But in a representational framework like DRT the representations themselves provide the only criterion for judging identity of meaning.
Memory may involve representations of the past, most modern representationists argue, without involving awareness of those representations themselves.
It seems clear, for starters, that our interest in artistic representations is not exhausted by our interest in what they represent: we take pleasure in the representations themselves as representations.
In fact many critics of memory traces argue that representative realism is fundamentally flawed even if it does not posit awareness of representations themselves.
Rather, it is the necessary consequence of the oppositions among our representations themselves, and thus dependent on their native vivacity (cf. Boudewijnse, et al. 1999: 178 9).
On the most common versions of externalism, though intentional contents are externally determined, mental representations themselves, and the states they partly constitute, remain "in the head".
I omit Herbart's theory of the passions, but the upshot is similar: the force of passion is really the massed force of the representations themselves, as they work themselves up against an inhibiting obstacle.
However, given Spinoza's representational account of mind, the only two features that stand out as candidates for explaining consciousness are some features of the representations themselves (their complexity) or the causal efficacy of the ideas (their power).
In both cases it is important to see that the force of both affect and passion inheres in the representations themselves; when these forces are compressed or relaxed beyond the static point, they produce tension within the masses of representations, which manifests itself as affect (Weiss 1928: 90).
Thus, on the one hand, the world impinges on and perturbs the soul's natural placidity (cf., e.g., the Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad; PsW: 132 3; but see Felsch 1904: 196 7); on the other hand, the soul resists these disturbances (i.e., the representations themselves) by constantly seeking to reestablish a harmonious unity or equilibrium among them and thus "preserve", as far as possible, its own simplicity.
