Phenomenal Consciousness and Self-Awareness
Research Plan for a Swiss National Science Foundation Grant
Martine Nida-Rümelin (University of Fribourg) - 1 October 2015.
1.
Summary of the research plan
This project aims at integrating various fields of research within philosophy of mind, in
particular issues about phenomenal consciousness and self-awareness. These systematically
related issues are usually discussed in almost complete isolation from each other. Our research
should thus contribute to a change of perspective in this respect, which we believe is necessary to
develop a more unified and coherent understanding of the mind. Our research will be framed
within a terminology different from the one standardly used in the present debates. This choice
will be justified by arguing that the proposed framework allows for a more natural and adequate
account of consciousness, self-awareness and the relation between the two. Within that
framework, an argument will be developed for the view that the notion of an experiencing
subject is fundamental for our understanding of consciousness. This amounts to proposing a
shift in the way one approaches the various interrelated problems within the philosophy of mind
in general, since the experiencing subject is usually left out of the picture in the relevant
contemporary debates.
Our work will explicitly address the following questions: What is the nature of our epistemic
situation with respect to our own conscious states? What is the relation between phenomenal
consciousness and self-awareness? Does the former necessarily involve the latter? Is there a sense
in which we are aware of ourselves as experiencing subjects? If so, what is the nature of that
awareness? What is the relation between the concepts we have of phenomenal kinds of
experiences and the concept we have of ourselves as experiencing subjects? What is the basis of
our understanding of what it is to be a conscious individual?
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2.
Research plan
2.1.
Current state of research in the field
2.1.1. Current debates on phenomenal concepts and self-awareness
The exact nature of the relation conscious subjects bear to their physical bodies lies at the core
of the metaphysical problem of phenomenal consciousness. On the one hand, physicalists claim
that conscious subjects are fundamentally nothing ‘over and above’ their physical bodies. More
generally, physicalists contend that the ultimate nature of reality corresponds to the ontology
postulated by our best empirical scientific theories – most likely, by fundamental physics. On the
other hand, antiphysicalists argue that conscious subjects are fundamentally different from –
although, undoubtedly, related to – their physical bodies. Accordingly, antiphysicalists hold that
there is more to account for in the universe than what is within the reach of empirical thirdpersonal sciences.
Over the last two and a half decades, an important part of the philosophical debate on the
nature of consciousness has focused on phenomenal concepts. Since Brian Loar’s seminal paper
“Phenomenal States” (1990), phenomenal concepts have indeed come to be held as a
paramount resource for physicalists to counter major antiphysicalist arguments such as Nagel’s
(1974), Kripke’s (1980), Jackson’s (1982, 1986), Robinson’s (1993), Bealer’s (1994), Chalmers’
(1996), White’s (2007), Nida-Rümelin’s (2007) or Goff’s (2011).
These widely discussed antiphysicalist arguments can be described as purporting to establish the
existence of a metaphysical gap between physical and phenomenal facts or states on the basis of the
quite generally accepted existence of an epistemic or conceptual gap between physical and
phenomenal truths or descriptions (see Balog 2012a). Physicalists who deny even the existence of
such an epistemic gap (see for instance Dennett 2007) have been referred to as type-A or a priori
physicalists, whereas those who acknowledge the existence of an epistemic gap but deny that it
stems from a metaphysical gap have been called type-B or a posteriori physicalists (compare
Papineau 2002, Chalmers 2010, Goff 2011).
The latter, type-B physicalists, contend that the so-called ‘intuition of distinctness’ (see Papineau
2002) – namely the intuition that phenomenal facts or states cannot be identical nor reducible to
physical-functional facts or states – is due to the way we think about consciousness and not to
the nature of consciousness itself (see Balog 2009). More precisely, their idea is that this
misguided intuition of distinctness finds its source in the particular features possessed by the
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concepts we use to characterize our conscious experiences and not in the particular (ultimately
non-physical) nature of those conscious experiences themselves. The particular concepts in
question, used in first-personal descriptions and classifications of experience-types in
introspection or imagination, have been labelled as phenomenal concepts. Accordingly, the general
project consisting in using them to counter antiphysicalist arguments has come to be known as
the phenomenal concept strategy (Stoljar 2005).
