Isabel Gois

In recent years there has been a growing interest and investment in prison-based philosophy programs. These programs are believed to support broad rehabilitative aims such as safe custody, educational achievement and the acquisition of life skills and coping strategies needed both during and post-release. However, their operation and effectiveness in the real-world of prison environments is poorly understood. This scoping review aimed to identify and assess existing evidence on the impact of philosophy programs in prison and to explore factors that may influence their effectiveness. The review highlights a clear need for more rigorous research to assess the value added by philosophy programs in prisons.

Higher Order theories of consciousness have their fair share of sympathisers, but the arguments mustered in their support are—to my mind—unduly persuasive. My aim in this paper is to show that Higher Order theories cannot accommodate the possibility of misrepresentation without either falling into contradiction, or collapsing into a First-Order theory. If this diagnosis is on the right track, then Higher Order theories—at least in the specific versions here considered—fail to give an account of what they set out to explain: what is distinctive of ‘conscious’ phenomena.