Richard Bradley and others endorse Reverse Bayesianism as the way to model awareness growth. I raise a problem for Reverse Bayesianism—at least for the general version that Bradley endorses—and argue that there is no plausible way to restrict the principle that will give us the right results. To get the right results, we need to pay attention to the (dispositional) attitudes that agents have towards propositions of which they are unaware. This raises more general questions about how awareness (...) growth should be modelled. Classical Bayesian decision theory leaves no room for awareness growth. But in his book Decision Theory with a Human Face (Bradley 2017), Richard Bradley aims to give a decision theory for real agents, and it seems that real agents can grow in awareness. For example, I might be alerted to a possible state of affairs that had not occurred to me before; or I might discover that there is a further option available to me that I had not previously considered. Bradley gives an account of what rationality requires of agents without full awareness, and how rational agents’ credal states can change when they grow in awareness. In this paper I raise a problem for this account, and argue that we need to model awareness growth quite differently, taking into account an agent’s dispositional attitudes towards propositions of which (s)he is unaware. (shrink)

Wherever organisms engage in internal sign processing to represent and respond to their environment, subjective awareness and agency emerge. Through connectivity, they form structures from which “super-agents” with higher levels of awareness and agency can emerge. An increase in subjectivity is thus congruent with an increase in the processing of the physical world through animation. If there were a final end to the increase of agency and awareness in freedom and consciousness, this absolute would fully reflect physical (...) causation in itself. In this picture, subjectivity is thus compatible with physical determinism and yet substantial because it posits causation as much as it is made by it. (shrink)

It is difficult to convey my gratitude for the time and effort that Sara, Clayton and Ram spent on developing probing and insightful questions about Awareness and the Substructure of Knowledge. I, strangely, know more now about my own project than I did when I wrote it. Despite our disagreements about how some of the questions below are to be answered, I was exceedingly pleased to learn of their varying degrees of openness to and, in some cases, agreement with (...) the central idea that there are factive states that fall short of knowledge. Perhaps these replies will increase our degree of agreement. (shrink)

One of the most fundamental divides in contemporary philosophy of consciousness is whether phenomenal consciousness requires some form of self-consciousness. More specifically, disagreement revolves around the “Awareness Principle”: For any subject S and conscious mental state M of S, S is aware of M. We call the relevant awareness of one’s own mental states “inner awareness.” While the Awareness Principle (or some idea in the vicinity) was largely accepted by early phenomenologists and early analytic philosophers, it (...) is much more disputed by contemporary philosophers of mind. In this chapter, we offer a bird’s-eye view of philosophical debates surrounding the Awareness Principle. Our goal is to review the main theoretical options available on the market. We open by distinguishing various versions of the Awareness Principle (§1) before addressing the place of inner awareness in the history of philosophy (§2) and in contemporary debates on consciousness (§3). (shrink)

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) and Research Ethics Committees (RECs) are central to safeguarding ethical obligations in research, yet awareness and submission practices among researchers in Saudi Arabia remain inconsistent. This study explored researchers’ awareness, submission methodologies, perceived barriers, and possible improvements to the IRB process. A national electronic cross-sectional survey was distributed to 915 researchers affiliated with academic and research institutions across Saudi Arabia, yielding 870 complete and valid responses (response rate: 95.1%). The questionnaire covered demographics, awareness (...) of ethical principles, submission practices, barriers, and recommendations. Data were examined using descriptive statistics and chi-square tests, with Cramer’s V used to indicate effect sizes. Results showed that prior submission experience was significantly associated with higher awareness of research ethics (87.3% vs. 49.4%, χ²(2) = 149.40, p < 0.001, Cramer’s V = 0.414). Perceived institutional support was associated with greater ease of submission (χ²(16) = 195.75, p < 0.001, Cramer’s V = 0.237), while formal ethics training was associated with higher confidence in applying ethical protocols (78.2% vs. 48.5%, χ²(1) = 80.32, p < 0.001, Cramer’s V = 0.304). Frequently reported barriers included unclear procedures, bureaucratic delays, and limited supervisory guidance, while qualitative analysis highlighted recurring concerns regarding procedural complexity. Despite a well-established regulatory framework, practical gaps in awareness and submission practices persist. Participants recommended structured ethics training, simplified digital submission platforms, and enhanced supervisory engagement to strengthen compliance and reinforce research integrity. (shrink)

Do factive mental states come in degrees? If so, what is their underlying structure, and what is their theoretical significance? Many have observed that ‘knows that’ is not a gradable verb and have taken this to be strong evidence that propositional knowledge does not come in degrees. This paper demonstrates that the adjective ‘aware that’ passes all the standard tests of gradability, and thus strongly motivates the idea that it refers to a factive mental state that comes in degrees. We (...) will explore a range of structural questions that have been overlooked in regard to our awareness of facts, showing that the degreed structure of awareness has significant implications for our understanding of knowledge. (shrink)

