Acquaintance and the Qualitative Character of Conscious Intentional States
Issue: • Author/s: Anna Giustina
Topics: Cognitive science, Epistemology, Metaphysics, Philosophy of mind, Theoretical philosophy
Conscious intentional states are mental states that represent things as being a certain way and do so consciously: they involve a phenomenally conscious representation. For any phenomenally conscious state, there is something it is like for its subject to be in it. The way it is like for a subject to be in a certain phenomenal state is the state’s phenomenal character. According to some authors, phenomenal character has two components: qualitative character (i.e., the “what it is like” component) and subjective character (the “for the subject” component). Elsewhere, I…