Two key features of phenomenal concepts have been especially emphasized in the various
specific accounts elaborated by proponents of the phenomenal concept strategy. The first form
this project has taken is framed by the idea that phenomenal concepts in some way involve the
very experiences they refer to as their own mode of presentation (Block 2007, Balog 2012a).
Papineau (2002, 2007) has articulated one of the most comprehensive vindications of this
constitutional (or ‘quotational’) account of phenomenal concepts. In Papineau’s view, the use of
a particular phenomenal concept, for instance the concept referring to the phenomenal
character of a toothache, involves the reactivation of this very experience of toothache itself.
The second route proponents of the phenomenal concept strategy have explored starts from the
claim that phenomenal concepts refer in a direct manner to what they denote (Loar 1990, Levin
2007, Perry 2001).
Whilst antiphysicalists have of course provided their own positive accounts of those two
prominent features of phenomenal concepts, they have also, rather unsurprisingly, put the
whole project of the phenomenal concept strategy under severe criticism. Most significantly, it
has been argued that type-B physicalism fails to do justice to our epistemic situation with respect
to our own conscious states (Chalmers 2007, Levine 2007). Levine (2007) in particular has
pointed out that postulating a relation of physical constitution between phenomenal concepts
and the experiences they refer to falls short of explaining how we can be acquainted with our
own conscious experiences. Chalmers’ qualm (2007) with the phenomenal concept strategy takes
the form of a dilemma he offers to its proponents. Either the physicalists’ account of the key
features of phenomenal concepts actually does justice to our epistemic situation with respect to
consciousness, but then this very account will fail to be ‘physically kosher.’ Or if the account is
itself physically explicable, then it will inevitably fail to do justice to our epistemic situation.
Balog (2012a) has argued that framed in terms of Chalmers’ dilemma, the physicalist vs.
antiphysicalist dispute eventually results in a dialectical stalemate.
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A more promising way forward, some antiphysicalists have felt, consists in arguing directly for
the falsity of physicalism on the basis of the particular nature of phenomenal concepts
themselves. The central claim here is that phenomenal concepts are such that they enable their
possessor to know what is essential about their referent. In other words, when a conscious
subject possesses the adequate concept for a given phenomenal experience, she thereby knows
what is essential about this experience: typically, she knows that such and such subjective feel is
what it is like to undergo such and such particular phenomenal experience.
Of course this idea is closely related to Kripke’s influential observation that the manner pain, for
instance, is referred to – namely by the way it feels – is essential to pain itself (see Kripke 1980).
But the claim goes beyond Kripke’s observation and has been further refined within different
theoretical frameworks. In Chalmers’ well-known two-dimensional semantics, phenomenal
concepts have a special status in virtue of the fact that their primary and secondary intensions
coincide (2003). Philip Goff has recently argued that phenomenal concepts belong to what he
calls “transparent concepts.” He defines the notion of a transparent concept as a concept that
“reveals the nature of the entity it refers to.” (see forthcoming) Transparent concepts should thus
be distinguished, in his view, from opaque concepts, namely concepts whose possession enables
the subject to know “little or nothing” (ibid.) about the nature of their referent. Martine NidaRümelin has articulated an account of “grasping” a property by means of a concept, according
to which grasping a property means understanding “what having that property essentially
consists in.” (2007: 307) On her account, to have a phenomenal property, for a conscious
subject, is “to have an experience with a specific subjective feel.” (ibid.) Hence, whenever a
conscious subject grasps a phenomenal property via the appropriate phenomenal concept, she
thereby knows what having this phenomenal experience essentially consists in.
