Philosophical issue 1

conscious inessentialism

pp. 11-24

in: Garry Young, Philosophical psychopathology, Berlin, Springer, 2013

Abstract

Imagine that you are engaged in some kind of intelligent activity: typing up a manuscript, say, or listening to the Finale of Schubert's Arpeggione Sonata (to borrow an example from Carruthers, 1992), or perhaps something more mundane such as posting a letter, or more urgent like avoiding a painful and potentially dangerous stimulus. It is an unremarkable fact that for you, or indeed any of us, the activities described above are accompanied by conscious experience. As such, there is something-it-is-like for each of us to do these things; but to what extent must this behaviour — this intelligent activity — be accompanied by conscious experience?