We present a new argument in favor of the Awareness Principle, the principle that one is always aware of one’s concurrent conscious states. Informally, the argument is this: (1) Your conscious states are such that you can attend to them without undertaking any action beyond mere shift of attention; but (2) You cannot come to attend to something without undertaking any action beyond mere shift of attention unless you are already aware of that thing; so, (3) Your conscious states are such that you are aware of them. We open by introducing more fully the Awareness Principle (§ 1) and explicating the crucial notion of “mere shift of attention” (§ 2). We then develop the argument more fully, first in an intuitive form (§ 3) and then more formally (§ 4), before replying to a series of objections (§§ 5–7).

我们提出了一个支持意识原则的新论点，即一个人总是意识到自己同时存在的意识状态的原则。非正式地，论点是这样的：（1）你的意识状态是这样的，你可以关注它们，而无需采取任何除了转移注意力之外的行动；但是（2）除非你已经意识到某件事，否则你无法在不采取任何超出单纯转移注意力的行动的情况下关注某件事；所以，（3）你的意识状态是你能意识到的。我们首先更全面地介绍意识原则（§ 1）并解释“仅仅转移注意力”（§ 2）的关键概念。然后，我们首先以直观的形式（第 3 节），然后更正式地（第 4 节），更全面地展开论证，然后再回复一系列反对意见（第 5-7 节）。