Fairly recently in the debate on phenomenal consciousness, a certain number of philosophers
have tried to shift the focus of the discussion towards another feature of conscious experiences
(see inter alia Levine 2001, Kriegel 2009, Horgan 2012). In their view, by focusing on the ‘what
it is like aspect’ of consciousness, philosophers of mind have neglected a paramount aspect of it:
the fact that in any conscious experience, there is something it is like for someone to undergo this
particular experience. Joseph Levine has named this the “subjectivity” of phenomenal
experiences (2001: 7). Uriah Kriegel uses the terms “for-me-ness” or “subjective character” of a
conscious episode, distinguishing two subcomponents in phenomenal character, namely the
qualitative character and the subjective character (2009: 1). In his self-representational view of
consciousness, the subjective character is to be accounted for in terms of the subject’s awareness
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of her own conscious experience. Moreover, Kriegel claims that a mental state is conscious only
in virtue of the fact that the subject having this mental state is actually aware of it. Although only
“peripherally” as he puts it (2009: 5), a conscious subject is thus necessarily aware of her own
conscious experiences, in a way akin to the phenomenon discussed in the phenomenological
tradition as ‘pre-reflexive self-awareness’ (see for instance Brentano 1874: 2, II, §7). Zahavi
(1999) has, on the contrary, defended a non-representational account of pre-reflexive selfawareness.
2.1.2. Integrating diverse fields of research within philosophy of mind
The current debate on the nature of consciousness that focuses on phenomenal concepts is
framed by the assumption that specific phenomenal concepts correspond to particular
qualitative types of conscious experiences. However, with this near exclusive emphasis on
experiences, the way this debate is conducted remains mostly silent on deeper and central
questions about phenomenal consciousness, such as the question as to what it is to be a
conscious individual. This silence represents a significant gap indeed in the philosophical
literature on consciousness and phenomenal concepts. In order to bridge this gap, a systematic
investigation of the links and implications between claims made about phenomenal concepts
and about the nature of conscious subjects is needed.
Likewise, the connexions between the debate on phenomenal concepts and issues surrounding
self-awareness in the philosophy of mind have never been thoroughly explored either. For
instance, what is the relation between one’s use of phenomenal concepts and one’s awareness of
oneself as a conscious subject? One main hypothesis that we want to investigate in this respect is
the following: the possession of phenomenal concepts presupposes the possession of more
fundamental concepts, such as the concept of a conscious subject and the concept of oneself.
This question as to whether phenomenal concepts presuppose a more fundamental kind of
concepts constitutes an area of enquiry currently widely overlooked by researchers in the field.
Of course the concepts of a conscious subject and of oneself are not phenomenal concepts
themselves in the standard technical sense of the notion. But a promising idea to investigate, we
believe, is that those fundamental concepts, much like phenomenal concepts, are also ‘based’ on
a conscious subject’s own phenomenology in an interesting manner, which calls for further
elucidation. This topic is almost entirely neglected in the current debate.
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The present project would be part of the Fribourg-based research group Experience & Reasons
(EXRE). The issues explored in the present project are closely related with the work of several
research groups and institutions in Switzerland and abroad: FNS Project “First-person thought
in contemporary philosophy: immunity, self-knowledge, intentional action” (2015-18),
Gianfranco Soldati (Fribourg); FNS Project “Essences, Identities and Individuals” (2015-18),
Fabrice Correia (Neuchâtel); ERC “The architecture of consciousness” (2013-18), Timothy
Bayne (Manchester); Logos Project “About Ourselves” (2014-2016), Manuel Garcia-Carpintero
(Barcelona); Consciousness and Self-Consciousness Research Center (Warwick); Marie Curie
Initial Training Network “Perspectival Thoughts and Facts”; Center for Subjectivity Research
(Copenhagen); Center for Consciousness (Australian National University); Center for
Consciousness Studies (University of Arizona).
With most of the relevant research groups, an intense collaboration already exists (Fribourg,
Neuchâtel, Barcelona, Warwick, ANU, Arizona) or contacts are established (Manchester,
Copenhagen).
2.2.
Current state of own research
Martine Nida-Rümelin is specialized in philosophy of mind, in particular in the debate about
the ontological problem of consciousness. She has contributed to the controversy about
phenomenal concepts, arguing that phenomenal concepts allow the subject who has the concept
to partially grasp the nature of the phenomenon the concept refers to (“Grasping Phenomenal
Properties, 2007; further discussed in Goff 2011). The idea of taking up the perspective of a
conscious being is sketched in “The non-descriptive nature of conscious individuals” (2012) and
“An argument from transtemporal identity for subject body dualism” (2008), which is discussed
in the symposium on her argument from transtemporal identity in Philosophy and Phenomenological
Research 86 (2013a). Furthermore, she has been working on the phenomenology of agency
(“Doings and Subject Causation”, 2006; chapter 7 of her book Conscious Individuals. Sketch of a
theory, under contract with OUP; keynote talk “Freedom and the Phenomenology of Agency” at
the GAP Conference 2015). In her recent publications, she has started to explore the relation
between phenomenal consciousness and self-awareness (“Basic Intentionality, Primitive
Awareness, and Awareness of Oneself”, 2014; “La nozione di soggetto cosciente e la sia base
fenomenologica nell’autocoscienza pre-riflessiva”, 2013b).
