• We’ve seen much discussion of “internal representations” as part of the mind or things mental. The term ‘higher-order’ in ‘higher-order representation’ refers to the fact the theories Lycan discusses in §§1-3 treat consciousness as representation of such representation (as distinct from representation of the world or our the state of our bodies, which would be “first-order” representation). Lycan’s discussion of objections to such theories and his responses to these objections often takes the form of fairly short summaries of things he and others have said elsewhere, so you can expect to need to read them slowly (and our discussion of them will also take time).

• In §§4-6, Lycan argues for a version of a higher-order representation theory of consciousness that treats its representation as akin to that of perception (hence “higher-order perception,” the “HOP” of the title) rather than that of thought (so it is opposed to a “higher-order thought,” or “HOT,” account of consciousness. Again he considers a series of arguments, all in reply to an objection by David Rosenthal (a substantial selection from the paper where Rosenthal makes this objection is the preceding item in the anthology—LP39, pp. 605-616). Although Lycan’s arguments in this part are presented at greater length than in the first part, my sense is that they are a bit less self-contained, so you might find it harder to get into them. Partly because of that but mainly because of the number of arguments, we are unlikely to get very far into this part of the paper in discussion. Still, you should give careful consideration to the short §§4-5 and think enough about the arguments in §6 to be able to suggest one or two that you think we should talk about.