Galen Strawson identified himself as a realist materialist pan-psychic,
who holds that everything is experiential.
Craig
Here is the hand-out from his talk:
Radical self-awareness Galen Strawson
old claim: the subject cannot in the present moment of awareness take itself as
it is in the present moment of awareness as the object of its awareness—any
more than the eye can see itself
present-moment self-awareness: ‘SA’ for short
‘thetic’: in the focus of attention, in attention; vs non-thetic
counterclaim: present-moment self-awareness possible both non-thetically and
thetically
real materialism: real materialists wholly realist about
experiential-qualitative character/’what-it’s- likeness’ of
experience/consciousness (which is wholly physical phenomenon); real
materialism
adductive not reductive
use ‘awareness’, ‘experience’, ‘consciousness’ interchangeably
Ryle: subject is ‘systematically elusive’ to itself (1949: 186).
[1] the subject of awareness can be aware of itself as it is in the present
moment of awareness
[2] the subject of awareness is always aware of itself as it is in the present
moment of awareness (whenever it’s aware in any way at all)
[1] Present-Moment Self-awareness is possible = P{SA} thesis
[2] Present-Moment Self-awareness is universal = U{SA} thesis
Husserl: ‘to be a subject is to be in the mode of being aware of oneself
(1921—8: 151) ancient view: rejects [1] and afortiori [2] both non-thetic and
thetic
two principles
[P1] awareness of a property of x is ipso facto awareness of x
[P2] awareness is (necessarily) a property of a subject of awareness
[P1] and [P2] entail
[3] any awareness, Al ,of any awareness, A2, entails awareness of the subject
of A2
add
[4] all awareness involves awareness of awareness
only defensible version of [4] is
[5] all awareness involves awareness of itself = AOI thesis
otherwise there is a infinite regress (Aristotle, Descartes, Arnauld, Locke,
Reid, Brentano, Husserl)
[5] = AOI thesis amounts in effect to [2] = the U{SA} thesis, the claim that
the subject of awareness is always present-moment-aware of itself (not formally
valid, but the idea is clear)
question: even if [5] is true, perhaps
[6] all awareness is or involves present-moment awareness of itself
is false, because there’s always a time-lag?
well, not possible if [5] is true, because then all streams of awareness would
have to last for ever (otherwise last moment wouldn’t involve awareness of
itself)
Descartes: ‘we cannot have any thought of which we are not aware at the very
moment when it is in us’ (1641: 2.171) ... ‘the initial thought by means of
which we become aware of something does not differ from the second thought by
means of which we become aware that we were aware of it, any more than this
second thought differs from the third thought by means of which we become aware
that we were aware that we were aware’ (1641: 2.382)
Arnauld: ‘thought or perception is essentially reflective on itself, or, as it
is said more aptly in Latin, est sui conscia [is conscious of itself]’ (1683:
71)
Reid: ‘I cannot imagine there is anything more in perceiving that I perceive a
star than in perceiving a star simply; otherwise there might be perceptions of
perceptions in infinitum’ (1748: 317).
Rei d (with disparaging intent): consciousness is ‘self-intimating’ in some
constitutive way, or ‘self- luminous,’ or ‘phosphorescent’ (1949: 158-9; see
also 162-3, 178)
Why is [5] = AOI thesis true? two options
• [01] [5] is true because it’s a necessary consequence of the intrinsic nature
of awareness; and this intrinsic nature can none the less be specified
independently of [5] in such a way that we can see why [5] is true
• [02] The fact that the AOI thesis i.e. [5] is true is constitutive of the
intrinsic nature of awareness in such a way that that intrinsic nature can’t be
specified independently of the fact that [5] is true
Locke: ‘thinking consists in being conscious that one thinks’ (1689: 2.1.19);
uses ‘thinking’ in the broad Cartesian sense to cover all experiential goings
on)
Louis Sass: the most fundamental sense of selfhood involves the experience of
self not as an object of awareness but, in some crucial respects, as an unseen
point of origin for action, experience, and thought.... What William James
called.. ... the ‘central nucleus of the Self’ is not, in fact, experienced as
an entity in the focus of our awareness, but, rather, as a kind of medium of
awareness, source of activity, or general directedness towards the world (1998:
562)
Bernard Lonergan: objects are present by being attended to, but subjects are
present [to themselves] as subjects, not by being attended to, but by
attending. As the parade of objects marches by, spectators do not have to slip
into the parade to be present to themselves (1967: 226).