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2.3.
Detailed research plan
2.3.1. Research Goal 1 - What is the nature of our epistemic situation with
respect to our own conscious states?
The kind of epistemic situation we are in with respect to our own conscious states is an element
that shall play a critical role in our investigation for this research project. Consider for instance
an everyday case of conscious experience, such as this throbbing pain I currently feel in one of
my molars. Let us say, moreover, that I direct my attention to this precise experience of
toothache as I try to describe it carefully in terms of how it feels. Now, in so doing, do I come to
know something essential about what this very experience of toothache consists in?
It seems, prima facie at least, very plausible indeed that I do – and in the recent years a number
of philosophers have actually been prepared to defend this intuition in one form or another
(Block 2007, Chalmers 2010, Goff 2011, Nida-Rümelin 2007). As mentioned above (see section
2.1.1.), their accounts vary in how they theoretically capture this intuitive idea. However, let us
suppose for now that, to a first approximation, the claim in question can be formulated in the
following manner: if a subject S is in a conscious state C, then S is in a position to acquire a
concept of C which enables S to understand what being in C essentially consists in. Let us refer
to this claim as phenomenal essentialism. The kind of position S is in, as intended in this
formulation, is of an epistemic nature. In other words, phenomenal essentialism is a claim about
the nature of our epistemic situation, as conscious subjects, with respect to our own conscious
states.
In the case of the experience of toothache considered above, phenomenal essentialism thus
implies that I am in a position to know what having a toothache essentially consists in on the
basis of being in this particular conscious state. However, this should not be confused with the
claim that I can know the nature of what is going on in my molar on that experiential basis
alone. Of course I may have no understanding whatsoever of what is actually going on in my
molar when I feel this particular pain – and phenomenal essentialism is entirely compatible with
this fact. In order to see this, we must clearly distinguish between what is phenomenally present
to the experiencing subject in a particular phenomenal kind of experience on the one hand, and
what is causally responsible for and ‘tracked’ by experiences of the relevant kind. First steps
towards developing this distinction are made in Nida-Rümelin (2016, 2006). Yet the distinction
needs further elaboration and must be defended against potential objections. In particular,
accepting this distinction is incompatible with so-called relational theories of perception
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(compare Martin 2002, Brewer 2011). Therefore, to defend the distinction it will be necessary to
consider in detail arguments developed and discussed within the philosophy of perception.
Phenomenal essentialism certainly has an intuitive appeal but it would be desirable to show that
it follows from already broadly accepted assumptions, combined with certain plausible claims.
An argument of this kind can be developed along the following lines. It is generally agreed that
phenomenal kinds of experiences are individuated by their phenomenal character. In other
words: what it is like to undergo a specific experience is what is constitutive for membership of
the experience at issue in a phenomenal kind. Furthermore, what it is like to undergo a given
experience is in a sense immediately present to the experiencing subject. Therefore, if the
subject develops an adequate concept of what it is like to undergo a given experience, then the
subject has thereby access to the very nature of the phenomenal kind at issue. Some of the
premises of this argument are controversial and need further elaboration. In order to make that
argument more forceful, it should be incorporated into a general account of the relation
between concepts of properties and properties as such. This issue is discussed in philosophy of
language, in particular in the context of theories about the content of thought (compare
Chalmers 2014).
However, phenomenal essentialism also commits its proponents to a number of potentially
problematic assumptions, pertaining notably to metaphysics, epistemology and the theory of
language. Accordingly, we aim in this research project at investigating further, elucidating and
providing, if needed, proper vindication for those assumptions. One important assumption in
this respect concerns the consequences phenomenal essentialism has on fundamental
metaphysical issues about the notion of essence. Indeed, the claim that we can in certain
circumstances capture what being in a certain conscious state essentially consists in needs to be
established on firmer metaphysical ground. What exactly does ‘essentially’ boils down to in
metaphysical terms? Which metaphysical account of essences does the claim require? Does
phenomenal essentialism require for instance the existence of essential properties? And which
views about essences and essential properties can best support the claims at issue given the
particular metaphysical nature of conscious subjects and experiences?
