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Philosophy of consciousness :: Aspects of consciousness :: The unity of consciousness

• Torin Alter (manuscript). What do split-brain cases show about the unity of consciousness?   (More)
  Abstract: The startling empirical data that concern us here are well known. Severing the corpus callosum produces a kind of mental bifurcation (Sperry 1968). In one experiment, a garlic smell is presented to a patient’s right nostril. When asked to point with her left hand to
• Kent Bach (1988). Critical notice.   (More)
  Abstract: As philosophical topics go, self-deception has something for everyone. It raises basic questions about the nature of belief and the relation of belief to thought, desire, and the will. It provokes further questions on such topics as reasoning, attention, self-knowledge, the unity of the self, intentional action, motivation, self-esteem, psychic defenses, the unconscious, personal character, and interpersonal relations. There are two basic questions about self-deception itself, which each take a familiar philosophical form: What is it? How is it possible? These questions have both an analytic and a psychological side. Is self-deception, as its name suggests, literally a case of lying to oneself? If not, how different can it be from other-deception and still deserve its name? Psychologically, what processes does self-deception involve and how is it motivated?
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~kbach/SDreview.htm
  
• Timothy Bayne (2001). Co-consciousness: Review of Barry Dainton's Stream of Consciousness.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/470450.html
  
• Timothy Bayne (2004). Self-consciousness and the unity of consciousness.   (More)
• Timothy Bayne (2000). The unity of consciousness: Clarification and defence.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/tandf/tajp/2000/00000078/00000002/art00009
  http://taylorandfrancis.metapress.com/index/H61326W3J4N50487.pdf
  http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/./ftinterface~content=a739207017~fulltext=713240930
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/routledg/ajphil/2000/00000078/00000002/art00009
  
• Timothy Bayne (forthcoming). Unified phenomenology and divided brains: Critical notice of Michael Tye's Consciousness and Persons.   (More)
• Timothy Bayne & David Chalmers (2003). What is the unity of consciousness?   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://consc.net/papers/unity.pdf
  http://www.u.arizona.edu/~chalmers/papers/unity.html
  http://consc.net/papers/unity.html
  
• Andrew Brook (2000). The unity of consciousness.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consciousness-unity/
  http://data.cstr.ed.ac.uk/internal/library/proceedings/2000/cogsci2000/prcdngs/sprcdngs/papers/brook.pdf
  http://www.ircs.upenn.edu/cogsci2000/PRCDNGS/SPRCDNGS/PAPERS/BROOK.PDF
  
• Andrew Brook (2002). Unified consciousness and the self.   (More)
• Andrew Brook (1998). Unified consciousness and the self.   (More)
  Abstract: I am in virtually complete sympathy with Galen Strawson's conclusions in 'The Self'. He takes a careful, measured approach to a topic that lends itself all too easily to speculation and intellectual extravaganzas. The results he achieves are for the most part balanced and plausible. I even have a lot of sympathy with his claim that a memory-produced sense of continuity across time is less central to selfhood than many philosophers think, though I will argue that he goes too far in the opposite direction
• Andrew Brook (1997). Unity of consciousness and other mental unities.   (More)
  Abstract: Though there has been a huge resurgence of interest in consciousness in the past decade, little attention has been paid to what the philosopher Immanuel Kant and others call the unity of consciousness. The unity of consciousness takes different forms, as we will see, but the general idea is that each of us is aware of many things in the world at the same time, and often many of one's own mental states and of oneself as their single common subject, too
• Barry Dainton (2004). Higher-order consciousness and phenomenal space: Reply to Meehan.   (More)
  Abstract: Meehan finds fault with a number of my arguments, and proposes that better solutions to the problems I was addressing are available if we adopt a higher-order theory of consciousness. I start with some general remarks on theories of this sort. I connect what I had to say about the A-thesis with different forms of higher-order sense theories, and explain why I ignored higher-order thought theories altogether: there are compelling grounds for thinking they cannot provide a viable account of phenomenal unity in phenomenal terms. Meehan’s own account confirms this verdict. I then turn to phenomenal space. Although Meehan agrees that spatial accounts of co-consciousness are flawed, he formulates a number of interesting criticisms of the thought-experiment I employed in an attempt to show as much. However, he misconstrues my argument, taking it to concern a subject’s seeming to be in two places at once, rather than a subject’s having two spatially unconnected sense-fields. In an attempt to clarify the situation, I distinguish three different modes of self-location: subjective, sensory and material, each of which comes in two guises. I close with some remarks on the projectivist account of perception, and Meehan’s proposed alternative
• Barry Dainton (2004). Precis of Stream of Consciousness.   (More)
  Abstract: That our ordinary everyday experience exhibits both unity and continuity is uncontroversial, and on the face of it utterly unmysterious. At any moment we have some conscious awareness of both the world about us, as revealed through our perceptual experiences, and our own inner states – our bodily sensations, thoughts, mental images and so on. Since once wakened we tend to stay awake for several hours, tracing out continuous routes through whatever environment we happen to find ourselves in, it is hardly surprising that our experience itself is continuous rather than discontinuous
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://psyche.cs.monash.edu.au/symposia/dainton/precis2004.pdf
  
