# Too Far Too Close - The Self-Representationalists Intimacy Dilemma **Abstract:** . According to meta-representationalism, a mental state is con‐ scious in virtue of being suitably represented by inner awareness. This account is attractive, as it paves the way to a naturalistic explanation of consciousness in terms of mental representation. However, one famous objection is that it fails to capture the “intimate” relation between inner awareness and conscious qualities. A prominent reply is due to Uriah Kriegel. In his book Subjective Consciousness: A Self-Representational Theory, he argues that the self-representationalist variant of meta-repre‐ sentationalism can preserve intimacy while maintaining the naturalistic and explanatory character of meta-representationalism by construing inner awareness as a constituting representation. In this paper, I do two things. First, I clarify what construing inner awareness as a constituting representation exactly amounts to, if intimacy is to be vindicated. Second, I argue that Kriegel’s solution leads to the Intimacy Dilemma: either the self-representationalist accommodates intimacy by appealing to constituting representation; or they provide a naturalistic explanation about:blank 1/42 01/10/2025, 17:49 Too Far, Too Close? The Self-Representationalist’s Intimacy Dilemma of consciousness in terms of mental representation. But they cannot do both. So, I conclude, appealing to constituting representation is not a good solution for the naturalistically minded self-representationalist but gets them into serious troubles. **Authors:** [[Too Far, Too Close?]]