Medication-related osteonecrosis of the Jaw (MRONJ) is a serious adverse drug reaction that can seriously affect the quality of life of patients if not promptly diagnosed and treated. To date, preventive measures have been the most effective strategy for reducing the incidence of MRONJ. The role of dental practitioners in managing patients treated with Bone Modifying Agents (BMAs) varies across countries, with some healthcare systems providing a more structured approach than others. This systematic review aims to investigate the knowledge and (...) awareness of MRONJ among dentists, interpreting the findings from a medical and bioethical perspective. The protocol for this study was designed following the PRISMA guideline and registered on PROSPERO (CRD420251015032). A systematic review search was conducted in PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, and Cochrane Database to answer the PICo question: Are dentists well-informed and aware of the risk of MRONJ in patients receiving BMAs? Furthermore, to address potential geographic differences, a country-specific literature review was conducted to compare the level of MRONJ awareness between patients receiving BMAs and dental professionals within the same country. Studies published up to March 2025 were screened. Twenty-two studies were included in this systematic review. Among the 10,536 dentists involved, 62.8% were well-informed about MRONJ, but only 9.7% were aware of its risk factors. The most common sources of information were university education, followed by scientific journals and specific training courses or conferences. Studies performed in the same countries investigating MRONJ awareness among patients taking BMAs were analyzed. Country-based analysis revealed significant discrepancies between dentists’ (68.5%) and patients’ (19.5%) knowledge and awareness of MRONJ in the USA, Saudi Arabia, Bulgaria, and Brazil. Finally, a bioethical analysis of European legal frameworks on informed consent for pharmacological therapies revealed that adequately informing patients about treatment risks is both an ethical obligation and a legal duty, rooted in constitutional and legislative principles. This systematic review reveals a low level of awareness despite an acceptable level of knowledge among dentists, highlighting an alarming discrepancy. Beyond knowledge of the disease, awareness of its risk factors and preventive strategies is essential for dentists to adopt a personalized and safe workflow for these patient groups. Ensuring personalized therapy requires a structured and collaborative approach based on ethical principles and shared knowledge. Strengthening interprofessional training and teamwork is essential to improving prevention and patient empowerment. CRD420251015032. (shrink)

We can be aware of particulars, properties, events, propositions, facts, skills, and qualia. We can also have knowledge of and be conscious of a similar range of objects. We can, furthermore, be ignorant of such objects. Awareness is quite clearly related to knowledge, consciousness, and ignorance. But how? This entry explores some of the ways that awareness is (not) related to knowledge, consciousness, and ignorance. It also explores some of the ways that awareness might be required by, (...) and thus fundamental to, these other relations. The emerging insight is that additional clarity on the nature of awareness stands poised to add clarity to a wide range of philosophical issues in both epistemology and the philosophy of mind. (shrink)

Accreditation refers to the periodic evaluation of an institution by independent agencies. Widely implemented across various fields, including education, accreditation processes in Türkiye are carried out by the Higher Education Quality Council (YÖKAK) and independent accreditation bodies authorized by this council. In this context, the Islamic Sciences Accreditation Agency (İAA) was established to oversee the accreditation processes of higher religious education institutions and accredited Sakarya University Faculty of Theology for the first time in 2022. The aim of this study is (...) to evaluate the level of accreditation awareness among students and academic staff at Sakarya University Faculty of Theology. The main research question is: What is the level of awareness among academic staff and students regarding accreditation processes at an accredited higher religious education institution? This study employs a quantitative descriptive survey model and uses a survey as the data collection tool. The sample, selected through stratified random sampling, consists of 327 students from different academic years and 50 academic staff members. Frequency (n), percentage (%), and chi-square test were used in the analysis of the findings. The findings reveal that a significant proportion of participants are aware of the meaning of accreditation [Student (S) 72%, Academic Staff (AS) 100%], and almost all of them (S %96, AS %100) are aware of their faculty’s involvement in the accreditation process. Furthermore, most participants agree that accreditation facilitates national and international recognition (S %87, AS %86), enhances the faculty’s image (S %90, AS %86), and functions as a tool for institutional evaluation (S %81, AS %86). However, some participants also believe that accreditation does not have the same level of impact in all areas. Student responses indicate lower levels of agreement (%52) regarding accreditation’s contribution to participatory governance and post-graduation employment opportunities. Likewise, academic staff show relatively low agreement (%54) on the contribution of accreditation to improving educational and research competencies. Overall, the findings underscore the importance of ensuring student and academic staff participation in accreditation processes. Additionally, the findings highlight the need for further research on stakeholder engagement and the potential impact of accreditation on graduates’ employment prospects. (shrink)

Modern computational systems are commonly designed around deterministic or discrete state-based models, where uncertainty is typically resolved early during state evaluation. [1], [14], [22] The framework further distinguishes deterministic Absolute States represented as {Abs}_A = (-1, 0, +1) and equivalently expressed as |A| = (-1, 0, +1) from derived ambiguity-preserving Q-States, enabling state-aware evaluation without forcing immediate collapse into rigid binary interpretation. [A:Absolute State]. However, many real-world systems operate under conditions where ambiguity persists, evolves, and directly influences system behavior [A1:Ambiguity]. (...) -/- This paper introduces an ambiguity-aware computation method operating within a Multi-State Computational Model, where Q-States are treated as a first-class computational state construct [A2:Q-State]. Instead of forcing immediate resolution, the proposed computational method preserves, interprets, and propagates ambiguity through a structured Transformation Pipeline. The pipeline integrates State Derivation, Q-State Identification, and State-Aware Graph Evaluation. [A3:State-Aware]. -/- A key conceptual distinction is established between Computing State and Computational State, enabling ambiguity-aware evaluation under structured operational constraints. [A4:Computing vs Computational State]. The proposed computational methods incorporate Lattice-Based Representation and Node State Classification to model system behavior under ambiguity [A5:Node-State]. -/- Sparsity Dynamics and Path Validity are introduced as core evaluation mechanisms, supported by Boundary Conditions and Hysteresis Dynamics to maintain stability, continuity, and evaluation consistency [A6:Sparsity, Path-Validity]. Simulation results demonstrate controlled Q-State propagation and convergence toward high Confidence Interval (CI) outcomes under structured ambiguity constraints [A7:Boundary-Conditioned Hysteresis]. -/- This approach provides a foundation for modeling complex systems where uncertainty is not prematurely eliminated, but systematically represented, evaluated, and incorporated into state-aware computational evaluation. [A8:Graph-Based Systems]. (shrink)

