Branding, Jonah (2025) Can a marker approach exclude? [Preprint]

Text Can a marker approach exclude_.docx Download (1MB)

Abstract

If an organism displays enough of the right neural, cognitive, or behavioral “markers,” researchers can generally assume it’s phenomenally conscious. But what if it doesn’t? Recently, there has been substantial disagreement on this “exclusion question.” According to one view (what I call the “symmetry” view), organisms lacking markers probably aren’t conscious (Dennett 1995; Tye 2016a; Birch 2022; Veidt 2022). However, according to another (the “asymmetry” view), we cannot conclude anything about the presence or absence of consciousness in organisms lacking markers (Prinz 2005; Schwitzgebel 2020; Andrews 2020, 2022, 2024). Here I argue that this disagreement partially reflects a deeper disagreement about how markers are identified; to this end, I point to three “paths” from specific ideas about marker identification (namely, theory-based, analogy-based, and function-based approaches) to one or the other view on exclusion. Equipped with the right auxiliary assumptions, theory- and analogy-based approaches can motivate the asymmetry view, whereas function-based approaches can motivate the symmetry view. However, this relation is not deterministic, as different auxiliary assumptions will lead to different views about exclusion. My distilled product is therefore a decision tree, which links views about marker identification to one or the other view on exclusion. I hope that this tree will serve as a means of identifying “fronts” where future debate on this question can be productively focused.

---

Export/Citation:

EndNote | BibTeX | Dublin Core | ASCII/Text Citation (Chicago) | HTML Citation | OpenURL

Social Networking:

Share |

---

Item Type:	Preprint
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID Branding, Jonah 0009-0003-0954-8822
Keywords:	Animal minds, marker approach, consciousness, comparative psychology, ethology
Subjects:	Specific Sciences > Psychology > Comparative Psychology and Ethology Specific Sciences > Cognitive Science > Consciousness
Depositing User:	Jonah Branding
Date Deposited:	10 Sep 2025 13:12
Last Modified:	10 Sep 2025 13:12
Item ID:	26606
Subjects:	Specific Sciences > Psychology > Comparative Psychology and Ethology Specific Sciences > Cognitive Science > Consciousness
Date:	2025
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/26606

Monthly Views for the past 3 years

Monthly Downloads for the past 3 years

Plum Analytics

Actions (login required)

View Item