Amongst those who would oppose phenomenal essentialism, some of course would contend that
they can accommodate the intuition behind phenomenal essentialism without admitting that we
have any genuine cognitive access to the nature of our own conscious states on the basis of being
in those states (Papineau 2002, Loar 1990). Here a number of controversial assumptions
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underlying phenomenal essentialism, at the intersection of the theory of knowledge and the
philosophy of language, must be explored. What kind of views on the nature of knowledge are
presupposed by the idea that we can, in some circumstances, have ‘direct insights’, as it were,
into the nature of conscious states? Here phenomenal essentialism seems to find itself in direct
opposition to epistemological accounts that conceive of the process through which we obtain
knowledge as being exclusively causal in nature. And it certainly is in sharp contrast to the view
that our only cognitive contact to the world is merely causal, as endorsed for instance by
Papineau (2006). Also, more generally, many philosophers would be suspicious of the idea that,
even if only in the case of consciousness, we enjoy the kind of revelatory contact with reality that
phenomenal essentialism appears to rely on. A proper defence of this idea therefore requires a
detailed exploration and assessment of the epistemological issues on which the plausibility of
phenomenal essentialism depends.
2.3.2. Research Goal 2 - What is the relation between one’s use of phenomenal
concepts and one’s awareness of oneself as a conscious subject?
Phenomenal concepts and self-awareness have been two of the most dynamic fields of research
in philosophy of mind over the recent years. Our main aim in this section of our project is to
explore and provide links between these two topics, which are discussed in almost complete
isolation from each other in the contemporary debate. In particular, we shall examine and assess
the following hypothesis: phenomenal concepts are constitutively such that possessing them
implies understanding that they can only be used to ascribe experiential properties to conscious
subjects. In so doing, we shall, crucially, put into question a number of assumptions widely and
tacitly endorsed by philosophers working in the field.
The current debate on phenomenal concepts is framed in terms of properties of experiences.
The idea that a particular phenomenal concept refers to a particular ‘qualitative character’,
which is itself conceived of as a property of the experience – a so-called ‘quale’ – is widely taken
for granted. The major consequence of this widespread conceptual framework is that the
conscious subject undergoing the experience is entirely left out of the picture. This, in our view,
is an unhappy consequence and we plan in this project to elaborate on why exactly this is an
obstacle for developing an adequate understanding of consciousness, self-consciousness and the
relation between the two. Accordingly, we shall also examine the reasons for preferring an
alternative to the experience-property framework, namely a framework centered on the
conscious subject and its properties rather than on conscious experiences and their properties.
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A first element that one can put forward in favour of this shift in conceptual framework is the
following: all that can be said about a particular conscious state in terms of properties of an
experience makes sense only if understood as telling us something about the conscious subject
undergoing this particular experience. In other words, talk of an experience having such and
such a qualitative character is only understandable if it is interpreted in a way such that it can be
reduced to talk about there being someone for whom things appear in a particular way.
How should an alternative to the experience-property framework look like? Let us agree, first,
that experiences are a subclass of events. Events, in general, may be understood as involving
things which instantiate properties. Subclasses of events can be distinguished by the kind of
things involved in the event and the kind of properties these things instantiate. The subclass of
experiences can be characterized as follows: the ‘things’ involved are experiencing subjects; the
properties instantiated by them are what one might call ‘experiential properties.’ Your being
phenomenally presented with blue during a stretch of time is an experience. The event – your
experience – consists in the fact that you, an experiencing subject, instantiate an experiential
property, the property of being phenomenally presented with blue. An analogous account can
be given for every example of an experience.
According to the experiential property framework, the only sense in which experiences have
qualitative character is this: experiences are events involving an experiencing subject who
instantiates experiential properties. Experiential properties of experiencing subjects are such that
there is something it is like for the subject concerned to instantiate them. Philosophical questions
about consciousness should therefore be approached focussing on experiential properties and
the status of those who can have them, experiencing subjects. Phenomenal concepts should be
conceived accordingly as concepts of experiential properties rather than as concepts of
properties of conscious experiences.
