Durand of St.-Pourçain on Reflex Acts and State Consciousness

Abstract

Some of my mental states are conscious and some of them are not. Sometimes I am so focused on the wine in front of me that I am unaware that I am thinking about it. But sometimes, of course, I take a reflexive step back and become aware of my thinking about the wine in front of me. What marks the difference between a conscious mental state and an unconscious one? In this article, the author focuses on Durand of St.-Pourçain’s rejection of the higher-order theory of state consciousness, according to which a mental act is conscious when there is another, suitably related, mental (reflex) act that exists at the same time with it. Durand rejects such higher-order theories on the grounds that they violate the thesis that a given mental power can have or elicit only one mental act at a given time. The author first goes over some of Durand’s general arguments for this thesis. He then turns to Durand’s application of the thesis to the issue of state consciousness and reflex acts. He closes by considering the objection that Durand’s same-order theory of state consciousness makes consciousness ubiquitous.