Intrinsic theories of consciousness Brentano’s secondary object and kriegel’s Self-representation

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to offer a clarification of the concept of conscious mental state within the framework of the intrinsic theories of consciousness. In the first place, we will examine Franz Brentano’s (1874) proposal according to which a state of consciousness is one that is directed towards an object and incidentally also directed towards itself as a secondary object. Secondly, we will explain Uriah Kriegel’s (2018) proposal, according to which a conscious state is an internally differentiated state that has the characteristic that one of its parts is directed towards the same state, making it self-representative. We will conclude that both proposals interpret a conscious state as a complex state of parts.