Hand, Foot, and Mouth Disease (HFMD) continues to pose a public health concern in school-aged children, yet parental understanding and compliance with health measures remain erratic. This study assessed the level of parental awareness and health protocol practices regarding HFMD and examined the relationship between these variables among caregivers of Grade 1 to 3 pupils in a public elementary school in Aklan, Philippines. A quantitative correlational research design was employed. Data were gathered from 166 randomly selected parents and caregivers (...) using a validated, researcherdeveloped survey composed of 16 true/false items on awareness and 16 Likert-scale items on protocol adherence. Descriptive statistics and Spearman’s rho correlation were analyzed using SPSS version 21. Results showed that overall awareness was moderate (M=10.67, SD=2.02), with lowest scores in etiology (54.97%) and transmission (60.84%) and highest in pathophysiology (80.87%). Health protocol practice was also moderate (M=2.96, SD=0.87), with variable adherence across promotion, treatment, and rehabilitation behaviors. A weak but statistically significant positive correlation was found between awareness and practice (r=0.220, p=0.004). These findings indicate that while awareness contributes to better adherence, knowledge alone does not guarantee consistent compliance with preventive measures. Strengthening targeted health education and implementing behavior-focused interventions are recommended to enhance prevention efforts. The study supports the integration of school-based hygiene programs and community-driven health campaigns to reduce HFMD transmission in early childhood settings. (shrink)

Awareness is a two-place determinable relation some determinates of which are seeing, hearing, etc. Abstract objects are items such as universals and functions, which contrast with concrete objects such as solids and liquids. It is uncontroversial that we are sometimes aware of concrete objects. In this paper I explore the more controversial topic of awareness of abstract objects. I distinguish two questions. First, the Existence Question: are there any experiences that make their subjects aware of abstract objects? Second, (...) the Grounding Question: if an experience makes its subject aware of an abstract object, in virtue of what does it do so? I defend the view that intuitions, specifically mathematical intuitions, sometimes make their subjects aware of abstract objects. In defending this view, I develop an account of the ground of intuitive awareness. (shrink)

In the United States, food system inequities are the result of generations of systematic disparities in social, political, and economic opportunity and are disproportionately borne by Black, Indigenous, and People of Color. The Food Scholars Project aims to expand equity in food systems education and leadership by building a resilient cross-institutional partnership between faculty and students at the University of Georgia (UGA, a predominantly White Land-Grant Institution) and Spelman College (an historically Black college). This embedded case study examines critical reflections (...) collected with 28 UGA faculty, staff, and graduate students who participated in one or more multi-day professional development workshops focused on supporting critical praxis in mentoring and pedagogy in the context of food systems education. Results indicate that professional development can affect educators’ self-awareness, knowledge, and intentions related to culturally responsive education and mentoring. Each workshop had unique learning objectives; yet across workshops, participants identified areas of learning that challenged their preconceived assumptions about equity in higher education, how to support student success, and their own positionality and power as mentors and educators. Participants engaged in productive struggle to integrate new and challenging ideas, and they critically examined their responsibility to enact their values through their mentoring and teaching praxis. Finally, across workshops, participants committed themselves to actionable steps toward equity in food systems education and ongoing learning within a nascent community of practice. (shrink)

This study examines the influence of environmental awareness, green attitude, and green strategy on the sustainability of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Central Java, Indonesia. Sampling was conducted using purposive sampling techniques, where SMEs were sampled, which had been established for over 3 years. Using data from 473 SMEs, This study uses ordinary least square regression to examine the main factors influencing SME sustainability. The results show that environmental awareness significantly improves SME sustainability, Green attitude also shows (...) a positive impact. The green strategy shows a positive impact but is not statistically significant, indicating potential for further development in strategic implementation. This study highlights the importance of adopting environmental awareness and attitudes towards sustainability in SMEs. It provides insights for policymakers to promote a green business culture in the SME sector in Indonesia. (shrink)

This chapter explores the concept of awareness: what it is, why it is philosophically problematic, and how it is presupposed in almost everything that matters to people. This chapter has three parts. The first part explores the history of the transformative power of awareness in the West. The second part employs analytic philosophy to explore meanings and problems of defining awareness and related problems in contemporary philosophy of consciousness, e.g., the so-called hard problem. The third part sketches (...) ways awareness plays a transformative role in themes addressed in the remaining chapters of this collection (wonder, imagination, will, decision, experience, understanding, feminist consciousness, love, self-esteem, meaning, and happiness), plus three related roles: in meditation, aspiration, and transformation itself. (shrink)

I am aware of the red and orange autumn leaves. Am I aware of my awareness of the leaves? Not so according to many philosophers. By contrast, many meditative traditions report an experience of awareness itself. I argue that such a pure awareness experience must have a non-sensory phenomenal character. I use Douglas Harding’s first-person experiments for assisting in recognising pure awareness. In particular, I investigate the gap where one cannot see one’s head. This is not (...) a mere gap because I seem to be looking from here. Critically, I claim, the experience of looking from here has a non-sensory phenomenal character. I argue that this sense of being aware cannot be reduced to egocentric visual-spatial relations nor the viewpoint because it continues when I close my eyes. Neither is a multisensory origin sufficient to explain why I seem to be at this central point rather than elsewhere. Traditionally, claims of a pure awareness experience have been restricted to highly trained individuals in very restricted circumstances. The innovation of Harding’s approach is that it reliably isolates a candidate for pure awareness using methods which can be replicated at any time. (shrink)