• Barry Dainton (2004). Replies to commentators.   (More)
• Barry Dainton (2004). Unity and introspectibility: Reply to Gilmore.   (More)
  Abstract: Gilmore concentrates on two arguments which I took to undermine the claim that introspectibility is necessary for co-consciousness: the “shrub” argument, to the effect that there are necessary limits on what is introspectible, and the “headache” argument, which leads to the conclusion that some experiences are not introspectible at all. While agreeing that the versions of these arguments that Gilmore discusses do not succeed, I argue that the versions I put forward are largely untouched by his criticisms. Nonetheless, these criticisms shed very useful light on this whole area; likewise the distinctions Gilmore draws between different forms of introspectibility, which I discuss before getting down to the main business. I conclude with some comments on the split-brain argument that Gilmore uses to undermine the claim that introspectibility is sufficient for co- consciousness
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://psyche.cs.monash.edu.au/symposia/dainton/gilmore-r.pdf
  http://www.doaj.org/goto/psyche.cs.monash.edu.au/symposia/dainton/gilmore-r.html
  http://psyche.cs.monash.edu.au/symposia/dainton/gilmore-r.html
  
• Barry Dainton (2004). Unity in the void: Reply to Revonsuo.   (More)
  Abstract: While agreeing with me on many issues, Revonsuo rejects my claim that phenomenal states could be co-conscious without being spatially related (in experience). In defence of my claim I described a thought-experiment in which — I argued — it is reasonable to suppose a subject’s overall consciousness would divide into two spatially unconnected sense-fields. Extrapolating from the consequences of binocular rivalry, Revonsuo suggests that the envisaged subject would experience either a single merged sense-field, or an alternation of unmerged fields. In response, I argue that the extrapolation is unwarranted. There is no reason to suppose alternation would occur, and while a single merged field might be experienced, this is likely to be a temporary or intermittent phenomenon — I offer further variants of the original case in support of this claim, along with some thoughts on the import of imaginability, and the varieties of phenomenal space. I then offer some critical considerations concerning “unified field theories” of consciousness, and conclude with some remarks on the relationship between phenomenology and explanation
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://psyche.cs.monash.edu.au/symposia/dainton/revonsuo-r.pdf
  
• Ian Deweese-Boyd (online). Self-deception.   (More)
  Abstract: Virtually every aspect of the current philosophical discussion of self-deception is a matter of controversy including its definition and paradigmatic cases. We may say generally, however, that self-deception is the acquisition and maintenance of a belief (or, at least, the avowal of that belief) in the face of strong evidence to the contrary motivated by desires or emotions favoring the acquisition and retention of that belief. Beyond this, philosophers divide over whether this action is intentional or not, whether self-deceivers recognize the belief being acquired is unwarranted on the available evidence, whether self-deceivers are morally responsible for their self-deception, and whether self-deception is morally problematic (and if it is in what ways and under what circumstances). The discussion of self-deception and its associated puzzles gives us insight into the ways in which motivation affects belief acquisition and retention. And yet insofar as self-deception represents an obstacle to self-knowledge, which has potentially serious moral implications, self-deception is more than an interesting philosophical puzzle. It is a problem of particular concern for moral development, since self-deception can make us strangers to ourselves and blind to our own moral failings
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/self-deception/
  
