Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
An Anthology of Philosophical Studies , Patricia Hanna, Editör, Athens Institute for Education and Research , Athens, ss.115-125, 2014
Rosenthal argues that it is not possible to think about a particular mental state token without thinking about the subject whose mental state it is. I refer to this as the token condition. In this paper my purpose is to undermine the token condition. I discuss two reasons for the token condition. The first of these reasons consists in the what-it-is-likeness of experiences and the second consists in the strong conceptual relation between experiences and their subjects. I attempt to undermine this relation and suggest an account of the what-it-is-likeness of experiences without relying on the subject’s point of view in order to undermine the token condition. I then suggest that a slightly different version of Rosenthal’s higher-order thought theory of consciousness is compatible with the possibility of thinking about one’s particular mental states without thinking about oneself. Finally I argue that even if the token condition is true, there is an asymmetry between the way I think about my mental states and the way I think about another person’s mental states and given this asymmetry, the token condition cannot be said to apply to all mental state tokens one thinks about.