as I do. He further argues that the proper subject of consciousness is the whole organism and not the episode or stream of consciousness, as I maintain. He maintains that his account solves problems about the individuation and synchronic unity of conscious mental states that mine does not. While I agree that we need an account of the individuation of episodes of consciousness and an account of the synchronic and diachronic unities of consciousness (something I bracketed in my paper), I disagree that making the organism into the phenomenological subject of consciousness helps with these problems. However, I am willing to concede that the organism is the subject of consciousness in some non-phenomenological sense.