• Jonathan Edwards (2005). Is consciousness only a property of individual cells?   (More)
  Abstract: We perceive colour, shape, sound and touch 'bound together' in a single experience. The following arguments about this binding phenomenon are raised: (1) The individual signals passing from neurone to neurone are not bound together, whether as elements of information or physically. (2) Within a single cell, binding in terms of bringing together of information is potentially feasible. A physical substrate may also be available. (3) It is therefore proposed that a bound conscious experience must be a property of an individual cell, not of a group of cells. Since it is unlikely that one specific neurone is conscious, it is suggested that every neurone has a version of our consciousness, or at least some form of sentience. However absurd this may seem it appears to be consistent with the available evidence; arguably the only explanation that is. It probably does not alter the way we should expect to experience the world, but may help to explain the ways we seem to differ from digital computers and some of the paradoxes seen in mental illness. It predicts non-digital features of intracellular computation, for which there is already evidence, and which should be open to further experimental exploration. The arguments given may well prove flawed or the conclusion biologically or physically untenable, but the idea is raised for discussion not least because a formal demonstration that it is invalid may help to identify more fruitful avenues
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/imp/jcs/2005/00000012/F0020004/art00004
  
• Shaun Gallagher (2003). Sync-ing in the stream of experience sync-ing in the stream of experience: Time-consciousness in broad, Husserl, and Dainton.   (More)
• Cody Gilmore (2003). The introspectibility thesis.   (More)
  Abstract: Co-consciousness is constituted by introspectibility: experiences are co-conscious [i.e., experienced together] because they are introspected or introspectible. A group of token experiences are co-conscious if and only if they are either the actual or potential objects of a single introspective awareness (2000: 35, Dainton's emphasis)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://psyche.cs.monash.edu.au/v9/psyche-9-05-gilmore.html
  http://www.doaj.org/goto/psyche.cs.monash.edu.au/symposia/dainton/gilmore.html
  
• Bret Alan Hughes (online). The functioning hypothesis of consciousness.   (More)
• N. Humphrey (2000). One-self: A meditation on the unity of consciousness.   (More)
  Abstract: What unites the many selves that constitute the human mind? How is the self-binding problem solved? I argue that separate selves come to belong together as one Self as a result of their dynamic participation in creating a single life, rather as the members of an orchestra come to belong together as a result of their jointly creating a single work of music
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://citebase.eprints.org/cgi-bin/citations?archiveID=oai:cogprints.soton.ac.uk:1121
  http://cogprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive/00001121/00/OneSelf.htm
  
• Susan Hurley (2003). Action, the unity of consciousness, and vehicle externalism.   (More)
• Jeanette Kennett & Steve Matthews (2003). The unity and disunity of agency.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/philosophy_psychiatry_and_psychology/v010/10.4kennett.html
  https://muse.jhu.edu/journals/philosophy_psychiatry_and_psychology/v010/10.4kennett.html
  
• Bernard Kobes (2005). Review of Michael Tye's Consciousness and Persons.   (More)
  Abstract: Consciousness has been defined as that annoying period between naps, and this grumpy definition may not be wholly facetious, if Michael Tye's latest book is right. Tye's main goal here is to develop a theory of the phenomenal unity of experience at a time, and its diachronic analog, the moment-to-moment continuity of one's experiential stream from the time one wakes up to the time consciousness lapses
• Eric LaRock (2007). Disambiguation, binding, and the unity of visual consciousness.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://tap.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/17/6/747
  
• Eric LaRock (2007). Intrinsic perspectives, object feature binding, and visual consciousness.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://tap.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/17/6/799.pdf
  
• Eric LaRock (2006). Why neural synchrony fails to explain the unity of visual consciousness.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.behavior.org/journals_BP/2006/LaRockFinal.pdf
  https://www.behavior.org/journals_BP/2006/LaRockFinal.pdf
  http://behavior.org/journals_BP/2006/LaRockFinal.pdf
  
• Douglas Meehan (2003). Phenomenal space and the unity of conscious experience.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://psyche.cs.monash.edu.au/v9/psyche-9-12-meehan.html
  http://psyche.cs.monash.edu.au/symposia/dainton/meehan.html
  
• Gerard O'Brien & Jonathan Opie (2003). The multiplicity of consciousness and the emergence of the self.   (More)
  Abstract: I look out the window and I think that the garden looks nice and the grass looks cool, but the
  thoughts of Eammon Andrews come into my mind… He treats my mind like a screen and
  flashes his thoughts onto it like you flash a picture. (Reported by Mellors 1970, p.17)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.arts.adelaide.edu.au/humanities/philosophy/publications/The_Multiplicity_of_Consciousness.pdf
  