This book provides a systematic exploration of the relation between knowledge and factual awareness, arguing that knowledge is but one species of factual awareness and that we can understand the possession of objective reasons, the normativity of knowledge, and the nature of knowledge in terms of factual awareness. In this way, the state of factual awareness is, structurally and substantively, a more basic type of state than knowledge. If correct, this undermines a number of ways in (...) which knowledge has been regarded as ‘first’ in recent epistemology. (shrink)

abstract: This article brings together authorities in the Tibetan Mahāmudrā (“Great Seal”) tradition of the Kagyü school with a contemporary, Christian-adjacent account of mind and consciousness, drawn from the psychologist and theologian Daniel Helminiak. It draws them together on the basis of their shared affirmation that conscious states and operations are intrinsically and nontransitively self-aware. Consciousness as such, on this view, is this simple, nontransitive—and so nondual—self-awareness. Beyond this shared affirmation, both affirm that contemplative training includes heightening awareness (...) of this nondual self-presence constitutive of consciousness as such. More than that, both describe a process of deepening awareness of this nondual self-presence: a contemplative passage from awareness of the relatively superficial nondual presence that renders ordinary intentional contents experientially available to awareness of a more profound nondual self-presence sensed as a limitless, primordial-most ground. Helminiak’s account thus provides a basic understanding of consciousness, and with it a contemplative psychology and gnoseology, which can mediate further Christian theological reception of Tibetan Mahāmudrā and other traditions where nondual awareness is central: it is both Christian-adjacent (connate with deep Christian trends) and also speaks in the terms of these Mahāmudrā descriptions—namely, a philosophy of mind and consciousness for which consciousness as such is nondual self-presence. Helminiak’s account thus gives us a Christian-adjacent cognitional theory and gnoseology for which the kinds of contemplative development described by Mahāmudrā make sense—in other words, can be anticipated and to a significant but not total degree restated in the terms of a Christian-adjacent contemplative psychology. (shrink)

Richard Bradley and others endorse Reverse Bayesianism as the way to model awareness growth. I raise a problem for Reverse Bayesianism—at least for the general version that Bradley endorses—and argue that there is no plausible way to restrict the principle that will give us the right results. To get the right results, we need to pay attention to the attitudes that agents have towards propositions of which they are unaware. This raises more general questions about how awareness growth (...) should be modelled. (shrink)

This chapter explores the implications of William Alston's claim that God knows what he knows without having any beliefs. Most discussions of God's knowledge assume that we ought to understand God's knowledge as being something like a propositional attitude, just as we understand human knowledge. Alston has challenged this construal of divine knowledge. God knows what he knows, Alston claims, in virtue of his direct awareness of facts. He does not have propositional attitudes at all. It is argued that (...) if God knows what he knows by direct awareness, then God must be atemporal. If God is temporal, he cannot have absolute immediate awareness of past or future facts. Absolute immediate awareness cannot span time. A knowing subject who is temporal can have direct intuitive awareness only of those facts that are temporally present. (shrink)

This paper defends a Brentanian account of the subject’s awareness of her own experiences—or inner awareness for short. The proposed account expands on Brentano’s claim that inner awareness, like outer awareness, comes in two forms, implicit and explicit. This distinction, it is argued, makes the account far more objection-resistant than usually believed. Especially, it makes the latter compatible with (i) the existence of unnoticed mental phenomena, (ii) the non-objectifying character of pre-reflective inner awareness, and (iii) (...) the possibility of improving or correcting one’s descriptions of one’s own experiences. Section 1 argues that compatibility with (i)-(iii) is a desideratum that should be met by any satisfying theory of inner awareness. Section 2 introduces the notion of implicit awareness, argues for its existence, and gives many examples thereof. Section 3 addresses the question as to how to make implicit awareness explicit and argues that the explicitness of inner awareness does not result from any inward-looking process but goes hand-in-hand with the explicitness of outer awareness. Eventually, Section 4 shows that the resulting picture is compatible with (i)-(iii) and offers a promising alternative to so-called inner-sense theories. (shrink)

Taking into consideration the findings of this monograph, a working definition for Islamic mindfulness is presented in this chapter, to play on the words of Kabat-Zinn, mindfulness in Islam is: ‘Paying attention to the present moment, on purpose, with awareness of God’s presence’, the outcome of which should lead to good action and enhanced wellbeing. Where, purposeful present moment awareness is qualified only by the awareness of the One God, as, it is this concept that lies at (...) the centre of Islamic mindfulness, from which all associated concepts and practices gain significance. (shrink)

In The Varieties of Reference (1982), Gareth Evans claims that considerations having to do with certain basic ways we have of gaining knowledge of our own physical states and properties provide "the most powerful antidote to a Cartesian conception of the self" (220). In this chapter, I start with a discussion and evaluation of Evans' own argument, which is, I think, in the end unconvincing. Then I raise the possibility of a more direct application of similar considerations in defence of (...) common sense anti-Cartesianism. Progress in this direction depends upon a far more psychologically informed understanding of normal and abnormal bodily awareness than is generally found in philosophical discussions of these issues. In the context of my attempt at some such understanding, I go on to assess the potential of this more direct line of argument. (shrink)