Of course, many philosophers might be inclined to doubt the significance of this shift in
conceptual framework and suspect that it actually amounts to a mere shift in terminology. Our
task with respect to objections of this kind shall be threefold in this project. We shall first provide
and assess substantive arguments for the superiority of the experiential property framework over
the experience-property framework. Secondly and relatedly, we shall explain what exactly is
deficient in accounts that overlook the connexion between phenomenal concepts and selfawareness due to the fact that they merely conceive phenomenal concepts as concepts of
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properties of experiences. In so doing, we also want, thirdly, to enquire into the more
fundamental issue of the philosophical consequences that one’s particular choice of terminology
can have. This constitutes a question that has been remarkably neglected in the contemporary
philosophical debate so far.
2.3.3. Research Goal 3 - What kind of concepts are the concept of a conscious
subject and the concept of oneself? What is the ‘phenomenological basis’
of the concept of oneself?
Another dimension along which we plan to explore the connexions between the debates on
phenomenal concepts and self-awareness concerns the concept of a conscious subject and the
concept of oneself, as well as their relations to phenomenal concepts themselves. If properly
vindicated, the experiential property framework would clearly speak in favour of the following
hypothesis: the possession of phenomenal concepts presupposes the possession of concepts such
as the concept of a conscious subject and the concept of oneself. Indeed, if phenomenal concepts
are understood as concepts of experiential properties, having a concept of oneself as a conscious
subject is already presupposed in self-attributions of experiential properties. Consider for
instance the experiential property of being phenomenally presented with blue. ‘Being
phenomenally presented with’ expresses a quasi-relation between a conscious subject and what
is phenomenally given to her in a particular conscious episode, in this case the colour blue. (The
term ‘quasi-relation’ is meant to allow for cases where what is phenomenally given does not
exist). In order to properly understand what it means to attribute to yourself such a quasirelation, you need to conceive of both sides: what is being presented to you, the colour blue, and
whom it is being presented to, yourself. Moreover, you need to think of yourself as the
appropriate kind of entity for entering into such a quasi-relation. And this is what you do by
conceiving of yourself as a conscious subject. Likewise, in order to attribute an experiential
property to someone else, you need to think of her as a conscious subject. Thinking of someone
as being in the specific kind of quasi-relation characterized by a particular experiential property
includes conceiving of the individual concerned as a conscious subject. Along these lines, an
argument can be developed for the claim that the concept of a conscious subject is conceptually
prior to any specific phenomenal concept of an experiential property. If such an argument goes
through, it would follow that an assumption that is quite clearly widespread although it is rarely
explicitly formulated must be abandoned, namely the thesis that the general concept of an
experiencing subject is acquired on the basis of abstracting some common features from
experiential properties as they are understood via specific phenomenal concepts.
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Even though there is, according to the view to be developed, a close systematic relation between
the experience-based concept of a conscious subject and phenomenal concepts – which are of
course experience-based as well – there are important differences between the former and the
latter. Phenomenal concepts enable one to capture specific elements in one’s overall
phenomenology. When we are undergoing a conscious episode, we have the ability to focus our
attention on specific elements of the totality of what is being phenomenally presented to us at
that given moment. We can then abstract common features of these elements over successive
episodes in order to develop a general concept of being in such and such a conscious state. A
concept so acquired is what has been called a phenomenal concept.
Contrary to this, the way we come to form a concept of ourselves as conscious subjects is not the
result of some process of extracting a common element in what is phenomenally given to us in
various conscious episodes. As Hume famously observed, there is no element in our stream of
consciousness on which we could focus our attention in order to develop a concept of ourselves.
