Consciousness Incorporated

Pettit, Philip

doi:10.1111/josp.12219

Cited by 22 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…Further, many critiques based on anti-nesting principles relate to the potential reducibility of state consciousness-related behaviour to individuals, and thus the same criticisms of anti-personhood due to supervenience or emergence and complexity also apply. Nevertheless, a prominent stream of criticism relates to Schwitzgebel's relatively limited engagement with the US potential phenomenal consciousness (Pettit 2018), which I address in the next section.…”

Section: Group Minds and State Consciousness From Le Bon To Schwitzgebelmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Schwitzgebel's account alludes to how states possess the eight aspects of psychological consciousness listed above and it might satisfactorily prove state consciousness for illusionists who do not believe phenomenological consciousness is a distinct phenomenon from computer-like psychological processing. Likewise, non-illusionist materialists who believe phenomenological consciousness is a real but emergent phenomenon stemming from brains' poorly-understood complex information-processing systems might also be inclined to believe that states are good candidates for experiencing qualia (Pettit 2018). But what about those who explain phenomenological consciousness via alternative ontologies?…”

Section: Group Minds and State Consciousness From Le Bon To Schwitzgebelmentioning

confidence: 99%

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What's it like to be a state? An argument for state consciousness

Lerner

2020

Int. Theory

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Questions of consciousness pervade the social sciences. Yet, despite persistent tendencies to anthropomorphize states, most International Relations scholarship implicitly adopts the position that humans are conscious and states are not. Recognizing that scholarly disagreement over fundamental issues prevents answering definitively whether states are truly conscious, I instead demonstrate how scholars of multiple dispositions can incorporate a pragmatic notion of state consciousness into their theorizing. Drawing on recent work from Eric Schwitzgebel and original supplementary arguments, I demonstrate that states are not only complex informationally integrated systems with emergent properties, but they also exhibit seemingly genuine responses to qualia that are irreducible to individuals within them. Though knowing whether states possess an emergent ‘stream’ of consciousness indiscernible to their inhabitants may not yet be possible, I argue that a pragmatic notion of state consciousness can contribute to a more complete understanding of state personhood, as well as a revised model of the international system useful to multiple important theoretical debates. In the article's final section, I apply this model to debate over the levels of analysis at which scholarship applies ontological security theory. I suggest the possibility of emergent state-level ontological insecurity that need not be understood via problematic reduction to individuals.

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Section: Group Minds and State Consciousness From Le Bon To Schwitzgebelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Group Minds and State Consciousness From Le Bon To Schwitzgebelmentioning

confidence: 99%

What's it like to be a state? An argument for state consciousness

Lerner

2020

Int. Theory

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“…This is the self to which I orientate, after all, when I try to remember a past experience, when I deliberate about what at some future point to do, and when I feel anxiety at the prospect of a visit to the dentist 15 . It contrasts with the agent to which I orientate when acting as a member of a group, for example, seeking to realize group goals according to group assumptions (Pettit, 2018b). It is a self I will see out of the corner of my eye, so to speak: in apperception, as we might call it, rather than perception.…”

Section: My Self In Its Three Guisesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“… 1 The line of argument develops ideas used for other purposes in (List and Pettit, 2011, Ch 9) and (Pettit 2018b). It is very close to the picture developed by Alexandra Boyle (2018) in an insightful discussion of self-recognition in non-human animals.…”

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confidence: 99%

My Three Selves

Pettit¹

2020

Philosophy

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AbstractHaving a self means being able think of myself under a certain profile that that is me: that is who I am, that is how I am. But if I raise the question as to who or how I am, there are three salient profiles in which I can cast myself, three selves with which we can identify. I can see myself just as an agent identified over time by the linkages between my experiences, my attitudes and my actions. I can see myself as the persona that I invite others to rely on and that, if sincere, I internalize. And I can see myself as the figure I cut in other people's eyes, whether or not I welcome that image. Such ambiguities help explain the complexity in philosophical discussion of the self as well as the conflict in everyday exhortations to be ourselves and know ourselves, yet also to forget ourselves and lose ourselves.

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“…2 Though see [14] for a rejection of this distinction. 3 For some other treatments, which I will largely set aside for the purposes of this paper, see [15][16][17]. 4 Throughout, I will use the terms 'group,' 'corporate,' 'collective,' and 'plural' interchangeably.…”

Section: §1 Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

What it Might Be like to Be a Group Agent

Kramer

2021

Neuroethics

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Many theorists have defended the claim that collective entities can attain genuine agential status. If collectives can be agents, this opens up a further question: can they be conscious? That is, is there something that it is like to be them? Eric Schwitzgebel [1] argues that yes, collective entities (including the United States, taken as a whole), may well be significantly conscious. Others, including Kammerer [2], Tononi and Koch [3], and List [4] reject the claim. List does so on the basis of Tononi's Integrated Information Theory of consciousness [5]. I argue here that List's rejection is too quick, and that groups can, at least in principle, display the kind of informational integration we might think is necessary for consciousness. However, group consciousness will likely differ substantially from the individual experiences that give rise to it. This requires the defender of group consciousness to face up to a similar combination problem as the panpsychist.

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Consciousness Incorporated

Cited by 22 publications

References 35 publications

What's it like to be a state? An argument for state consciousness

What's it like to be a state? An argument for state consciousness

My Three Selves

What it Might Be like to Be a Group Agent

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