Mind-as-consciousness is an on-off concept excluding intermediate degrees

Evidence

The account of mind in terms of consciousness allows for no Aristotelian fusion and for no continuity. On Descartes’ account, mind, the inner mechanism which explains the operations of the mechanically conceived human body, also divides humans utterly from the rest of nature, from which mind is totally absent. The mind, and its major feature consciousness, becomes an on/off concept—it is either fully present or it is not present at all. There is no room for distinctions of kind or for differences of degree. Either something ‘has a mind’ or it does not, and having a mind requires consciousness or ‘thought’. — Val Plumwood, Feminism and the Mastery of Nature, 426

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines how consciousness-as-on/off constructs an absolute rather than graded division between humans and nature.
• XREF: connects to: Descartes relocated the Platonic devaluation of nature from virtue into consciousness — Val Plumwood, Feminism and the Mastery of Nature, 423; Conflating consciousness with reason lets Descartes deny animal sensation — Val Plumwood, Feminism and the Mastery of Nature, 427