ABSTRACT
Traditionally, the contents of consciousness have been divided into two broad categories: the intentional mental states and the non-intentional phenomenal mental states. The representational theory of consciousness asserts that all states of consciousness are representational, and this allows for a parsimonious, unified and interesting account of consciousness within a representational philosophy of mind. The theory can be developed in ways that more or less respect the intuitions behind people notions of qualitative or phenomenal consciousness, despite the denial that there are any phenomenal properties of experiences. An especially agreeable theory of introspection stems from the representational theory that has interesting connections to some problems about self-knowledge and our implicit knowledge of the nature of the mind. The use of phenomenal concepts can ease people worries about the explanatory gap. Whether this strategy can succeed seems doubtful, however. And the issue of whether qualitative consciousness is an intrinsic feature of mind looms as troublesome.
