Flanagan O
Department of Philosophy, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, USA.
Neuropsychologia. 1995 Sep;33(9):1103-15. doi: 10.1016/0028-3932(95)00051-4.
'Consciousness' is a superordinate term for a heterogeneous array of mental state types. The types share the property of 'being experienced' or 'being experiences'--'of there being something that it is like for the subject to be in one of these states.' I propose that we can only build a theory of consciousness by deploying 'the natural method' of coordinating all relevant informational resources at once, especially phenomenology, cognitive science, neuroscience and evolutionary biology. I'll provide two examples of the natural method in action in mental domains where an adaptationist evolutionary account seems plausible: (i) visual awareness and (ii) conscious event memory. Then I will discuss a case, (iii), dreaming, where I think no adaptationist evolutionary account exists. Beyond whatever interest the particular cases have, the examination will show why I think that a theory of mind, and the role conscious mentation plays in it, will need to be built domain-by-domain with no a priori expectation that there will be a unified account of the causal role or evolutionary history of different domains and competences.
“意识”是一个涵盖多种不同类型心理状态的上位术语。这些心理状态类型具有“被体验”或“成为体验”的特性——即“对于处于这些状态之一的主体而言，存在某种特定的感受”。我认为，我们只有通过一次性协调所有相关信息资源的“自然方法”，尤其是现象学、认知科学、神经科学和进化生物学，才能构建一种意识理论。我将提供两个自然方法在心理领域发挥作用的例子，在这些领域中，适应性进化解释似乎是合理的：（i）视觉意识和（ii）有意识的事件记忆。然后我将讨论一个案例，（iii）梦境，我认为在这个案例中不存在适应性进化解释。除了这些具体案例本身的趣味性之外，此次考察将表明为什么我认为心智理论以及意识思维在其中所起的作用，需要逐个领域地构建，而不应有先验的期望，即认为不同领域和能力的因果作用或进化历史会有统一的解释。