According to Phenomenal Conservatism (PC), if a subject S has an appearance that P, in the absence of defeaters, S has justification for believing P by virtue of her appearance's inherent justifying power. McCain and Moretti (2021) have argued that PC is affected by the problem of reflective awareness: if S becomes reflectively aware of an appearance, the appearance loses its inherent justifying power. This limits the explanatory power of PC and reduces its antisceptical bite. This paper provides a (...) novel argument to the same conclusion and contends that it does not apply to Phenomenal Explanationism, the appearance-based account of justification alternative to PC defended by McCain and Moretti (2021). (shrink)

This study investigated the relationships among undergraduate students’ awareness, perception, and preparedness to use artificial intelligence (AI) tools for decision- making during health emergencies in two Nigerian public universities (N = 4,632). A cross-sectional correlational design was adopted for the study. Data were collected using an online questionnaire with valid and reliable psychometric properties (α ≥ 0.90). One-sample t-tests revealed that undergraduates reported high levels of awareness (t = 55.97, < 0.001) and perception (t = 86.92, p < (...) 0.001) regarding AI use.p Although their preparedness to use AI for decision-making during health emergencies was statistically significant (t = − 34.08, p < 0.001), the mean score was comparatively lower than the baseline value of 2.50, indicating a significantly low level of preparedness. Simple linear regression analyses revealed that AI awareness significantly predicted perception and preparedness. Perception also significantly predicted preparedness. Both awareness and perception jointly accounted for 9.6% of the variance in preparedness (F(2, 4629) = 247.08, p < 0.001). Relatively, awareness remained a significant predictor of preparedness (β = 0.304, p < 0.001) even after controlling for perception. In contrast, perception became insignificant in predicting readiness when awareness was controlled for. Random forest regression (RFR) was used to test predictive accuracy and assess non-linear patterns. The results showed that awareness and perception explained 26% (training set) and 25% (test set) of the variance in undergraduates’ readiness. RFR results solidified the importance of AI awareness as the top predictor (100% predictive importance) over perception (78% predictive importance). These findings suggest that foundationalknowledge is associated with increasing readiness to adopt AI during health emergencies. Therefore, educational interventions should focus on enhancing AI awareness to improve students’ preparedness higher institutions of learning. Keywords. (shrink)

This quantitative study sought to determine the level of awareness of educators and learners about the different forms of bullying. Twenty faculty members and two hundred sixty randomly chosen Headstart College of Cotabato learners enrolled in the 2024–2025 academic year participated in the survey through a stratified random sampling technique. With mean scores ranging from high to very high, and an overall very high interpretation, the learners demonstrated a high level of understanding of the many forms of bullying, including (...) written, verbal, electronic, and physical acts or gestures. The educator with a very high interpretation indicates a good level of understanding regarding the four types of bullying. The Mann-Whitney U test, which compares educators and learners' awareness of different forms of bullying, reveals no statistically significant differences in most of the categories: written bullying (U=2166.50, p=0.2149), electronic expression (U=2243.50, p=0.3077), physical acts or gestures (U=2498.00, p=0.7718), however in terms of verbal bullying (U=1706.50, p=0.0105) shows significant with very high awareness result. In order to strengthen school-wide efforts (Headstart College of Cotabato) to prevent bullying, it is suggested that “Perspective Recalibration: A Capacity Enhancement Program on Bullying Awareness of Educators and Learners” be created. This program would align educators' and learners' perspectives through a shared understanding of bullying behaviors. (shrink)

This study investigates whether the conscious awareness of action is based on predictive motor control processes, or on inferential “sense-making” process that occur after the action itself. We investigated whether the temporal binding between perceptual estimates of operant actions and their effects depends on the occurrence of the effect (inferential processes) or on the prediction that the effect will occur (predictive processes). By varying the probability with which a simple manual action produced an auditory effect, we showed that both (...) the actual and the predicted occurrence of the effect played a role. When predictability of the effect of action was low, temporal binding was found only on those trials where the auditory effect occurred. In contrast, when predictability of the effect of action was high, temporal binding occurred even on trials where the action produced no effect. Further analysis showed that the predictive process is modulated by recent experience of the action-effect relation. We conclude that the experience of action depends on a dynamic combination of predictive and inferential processes. (shrink)

... Let me start my investigation by taking a brief look at the way in which self-awareness is expressed linguistically, as in the sentences "I am tired" or ...

This is the first of two papers where we present a formal model of unawareness. We contrast unawareness with certainty and uncertainty. A subject is certain of something when he knows that thing; he is uncertain when he does not know it, but he knows he does not: he is consciously uncertain. On the other hand, he isunaware of something when he does not know it, and he does not know he does not know, and so on ad infinitum: he (...) does not perceive, does not have in mind, the object of knowledge. The opposite of unawareness is awareness, which includes certainty and uncertainty.This paper has three main purposes. First, we formalize the concept of awareness, and introduce a symmetry axiom which states that a subject can be aware of something, ϕ say, if and only if he is aware of its negation not-ϕ; in other words, that ϕ and not-ϕ are perceived together, or neither is. We then derive the basic properties of awareness.The second purpose is to prove a different axiomatic characterization, based on the concept of awareness of the system which underlies the model of information with partitional structures (known asS5).The third purpose of this paper is to show that without a substantial weakening of the rules of inferences normally assumed in modal logic a satisfactory model of unawareness, which includes the symmetry axiom, is impossible. This alternative approach is developed in a second paper by the same authors. (shrink)

