Abstract

In this paper I present a conception of the consciousness (higher-order monitoring conception of consciousness) that it is frequent in the present philosophical literature according to which the consciousness is thought as a kind of cognitive access to our own mental states. I also present one ofthe most formulated objections to this way of conceiving the consciousness. I refer to the objection according to which this viewpoint leaves out the phenomenal consciousness. I defend the idea that even the phenomenal consciousness involves sorne form of cognitive access and if the distinction of Block between phenomenal consciousness and access consciousness want to be maintained, theses notions must be thought as the two extremes of the same continuum.