 One sometimes distinguishes two uses of the term ‘conscious’, a transitive and an intransitive use. On the one hand, we can speak of our being conscious of something, be it x, y, or z. On the other, we can speak of our being conscious simpliciter (rather than non-conscious). For some time a widespread way to account for intransitive consciousness in cognitive science and analytic philosophy of mind has been by means of some kind of higher-order theory. The distinction between conscious and non-conscious mental states has been taken to rest upon the presence or absence of a relevant meta-mental state (e.g., Armstrong 1968; Carruthers 1996, 2000; Lycan 1987, 1996; Rosenthal 1997). Thus, intransitive consciousness has been taken to depend upon the mind directing its intentional aim at its own states and operations. As Carruthers puts it, the subjective feel of experience presupposes a capacity for higher-order awareness: “such self-awareness is a conceptually necessary condition for an organism to be a subject of phenomenal feelings, or for there to be anything that its experiences are like” (1996, 152). But for Carruthers, the self-awareness in question is a type of reflection. In his view, a creature must be capable of reflecting upon, thinking about, and hence conceptualizing its own mental states if those mental states are to be states of which the creature is aware (1996, 155, 157).