This important book investigates the emergence and development of a distinct concept of self-awareness in post-classical, pre-modern Islamic philosophy. Jari Kaukua presents the first extended analysis of Avicenna's arguments on self-awareness - including the flying man, the argument from the unity of experience, the argument against reflection models of self-awareness and the argument from personal identity - arguing that all these arguments hinge on a clearly definable concept of self-awareness as pure first-personality. He substantiates his interpretation (...) with an analysis of Suhrawardī's use of Avicenna's concept and Mullā Sadrā's revision of the underlying concept of selfhood. The study explores evidence for a sustained, pre-modern and non-Western discussion of selfhood and self-awareness, challenging the idea that these concepts are distinctly modern, European concerns. The book will be of interest to a range of readers in history of philosophy, history of ideas, Islamic studies and philosophy of mind. (shrink)

Is property-awareness constituted by representation or not? If it were, merely being aware of the qualities of physical objects would involve being in a representational state. This would have considerable implications for a prominent view of the nature of successful perceptual experiences. According to naïve realism, any such experience—or more specifically its character—is fundamentally a relation of awareness to concrete items in the environment. Naïve realists take their view to be a genuine alternative to representationalism, the view on (...) which the character of such experiences is constituted by representation. But naïve realists must admit qualities or property instances as items of awareness if they are to remain wedded to common sense, and the nature of property-awareness may smuggle constitutive representation into the naïve realist account of character. I argue that whether property-awareness involves representation, and consequently whether naïve realism is distinct from representationalism or not, depends on what qualities are fundamentally. On universalist and nominalist accounts, property-awareness turns out to involve representation. Not so under tropism. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that self-awareness is intertwined with one's awareness of possibilities for action. I show this by critically examining Dan Zahavi's multidimensional account of the self. I argue that the distinction Zahavi makes among 'pre-reflective minimal', 'interpersonal', and 'normative' dimensions of selfhood needs to be refined in order to accommodate what I call 'pre-reflective self-understanding'. The latter is a normative dimension of selfhood manifest not in reflection and deliberation, but in the habits and style of (...) a person’s pre-reflective absorption in the world. After reviewing Zahavi's multidimensional account and revealing this gap in his explanatory taxonomy, I draw upon Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, and Frankfurt in order to sketch an account of pre-reflective self-understanding. I end by raising an objection to Zahavi’s claim for the primitive and foundational status of pre-reflective self-awareness. To carve off self-awareness from the self’s practical immersion in a situation where things and possibilities already matter and draw one to act is to distort the phenomena. A more careful phenomenology of pre-reflective action shows that pre-reflective self-awareness and pre-reflective self-understanding are co-constitutive, both mutually for each other and jointly for everyday experience. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that the conscious awareness one has of oneself as acting, i.e., agentive awareness, is not a type of sensory awareness. After providing some set up in Sect. 1, I move on in Sect. 2 to sketch a profile of sensory agentive experiences as representational states with sensory qualities by which we come to be aware of ourselves as performing actions. In Sect. 3, I critique two leading arguments in favor of positing such (...) sensory experiences: the argument from pathology and the argument from cognitive impenetrability. Since neither of these arguments succeeds, the case for positing SAEs is dealt a significant blow. I proceed in Sect. 4 to advance my positive argument against SAEs. The argument runs as follows: If SAEs exist, then they must exist in some sensory modality or set of sensory modalities. Either the relevant sensory modalities are ones that we already recognize, or they are novel sensory modalities. I will argue that neither of these options is workable, and so we have nowhere to locate SAEs. Agentive awareness is not sensory awareness. (shrink)

In recent years, much work has been dedicated by logicians, computer scientists and economists to understanding awareness, as its importance for human behaviour becomes evident. Although several logics of awareness have been proposed, little attention has been explicitly dedicated to change in awareness. However, one of the most crucial aspects of awareness is the changes it undergoes, which have countless important consequences for knowledge and action. The aim of this paper is to propose a formal model (...) of awareness change, and to derive from it logics of awareness change. In the first part of the paper, the model of epistemic states of bounded agents proposed in Hill (Stud Log 89(1):81–109, 2008a ) is extended with operations modelling awareness change. In the second part of the paper, it is shown how this model naturally extends the “standard” logic of awareness to yield a logic of awareness change. (shrink)

The concept of “self-awareness” ( svasaṃvedana ) enters Buddhist epistemological discourse in the Pramāṇasamuccaya and - vṛtti by Dignāga (ca. 480–540), the founder of the Buddhist logico-epistemological tradition. Though some of the key passages have already been dealt with in various publications, no attempt has been made to comprehensively examine all of them as a whole. A close reading is here proposed to make up for this deficit. In connection with a particularly difficult passage (PS(V) 1.8cd-10) that presents the (...) means of valid cognition and its result ( pramāṇa/pramāṇaphala ), a new interpretation is suggested, inspired by the commentary of Jinendrabuddhi. This interpretation highlights an aspect of selfawareness that has hitherto not been claimed for Dignāga: self-awareness offers essentially subjective access to one’s own mental states and factors. (shrink)

Enhancing body awareness has been described as a key element or a mechanism of action for therapeutic approaches often categorized as mind-body approaches, such as yoga, TaiChi, Body-Oriented Psychotherapy, Body Awareness Therapy, mindfulness based therapies/meditation, Feldenkrais, Alexander Method, Breath Therapy and others with reported benefits for a variety of health conditions. To better understand the conceptualization of body awareness in mind-body therapies, leading practitioners and teaching faculty of these approaches were invited as well as their patients to (...) participate in focus groups. The qualitative analysis of these focus groups with representative practitioners of body awareness practices, and the perspectives of their patients, elucidated the common ground of their understanding of body awareness. For them body awareness is an inseparable aspect of embodied self awareness realized in action and interaction with the environment and world. It is the awareness of embodiment as an innate tendency of our organism for emergent self-organization and wholeness. The process that patients undergo in these therapies was seen as a progression towards greater unity between body and self, very similar to the conceptualization of embodiment as dialectic of body and self described by some philosophers as being experienced in distinct developmental levels. (shrink)

