Abstracts
The following papers have been accepted for presentation at AAP 2013. If you've just submitted an abstract, it may take a few days to appear.
| Name: Professor Daniel Stoljar |
| Institution: ANU |
| Title: Self-Intimation and Necessity |
| Abstract: What is the connection between being in a conscious mental state and believing that you yourself are currently in that state? For example, suppose you consciously see a lemon—call this state ‘A’; and suppose you believe that you yourself are currently consciously seeing a lemon—call this state ‘B’. What is the connection between A and B? On the one hand, it is natural to think that the connection between A and B is, or involves, a modal connection of some sort; that is, it has consequences not only for what is true, but also for what would or must or should be true, at least in certain circumstances. On the other hand, it is hard to know what the nature of this modal connection is. For in contemporary philosophy of mind we can find plausible arguments that the connection between A and B cannot be rationally, metaphysically or merely nomologically necessary. If these arguments are correct, while the connection between A and B is a modal one, there is apparently no modal connection it could be! This paper sets out this problem—the modal connection problem, I will call it—and defends and explores a proposal about how to solve it. |
| Keywords: consciousness, self-intimation, introspection, self-knowledge, necessity |
