Are We Ever Conscious of Concepts?

This final chapter addresses the following question: Do the highest levels of mental representation—in particular, concepts and the thoughts they enter into—ever achieve consciousness when activated? Two competing positions have been taken on this issue. The liberal view holds that the contents of experience include not only sensory, motor, and affective states, but also whatever concepts happen to be engaged. In contrast, the conservative view maintains that concepts lack intrinsic qualia and always perform their functions beneath the surface of awareness. This chapter argues that the conservative view is more plausible than the liberal view, and that this has significant implications for three contemporary neuroscientific theories of consciousness. Specifically, it shows that the conservative view raises serious problems for Stanislas Dehaene’s Global Neuronal Workspace Theory and Giulio Tononi’s Integrated Information Theory, but is consistent with Jesse Prinz’s Attended Intermediate-Level Representation Theory.