• Christopher Pincock (web). Accounting for the unity of experience in Dilthey, Rickert, Bradley and ward.   (More)
  Abstract: Forthcoming in U. Feest (ed.), Historical Perspectives on Erkl‰ren and Verstehen, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Preprint Series
• Jennifer Radden (2003). Learning from disunity.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/philosophy_psychiatry_and_psychology/v010/10.4radden.html
  http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/philosophy_psychiatry_and_psychology/v010/10.4radden.pdf
  
• Antti Revonsuo (2003). The contents of phenomenal consciousness: One relation to rule them all and in the unity bind them.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://psyche.cs.monash.edu.au/symposia/dainton/revonsuo.html
  http://psyche.cs.monash.edu.au/v9/psyche-9-08-revonsuo.html
  
• Gregg Rosenberg (2004). The boundary problem for experiencing subjects.   (More)
• Warren Shrader (2006). The unity of consciousness: Trouble for the materialist or the emergent dualist?   (More)
  Abstract: As part of his case for emergent dualism, William Hasker proffers a _unity-of-_ _consciousness_ (UOC) argument against materialism. I formalize the argument and show how the warrant for two of its premises accrues from the warrant one assigns to two distinct theses about unified conscious experience. I then argue that though both unity theses are plausible, the materialist has little to fear from Hasker’s argument, for a separate premise detailing the explanatory relationship that must hold between physical and mental states is false, or at least unmotivated by Hasker’s reasoning. I then turn the tables on Hasker, showing how the unity theses discussed open the way to an argument against emergent dualism. My conclusion is that the unity of consciousness actually poses a greater problem for the emergent dualist than for the materialist
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.nd.edu/~wshrader/papers/Hasker UOC-long.pdf
  http://www.nd.edu/~wshrader/papers/UOC-F&P.pdf
  
• Louis Tinnin (1990). Mental unity, altered states of consciousness, and dissociation.   (More)
• Michael Tye (2007). The problem of common sensibles.   (More)
  Abstract: In _On The Soul_ (425a-b), Aristotle drew a distinction between those qualities that are perceptible only via a single sense and those that are perceptible by more than one. The latter qualities he called “common sensibles.” To lllustrate: suppose I am holding a banana. The shape of the banana is perceptible by my sight and also by my touch; but the color of the banana is perceptible only via sight. The shape is thus a common sensible; the color not
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/M436J88851827333.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/m436j88851827333/fulltext.pdf
  
• Christoph von der Malsburg (1997). The coherence definition of consciousness.   (More)
  Abstract: I will focus in this essay on a riddle that in my view is central to the consciousness issue: How does the mind or brain create the unity we perceive out of the diversity that we know is there? I contend this is a technical issue, not a philosophical one, although its resolution will have profound philosophical repercussions, and although we have at present little more than the philosophical method to attack it
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://citebase.eprints.org/cgi-bin/citations?archiveID=oai:cogprints.soton.ac.uk:1487
  http://cogprints.org/1487/00/Mal1997.pdf
  http://cogprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive/00001487/00/Mal1997.pdf
  http://cogprints.soton.ac.uk/documents/disk0/00/00/14/87/
  http://cogprints.org/1487/
  http://cogprints.org/1487/01/Mal1997.ps
  
• Scott Weiner (2003). Unity of agency and volition: Some personal reflections.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  https://muse.jhu.edu/journals/philosophy_psychiatry_and_psychology/v010/10.4weiner.pdf
  http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/philosophy_psychiatry_and_psychology/v010/10.4weiner.pdf
  
• Josh Weisberg (2001). The appearance of unity: A higher-order interpretation of the unity of consciousness.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.hcrc.ed.ac.uk/cogsci2001/pdf-files/1089.pdf
  
• Semir Zeki (2003). The disunity of consciousness.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.fisio.icb.usp.br/posgraduacao/disciplinas/bmb5718/Ref62.pdf
  http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~mozer/courses/3702/readings/Zeki2003.pdf
  http://www.paed.uni-muenchen.de/~allg1/lehrveranstaltungen/akt_arbWS03/Zeki.pdf
  http://www.fisio.icb.usp.br/posgraduacao/disciplinas/bmb5718/2004/Ref62.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/els/13646613/2003/00000007/00000005/art00081
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12757823&dopt=Citation
  

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