Rosenthal Vs. Dretske

David Rosenthal and Fred Dretske are two philosophers with differing views of consciousness, which is the state of being awake and aware of one’s surroundings. These philosophers tackle the ongoing question about what makes thoughts and experiences conscious. Rosenthal claims that consciousness refers to multiple phenomena. The first version of consciousness is when sensory systems are active and receptive, which Rosenthal calls creature consciousness. The second type of consciousness is when a mental state is conscious or not, which he refers to as state consciousness. Rosenthal also mentions that to be conscious, in addition to being aware of the mental state, it’s necessary to be transitively conscious, which is being aware of being in …show more content…
For something to be conscious, Rosenthal believes that one can perceive it (by using one or multiple of the five senses) or think about it. He believes that a person is unconscious when their sensory systems aren’t active like when in sleep. Dretske has a similar concept of two types of consciousness: thing aware and fact aware. Thing aware is a concept-free mental state, an experience. Fact aware is a concept-charged mental state, a belief. This essay will describe the ideas of Rosenthal and Dretske in detail to determine which had the strongest argument and whom, in my opinion, has the correct belief. The fundamentals of Rosenthal’s theory follows the principles of the higher thought theorists. The higher order thought (H.O.T.) theory describes how thoughts are deemed conscious, they believe in a hierarchy/levels of thoughts. There is the first level thought, which is not conscious since it’s not a high enough level to be conscious. So, to become conscious – the thought needs to be the content of a level two thought. That is, a thought about a thought, but still one is rarely conscious of these states. Rosenthal believes that for a H.O.T. to be conscious, must have a higher order thought