Arthur Deikman: we know the internal observer not by observing it but by being
it ... knowing by being that which is known is ... different from perceptual
knowledge. (1996: 355)
Ryle: ‘my today’s self perpetually slips out of any hold of it that I try to
take’ (1949: 187)
Ryle: any mental performance ‘can be the concern of a higher-order performance’
but it ‘cannot be the concern of itself’ (1949: 188-9). When one thinks an
I-thought, this performance ‘is not dealt with in the operation which it itself
is. Even if the person is, for special speculative purposes, momentarily
concentrating on the Problem of the Self, he has failed and knows that he has
failed to catch more than the flying coat-tails of that which he was pursuing.
His quarry was the hunter
(1949: 187)
example: this very thought is puzzling: example suggests that a certain kind of
seemingly immediate self-presence of mind is possible even in an intentional,
designedly self-reflexive, and wholly
cognitive act perhaps it’s only when one tries to inspect the phenomenon, or
apprehend that one has succeeded, that one is jerked back into higher-order
thought about initial thought
central case of thetic present-moment self-awareness: coming to awareness of
oneself as a mental presence—or perhaps simply as mental presence — in a
certain alert but essentially unpointed, global way ... matter of letting go in
a certain way (Carrington Clinically Standardized Meditation)
content of this awareness?
seems to be good candidate for what is sometimes called pure consciousness
experience:
consciousness that is consciousness of the consciousness that it itself is and
that includes consciousness that it is consciousness of the obtaining of the
consciousness that it itself is
content expressed in impersonal mode: yes, but the claim is that the occurrence
of this content constitutes the subject’s being aware of
itself-in-the-present-moment, and in fact, of itself-
considered-as-itself-in-the-present-moment...
considered as itself: this expression usually thought to imply explicit
conceptualization, but needn’t (compare: experience something as square, red);
point is not that subject not capable of conceptualization, rather that
conceptualization lapses in this kind of self-awareness
Thetic P{SA}
[7] the subject of awareness can be fully thetically aware of itself as it is
in the present moment of
awareness -
proposal about ‘express’: one can be expressly aware but none the less
non-thetically aware of something (express but not in [the focus of] attention)
‘foreground’: x can be in foreground without being thetically apprehended / in
focus of attention
can present-moment self-awareness really be truly thetic?
(1) well, certainly seems right to say that it can be fully express, no less
express than any awareness of anything is when one’s awareness of it is thetic
(2) ‘thetic’ doesn’t/shouldn’t imply posing or positing or positioning of
oneself for inspection in a manner that inevitably involves subject’s being
distanced for inspection in such a way that subject really be said to be aware
of itself as it is at that moment
the ‘now-subject’
cognition: need a properly wide notion of what cognition is .. need to wean our
understanding of ‘thetic’ away from too narrow a conception of what cognition
is
should we give up ‘thetic’ and retreat to supposedly weaker Express P{SA}?
[8] subject of awareness can be fully expressly aware of itself in the present
moment of awareness
No
objection: thetic awareness is essentially a mediated form of awareness
so [1] there is inevitably a time lag
[2] one inevitably deals with a representation of the phenomenon one is aware
of, a representation which the phenomenon itself
reply: need to reconsider general notion of cognition (‘cognitive’ =
‘pertaining to ... knowing’)... note e.g. that standard distinction between
emotion and cognition is illegitimate because our emotions, however fallible,
are one of our main sources of knowledge of how things are
‘the having is the knowing’
acknowledge the reality of knowledge by acquaintance as knowledge/cognition in
the fullest sense e.g. how I know the nature of the pain that I feel now… such
knowledge by direct acquaintance
is, one might say, perfect (knowledge of a priori truths can be no less
perfect)... there is crucial aspect of reality—one’s conscious experience, the
experiential-qualitative character or what-it’s- likeness of one’s conscious
experience—that one knows as it is in itself, simply because ‘the having is the
knowing’ (and no neural time lag)
objection: example of knowledge or cognition by direct acquaintance isn’t
enough to illustrate what’s supposed to be going on in Thetic PSA:
true [1] notion of direct acquaintance seems clear in case of sense/feeling
aspects of experience
but [2] we take it that the acquaintance is in these cases non-thetic
so [3] can we hope to carry the understanding of direct acquaintance given by
non-thetic sense/feeling cases into the case that is centrally in question, the
case of Thetic PSA?
reply.: can perhaps take an intermediate step:
true, [1] my having-is-the-knowing direct acquaintance with my headache is
usually non-thetic
but [2] 1 can also take it as thetic object of attention without disrupting the
having-is-the-knowing direct
acquaintance. I bring the pain to attention, then somehow disappear as
observer, leaving only the pain (so too for sensation of blue when looking at
the sky)
if so [3] we already have a model of thetic direct acquaintance
and [4] why suppose some huge further gulf must appear when turn from case of
pain (sensation of blue) to case of the subject?
