Replies to critics: Explaining subjectivity

conscious experience, phenomenal consciousness ABSTRACT: This article replies to the main objections raised by the commentators on Carruthers (1998a). It discusses the question of what evidence is relevant to the assessment of dispositional higher-order thought (HOT) theory; it explains how the actual properties of phenomenal consciousness can be dispositionally constituted; it discusses the case of pains and other bodily sensations in non-human animals and young children; it sketches the case for preferring higher-order to first-order theories of phenomenal consciousness; and it replies to some miscellaneous points and objections. My guess is that readers of this journal will not want a blow-by-blow response to every detail in the ten commentaries in my target paper 'Natural theories of consciousness' (1998a). I shall concentrate on three general themes which figure in many of the papers: (1) the role of empirical data, and an attendant charge that I have been engaged in bare a priori theorising; (2) a challenge to explain how mere dispositions to entertain higher-order thoughts (HOTs) about one's experiences could confer actual subjectivity on the latter; and (3) an argument that small children and other animals surely feel their bodily sensations, contrary to the (alleged) implications of HOT theory. I shall then (4) say something about the reasons for preferring higher-order to first-order accounts of phenomenal consciousness, before (5) closing with some miscellaneous defensive remarks. References by author alone (without date) are to the commentaries in this journal