 Some will urge that before we ask whether unified consciousness exists, we should first ask, Does consciousness exist? There now seems to be a wide consensus that the answer to this question is, Yes, there is in us something appropriately called ‘consciousness’. Even those who hold that the long-standing idea that  intentionality (see entry)  is a matter of attitudes to propositions is false and ripe for elimination, Paul and Patricia Churchland for example, allow that consciousness exists, though they urge that the concept be trimmed a bit (see, for example, Patricia Churchland 1983). Some writers have taken Dennett (1991) to deny that consciousness exists, either directly or by implication. He himself has said repeatedly that consciousness is real, however (1995: 135, 146 are two examples). A few writers, Wilkes (1984) and Rey (1988) for example, have espoused true eliminativist about consciousness but they are a tiny minority. 