WHAT IS CONSCIOUSNESS

When philosophers and psychologists think about consciousness, they generally focus on one or more of three features: phenomenality (how experiences feel), intentionality (that experiences are ''of'' something, that experiences mean something), and introspectibility (our awareness of the phenomenality and intentionality of experience). Using examples from empirical psychology and neuroscience, I argue that consciousness is not a unitary state, that, instead, these three features characterize different and dissociable states, which often happen to occur together. Understanding these three features as dissociable from each other will resolve philosophical disputes and facilitate scientific investigation.