Awareness growth—coming to entertain propositions of which one was previously unaware—is a crucial aspect of epistemic thriving. And yet, it is widely believed that orthodox Bayesianism cannot accommodate this phenomenon, since that would require employing supposedly defective catch-all propositions. Orthodox Bayesianism, it is concluded, must be amended. In this paper, I show that this argument fails, and that, on the contrary, the orthodox version of Bayesianism is particularly well-suited to accommodate awareness growth. For it entails what I call (...) the refinement view, which allows us to capture that awareness growth consists in the increase of one’s capacity of discernment. (shrink)

Dependent Arising (paṭicca-samuppāda) is often interpreted either as a doctrine of rebirth or as a general theory of causality. This paper proposes a different reading: Dependent Arising as a phenomenological description of how suffering is constructed and ceased within lived experience. Drawing on a personal reflection grounded in early Buddhist teachings, the paper focuses on sati (awareness) as the decisive turning point in this process. Rather than treating suffering as an inevitable result of conditioned existence, this study argues that (...) suffering arises at a specific moment—when feeling gives rise to craving through habitual patterns of judgment and fixation. At this critical juncture, sati functions as an immediate recognition of the mind’s movement toward grasping. When such awareness is present, ignorance loses its operative force, and the chain of Dependent Arising does not proceed further. By examining the transition from momentary awareness to sustained mindfulness, the paper shows how Dependent Arising shifts from a closed cycle of suffering to an open and observable process. In this light, conditioned phenomena (saṅkhata-dhamma) are no longer experienced as fixed or absolute, but as fluid and contingent. The paper further suggests that the Four Noble Truths and the Twelvefold Chain express a single insight in complementary forms: the structure of suffering and the practical means of its cessation. Ultimately, this essay presents Dependent Arising not as a metaphysical claim, but as a path of seeing—one that reveals freedom not beyond experience, but within the clear awareness of experience as it unfolds. (shrink)

The control of action has traditionally been described as "automatic". In particular, movement control may occur without conscious awareness, in contrast to normal visual perception. Studies on rapid visuomotor adjustment of reaching movements following a target shift have played a large part in introducing such distinctions. We suggest that previous studies of the relation between motor performance and perceptual awareness have confounded two separate dissociations. These are: (a) the distinction between motoric and perceptual representations, and (b) an orthogonal (...) distinction between conscious and unconscious processes. To articulate these differences more clearly, we propose a new measure of motor awareness, based on subjects' ability to reproduce the spatial details of reaching movements they have just made. Here we focus on the dissociation between motor awareness and perceptual awareness that may occur when subjects make rapid visuomotor adjustments to reaching movements following a target shift. In experiment 1, motor awareness was dissociated from perceptual awareness of a target shift during reaching movement. Participants' reproduction of movement endpoints following visuomotor adjustment was independent of whether they saw the target shift or not. Experiment 2 replicated this result, and further showed that neither motor awareness nor motor performance were disrupted by TMS over the parietal cortex. The neural mechanisms underlying motor awareness, and the implications for theories of consciousness, are discussed. (shrink)

We present Birch and colleagues with a dilemma. On one interpretation, they aim to chart the distribution of a sort of minimal perceptual awareness across the animal kingdom, where that awareness can be fully characterized in third-person psychological terms. On this interpretation, the project is worthy but dull, since it doesn’t touch the question that has excited most people: whether other animals are phenomenally conscious. On an alternative interpretation, in contrast, they hope to resolve this latter question, arguing (...) that phenomenal consciousness is extremely widespread. But if this is their intention, then their argument begs the question. (shrink)

To evaluate the moral awareness of college students regarding artificial intelligence (AI) systems, we have examined 467 surveys collected from 152 Japanese and 315 non-Japanese students in an international university in Japan. The students were asked to choose a most significant moral problem of AI applications in the future from a list of ten ethical issues and to write an essay about it. The results show that most of the students (n = 269, 58%) considered unemployment to be the (...) major ethical issue related to AI. The second largest group of students (n = 54, 12%) was concerned with ethical issues related to emotional AI, including the impact of AI on human behavior and emotion and robots’ rights and emotions. A relatively small number of students referred to the risk of social control by AI (6%), AI discrimination (6%), increasing inequality (5%), loss of privacy (4%), AI mistakes (3%), malicious AI (3%), and AI security breaches (3%). Calculation of the z score for two population proportions shows that Japanese students were much less concerned about AI control of society (− 3.1276, p < 0.01) than non-Japanese students, but more concerned about discrimination (2.2757, p < 0.05). Female students were less concerned about unemployment (− 2.6108, p < 0.01) than males, but more concerned about discrimination (2.4333, p < 0.05). The study concludes that the moral awareness of college students regarding AI technologies is quite limited and recommends including the ethics of AI in the curriculum. (shrink)

In this study, falsification-aware semantics and sequent calculi for first-order classical logic are introduced and investigated. These semantics and sequent calculi are constructed based on a falsification-aware setting for first-order Nelson constructive three-valued logic. In fact, these semantics and sequent calculi are regarded as those for a classical variant of N3. The completeness and cut-elimination theorems for the proposed semantics and sequent calculi are proved using Schütte’s method. Similar results for the propositional case are also obtained.

