| FA-54513-09 | Research Programs: Fellowships for University Teachers | Anil K. Gupta | An Account of Conscious Experience | 1/1/2010 - 12/31/2010 | $50,400.00 | Anil | K. | Gupta | | | | University of Pittsburgh | Pittsburgh | PA | 15260-6133 | USA | 2008 | Epistemology | Fellowships for University Teachers | Research Programs | 50400 | 0 | 50400 | 0 |
My project is to complete a book in which I develop an account of conscious experience. Two features separate the approach I am taking from those of others. First, I focus on the rational role of conscious experience. I bracket the concern, predominant in contemporary philosophy, with naturalism. Second, I work with a distinctive account of the rational role of experience. Experience, I argue, does not yield categorical entitlements to propositions; it yields instead conditional entitlements. My aim in the new book is to offer an account that explains how conscious experience plays this kind of rational role. The central notion in the account is that of presence. I argue that both subjective and objective entities can be present in conscious experience, but the distinction between the two is not given in experience. The entities present fix the subjective character of the experience--and hence its conditional rational role--but they do not determine categorical rational entitlements. |