According to HOT theory, what determines whether a mental state is conscious?
AThe intrinsic qualitative character of the state itself — its 'what it's like' property
BWhether the state is accessible to verbal report and global reasoning
CWhether a concurrent higher-order thought represents one as being in that state
DWhether the state is caused by an external stimulus rather than purely internal processing
HOT theory holds that what makes a mental state conscious is not any intrinsic property of the state itself but the presence of a higher-order thought directed at it. Option A describes a first-order view — that consciousness is built into the state intrinsically — which HOT explicitly rejects. Option B describes access consciousness, a distinct concept. The key HOT insight is relational: consciousness arises from the relationship between levels of representation, not from any feature of the first-order state alone.
Question 2 Multiple Choice
A philosopher objects that HOT theory cannot explain animal or infant consciousness because it requires having thoughts about one's own mental states, which demands sophisticated conceptual abilities animals and infants may lack. Which higher-order theory is best positioned to answer this objection?
AHOT theory, because the higher-order thought can be dispositional rather than occurrent
BHOP theory, because inner perceptual monitoring is non-conceptual and does not require thought-like states
CBoth theories fail equally, because both require the subject to represent its own mental states
DNeither theory applies to animals since they lack any form of higher-order representation
HOP theory (Lycan) replaces thought with quasi-perceptual inner monitoring. Because this monitoring is non-conceptual — more like noticing than judging — it does not require the creature to possess concepts for its own mental states. Animals and infants, who may lack the conceptual sophistication HOT demands, can still have an inner scanner that makes their states conscious. HOT theorists like Rosenthal do argue that dispositional HOTs mitigate this worry, but HOP was explicitly designed to accommodate pre-conceptual conscious creatures, making B the strongest answer.
Question 3 True / False
HOT theory faces an infinite regress problem: since the higher-order thought that makes a first-order state conscious is expected to itself be conscious, we need a third-order thought to make it conscious, and so on forever.
TTrue
FFalse
Answer: False
This is a common misreading of HOT theory. The standard HOT position is that the higher-order thought that makes a first-order state conscious is itself typically *unconscious* — it does not need to be conscious to do its job. Consciousness is a relational property: the first-order state becomes conscious by virtue of being the *object* of a higher-order state, not by the HOT being conscious itself. An unconscious HOT is sufficient. The regress only threatens if you require each higher-order state to be conscious, which HOT theorists deny.
Question 4 True / False
On Rosenthal's HOT theory, it is possible to have a conscious experience that does not correspond to any actual first-order mental state.
TTrue
FFalse
Answer: True
This follows from the 'targetless HOT' scenario. If you have a higher-order thought to the effect that you are in mental state M, but no such state M actually exists, HOT theory entails that you would nonetheless have a conscious experience — the HOT generates the experience regardless. Rosenthal accepts this consequence. Critics consider it deeply counterintuitive (a 'hallucination of one's own mental states'), but Rosenthal argues the case is coherent and analogous to misrepresentation in ordinary perception. This is one of the most contested implications of the theory.
Question 5 Short Answer
How do higher-order theories explain the existence of unconscious mental states — states that influence behavior without being experienced?
Think about your answer, then reveal below.
Model answer: Higher-order theories explain unconscious mental states simply: a mental state is unconscious when no higher-order representation is directed at it. The first-order state exists and can causally influence behavior, but because there is no HOT (or HOP) accompanying it, there is nothing it is like to be in that state — it remains beneath the threshold of experience. This gives the theories a neat explanatory payoff: the same basic account handles both conscious and unconscious states, distinguishing them by the presence or absence of higher-order representation rather than by any difference in the first-order states themselves.
This asymmetry is one of the strongest arguments for higher-order theories: they provide a unified framework that naturally accommodates subliminal perception, implicit memory, and other forms of unconscious cognition that are well-attested empirically. A first-order theory that locates consciousness in intrinsic properties of mental states has more difficulty explaining why some states with apparently similar intrinsic properties remain unconscious.