Thetic PSA claim
doesn’t in speaking of awareness make any claim about knowledge of the subject
as it is in itself, still less complete knowledge of the subject as it is in
itself
subject as active principle lying behind all experience: this picture remains
beguiling/attractive
bad reason for this: the metaphysics of subject and predicate forces itself
onus almost irresistibly, demanding that we distinguish between the subject of
awareness and its various states of awareness in a way I think incorrect
respectable reason: good sceptical instincts invite us to acknowledge that we
could be present- moment-aware of something and yet not know its essential
nature —
perhaps all awareness of anything, other than the what-it’s-likeness of
experience, is, necessarily and inevitably, mediated by a representation of
that thing —,
Kantian conclusion is triggered: ‘nothing which emerges from any affecting
relation can count as knowledge or awareness of the affecting thing as it is in
itself’ (P. F. Strawson 1966: 238)
Kant: famously takes the subject itself to be for this reason unknowable by
itself as it is in itself— knowable only as it appears to itself (if only
because it can only be encountered in the spatiotemporal—in particular
temporal—form of sensibility).. ... present suggestion is precisely that this
isn’t so—that it’s possible to be aware of the subject of awareness in an
immediate but none the less thetic way that is strictly parallel in respect of
immediacy to the immediate (im-mediate) awareness we have of experiential
what-it’s-likeness. Usually, representation/ mediation gets in the way, leaving
us with ‘mere appearance’; but not in this case
(Fichte’s principal objection to Kant, which he expressed by saying that the
subject can apprehend itself as subject in ‘intellectual intuition’, is on this
view correct, even if Fichte has quite different reasons for it)
two senses of ‘the subject’s awareness of itself considered specifically as
subject’
stronger: ‘as subject’ — subject’s awareness of itself involves its bringing
itself under the concept
SUBJECT
weaker: ‘as subject’ requires only that what subject is in fact concerned with
is itself in so far as it is a subject; allows that it may not in being so
concerned be deploying anything recognizable as a concept of itself as subject
‘EEE’ thinking: stresses the essentially environmentally embedded and embodied
aspects of our existence
Forman: awareness or experience or consciousness ‘should not be defined in
terms of perceptions, content, or its other functions’ (1998: 197, my
emphasis).
this view is not in tension with anything in the theory of evolution, properly
understood
natural selection: can only work on what it finds.. ... evolution by natural
selection of finely developed specialized forms of consciousness (visual,
olfactory, etc.) no more surprising than evolution of various finely developed
and specialized types of bodily organization
evolved forms of consciousness have come to be what they are because they have
certain kinds of content that give them survival value, kinds of content which
are (therefore) essentially other than whatever content is involved in pure
consciousness experience
doesn’t follow that ‘pure consciousness experience’ is some sort of illusion
on the contrary: evolution offers explanation of how anything other than pure
consciousness ever came to exist
some references
Arnauld, A. (1683/1990) On True and False Ideas translated with an introduction
by Stephen Gaukroger
(Manchester: Manchester University Press).
Deikman, A. J (1996) ‘“I” = Awareness’, Journal of Consciousness Studies 3:
350-356.
Forman, R. (1998) ‘What Does Mysticism Have to Teach Us About Consciousness?,
in Journal of
Consciousness Studies, 5: 185-201.
Husserl, E. (1921-8/1973) Zur Phanomenologie der lntersubjectivität. Texte aus
dem Nachlass. Zweiter Tell,
1921-8 ( the Hague : Martinus Nijhoff).
Lonergan, B. (1967) Collection, edited by F. Crowe ( New York : Herder and
Herder).
Reid, T. (1764/2000) An Inquiry into the Human Mind, ed. D. Brookes ( Edinburgh
University Press).
Ryle, G.(1949) The Concept of Mind ( New York : Barnes and Noble).
Sass, L. (1998) ‘Schizophrenia, Self-consciousness and the Modern Mind’, J .
Consc. Studies 5 pp. 543-65.
Strawson, P. F (1966) The Bounds of Sense ( London : Methuen ).
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