A Study of Peter Carruthers's View, " Dispositionalist Higher-Order Thought Theory"

Explaining the nature of consciousness is one of the most important and perplexing areas in philosophy. What is consciousness? How is the conscious mind related to the body? Can consciousness be explained in terms of brain activity? How can we explain the sensation of the smelling of a rose or a conscious visual experience? One question that should be answered by any plausible theory of consciousness is: What makes a mental state a conscious mental state? Some Philosophers have attempted to understand consciousness in terms of some kind of higher-order awareness. But the question is whether these efforts are sufficient or even correct?
In this paper I have used the library method which involves the step-by-step process used to gather information found in primary sources.
There are a number of different kinds of higher-order theory, depending on how one characterizes the HOR-state in question. In general, the idea that what makes a mental state conscious is that it is the object of some kind of higher-order representation (HOR). So, for example, my desire to write a good article becomes conscious when I become “aware” of the desire. Any theory which attempts to explain consciousness in terms of higher-order states is known as a higher-order (HO) theory of consciousness. In this article, Peter Carruthers’s View, “Dispositionalist Higher- Order Thought Theory”, is discussed.
It seems that the Carruthers’s view faces serious problems and answering them on the basis of all representational views (first or second order) is very difficult. This is also the case with Carruthers’s view that claims conscious mental states gain dual intentional content.