Background: A large number of nurse researchers do not adhere to ethical standards while performing the research. Moreover, there is far less data on knowledge of existing national ethical guidelines. This study was, therefore, done to assess awareness and adherence to current national ethical guidelines among nursing students and faculty members. Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive study was done among nursing faculty members and theses carried out by postgraduate nursing students between 2012 and 2017. Using the convenience sampling technique, seven (...) states of North India were selected. In each of the selected seven states, one government and one private nursing college was selected. Thus, a sample of 14 nursing colleges was selected. Then, using simple random sampling, a total of 140 nursing faculty members and 280 postgraduate nursing theses were selected from all the chosen institutes to be part of the study. Data analysis was done using descriptive statistics. Ethical considerations: The study has been approved by the institutional ethical committee (ECR/737/Inst/UK/2018/RR-18). In addition, written permission from the head of each nursing institute was obtained before conducting the study. After participants read the Participation Information Sheet, they were asked for written informed consent before data collection. Confidentiality of the information and anonymity of the participants were maintained throughout the study. Results: The majority (81.8%) of the participants were females. It was found that compared to private nurses, government college nurses were more adhered to the research guidelines on research project approval (68.6% vs 22.1%), informed consent guidelines (74.3% vs 25%), providing patient information sheets (55.7% vs 10%), maintaining information confidentiality (82.9% vs 72.1%), maintaining anonymity (76.4% vs 22.9%) and obtaining custodian permission (97.8 vs 89.3%). It was also shown that nurses were more aware of the informed consent process domain (4.3 ± 0.3) followed by the general ethical principles domain (3.8 ± 0.8). Conclusion: Government college nurses adhered more to the research guidelines as compared to those employed in private settings. Most of the faculty members were not part of any clinical trials and had no research ethics training at all. Therefore, it is needed to provide an instructional programme to raise awareness of the research ethical standards. (shrink)

We present a new argument in favor of the Awareness Principle, the principle that one is always aware of one’s concurrent conscious states. Informally, the argument is this: (1) Your conscious states are such that you can attend to them without undertaking any action _beyond mere shift of attention_; but (2) You cannot come to attend to something without undertaking any action beyond mere shift of attention unless you are already aware of that thing; so, (3) Your conscious states (...) are such that you are aware of them. We open by introducing more fully the Awareness Principle (§ 1) and explicating the crucial notion of “mere shift of attention” (§ 2). We then develop the argument more fully, first in an intuitive form (§ 3) and then more formally (§ 4), before replying to a series of objections (§§ 5–7). (shrink)

Recent work in "embodied, embedded" cognitive science links mental contents to large-scale distributed effects: dynamic patterns implicating elements of (what are traditionally seen as) sensing, reasoning and acting. Central to this approach is an idea of biological cognition as profoundly "action-oriented" - geared not to the creation of rich, passive inner models of the world, but to the cheap and efficient production of real-world action in real-world context. A case in point is Hurley's (1998) account of the profound role of (...) motor output in fixing the contents of conscious visual awareness - an account that also emphasizes distributed vehicles and long-range dynamical loops. Such stories can seem dramatically opposed to accounts, such as Milner and Goodale (1995), that stress relatively local mechanisms and that posit firm divisions between processes of visual awareness and of visuomotor action. But such accounts, I argue, can be deeply complimentary and together illustrate an important lesson. The lesson is that cognition may be embodied and action-oriented in two distinct - but complimentary - ways. There is a way of being embodied and action-oriented that implies being closely geared to the fine-grained control of low level effectors (hands, arms, legs and so on). And there is a way of being embodied and action-oriented that implies being closely geared to gross motor intentions, current goals, and schematic motor plans. Human cognition, I suggest, is embodied and action-oriented in both these ways. But the neural systems involved, and the size and scope of the key dynamic loops, may be quite different in each case. (shrink)

This paper discusses the content of agency awareness. It contrast three elements in content: what the goal is, how it is to be reached, and who is having the goal/performing the action ? Marc Jeannerod's claim that goal representations are self-other neutral is discussed. If goal representations are essentially sharable, then we do not understand other people by projecting a piece of internal knowledge on to them, as often assumed. The problem which our brain has to solve is the (...) converse problem : determining who the agent is, once a goal is identified. This view has interesting consequences on the theory of mentalization. One can plausibly speculate that observing action, with an additional simulatory component for action memory, form major building blocks in understanding other minds. Metarepresenting, in this perspective, would depend on additional executive capacities for maintaining distinct the inferences from diverse simulated contexts of action. (shrink)

What norm governs how an agent should change their beliefs when they encounter a completely new possibility? Orthodox Bayesianism has no answer, as it takes all learning to involve updating prior beliefs. A partial proposal is Reverse Bayesianism, which mandates the preservation of ratios of prior probabilities, but it faces counterexamples introduced by Mahtani (2021). I propose to separate awareness growth into two stages: awareness revision and belief extension. I argue that Mahtani’s cases highlight that we need to (...) theorize awareness revision before we can define a proposal for belief extension, such as Reverse Bayesianism. I provide a formal model of awareness revision which makes explicit how propositions are distinguished within awareness states and identified across them. Reformulating Reverse Bayesianism to take input from my model allows it to navigate Mahtani-style cases. My model leaves open how agents choose to identify propositions across awareness states, and I propose that they ought to do so conservatively: preserving undisturbed prior reasoning about the structure of their awareness. I then spell out this proposal in a special case. This is a partial proposal, and I close with a discussion of how to elaborate on it and how to advance research into awareness revision. (shrink)