The Epistemic Role of Consciousness

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Declan Smithies (Professor of Philosophy, Professor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University)

The Epistemic Role of Consciousness

Declan Smithies (Professor of Philosophy, Professor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University)

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English

Oxford University Press Inc
08 April 2023

Philosophy: epistemology & theory of knowledge; Philosophy of mind

Series: PHILOSOPHY OF MIND SERIES

What is the role of consciousness in our mental lives? Declan Smithies argues here that consciousness is essential to explaining how we can acquire knowledge and justified belief about ourselves and the world around us. On this view, unconscious beings cannot form justified beliefs and so they cannot know anything at all. Consciousness is the ultimate basis of all knowledge and epistemic justification.

Smithies builds a sustained argument for the epistemic role of phenomenal consciousness which draws on a range of considerations in epistemology and the philosophy of mind. His position combines two key claims. The first is phenomenal mentalism, which says that epistemic justification is determined by the phenomenally individuated facts about your mental states. The second is accessibilism, which says that epistemic justification is luminously accessible in the sense that you're always in a position to know which beliefs you have epistemic justification to hold. Smithies integrates these two claims into a unified theory of epistemic justification, which he calls phenomenal accessibilism.

The book is divided into two parts, which converge on this theory of epistemic justification from opposite directions. Part 1 argues from the bottom up by drawing on considerations in the philosophy of mind about the role of consciousness in mental representation, perception, cognition, and introspection. Part 2 argues from the top down by arguing from general principles in epistemology about the nature of epistemic justification. These mutually reinforcing arguments form the basis for a unified theory of the epistemic role of phenomenal consciousness, one that bridges the gap between epistemology and philosophy of mind.

By: Declan Smithies (Professor of Philosophy Professor of Philosophy The Ohio State University)
Imprint: Oxford University Press Inc
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 152mm, Width: 237mm, Spine: 27mm
Weight: 1g
ISBN: 9780197680001
ISBN 10: 0197680003
Series: PHILOSOPHY OF MIND SERIES
Pages: 456
Publication Date: 08 April 2023
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Declan Smithies is Professor of Philosophy at the Ohio State University. He works primarily on issues at the intersection between epistemology and the philosophy of mind. He is co-editor of Introspection and Consciousness (OUP 2012) and Attention: Philosophical and Psychological Essays (OUP 2011).

Reviews for The Epistemic Role of Consciousness

Declan Smithies' book is an extraordinarily strong contribution to debates in philosophy of mind and epistemology. It is ambitious and expansive in scope while being extremely rigorously argued. It will be required reading for epistemologists, as well as for philosophers of mind interested in the value of consciousness for our lives as thinkers and knowers. * Robert J. Howell, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews * an impressive achievement that is both uncommonly wide-ranging and admirably systematic * Elijah Chudnoff, Philosophical Review * thought-provoking, creative, and ambitious * Anna-Sara Malmgren, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research * a careful, well-argued, and wide-ranging exploration of many key issues in contemporary epistemology * Richard Feldman, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research * Declan Smithies' brilliant book sets a new benchmark for developing a broadly internalist vision of how consciousness, mental content and justification hang together. * Thomas Raleigh, Asian Journal of Philosophy *