In other words, we are not phenomenally given to ourselves as an item in what we are presented
with. This is related to the point presented in the next section (2.3.4.) concerning the nature of
self-awareness: in a sense to be explicated, our awareness of ourselves in experience is nonobjectual. However, this does not entail that the awareness we have of ourselves plays no part
whatsoever in our overall phenomenology. It may well be, on the contrary, that a certain form
of self-awareness is always present in any conscious episode. This form of self-awareness would
then contribute to our overall phenomenology, not as an element that can be isolated from
others, but as a structural feature of any instance of phenomenal awareness. Several authors
engaged in the recent renewed interest for the phenomenon of pre-reflexive self-awareness have
emphasized such a possibility (Kriegel 2009, Zahavi 1999). Yet their accounts have not put the
spotlight on the particular relation there is between this form of self-awareness and the kind of
concept we have of ourselves as conscious subjects. This is an issue that we want to investigate in
detail in this project.
2.3.4. Research Goal 4 - What is the nature of our awareness of ourselves?
One could explain a central idea framing most contributions to the recent discussion about the
phenomenon of pre-reflexive self-awareness in the following way: the deep mystery to be
explained about consciousness is the fact that, for any conscious experience, there is something it
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is like for someone to undergo it. The following quotation of Kriegel is a typical example of the
terminology commonly used to develop this idea:
“When I have a conscious experience of the blue sky, there is something it is like
for me to have the experience. In particular, there is a bluish way it is like for
me to have it. This “bluish way it is like for me” constitutes the phenomenal
character of my experience. […] The bluish way it is like for me has two
distinguishable components: (i) the bluish component and (ii) the for-me
component.” (2009:1)
This approach to the issue is characteristic of the kind of framework many philosophers seem to
have in mind in this context. As this example illustrates, the alleged ‘for-me-ness’ or ‘subjective
character’ or ‘subjectivity’ of a conscious experience is conceived of as a further component of
the experience. The conscious subject, to whom something is given in a particular way in this
experience, is entirely left out of the picture. We thus have in this case another instance of the
unfortunate influence of the experience-property framework we described in section 2.3.2. The
major problem here, in our view, is that the ‘for-me-ness’ is conceived as being on the ‘same
metaphysical level’, so to speak, as the phenomenal character of the experience. However, what
the ‘for-me-ness’ refers to is the metaphysical structure of something being phenomenally given
to someone. There is a confusion incorporated, or so we shall argue, into that common
terminology which deserves to be clarified. In this part of the project, we will approach the issue
about self-awareness using the experiential properties framework (see section 2.3.2.). We will
argue that, within that framework, common mistakes can be avoided and a natural account of
the way in which the notion of a conscious subject is formed on the basis of pre-reflexive selfawareness (as it is included in every experience) can be developed.
In that context, we will further explore the nature of self-awareness. We intend to elaborate the
view that it is a mistake to consider self-awareness as comparable to perception. Our goal will be
to work out the relevant disanalogies in an explicit manner. A closely related issue has been
discussed for the case of so-called introspection. Charles Siewert (2012) has made an interesting
case against perceptual accounts of introspective awareness. We shall assess his arguments and
evaluate to what extend they are transferable to the case of self-awareness.
It would be desirable to be able to incorporate our results about the nature of self-awareness into
a general account of all conscious phenomena, including agency and agentive experience.
Therefore, we will have to address the question as to whether the awareness we have of
ourselves exhibits the same features in agency as in perceptual – or other kinds of – experiences.
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Our working hypothesis will be that there are important structural similarities between prereflexive self-awareness in perceptual, agentive and cognitive experience.
2.3.5. Research Goal 5 - How to construct a substantial account of what
‘taking up the perspective of a conscious individual’ consists in?
In section 2.3.3. we introduced the claim that understanding the concept of a conscious subject
requires understanding that it only applies to an entity X in virtue of the fact that X can be
phenomenally presented with something. In the present part of the project, we would like to
explore an idea which is closely related to that claim and can be seen to be a way to further
articulate what considering an individual as phenomenally conscious consists in. We understand
what it is to be a conscious subject, according to this idea, by realising that it is adequate to the
nature of a conscious subject to take up its perspective (in a sense to be explicated) in one’s
thoughts about it. In the sense here at issue, ‘taking up the perspective of another individual’ is a
conceptual activity. It should not be confused with empathy or imaginative anticipation, in
contrast to what has been suggested for instance by Velleman (2006). What taking up the
perspective of another conscious being consists in becomes particularly clear when we think
about transtemporal and trans-world identity. Arguably, what it is for a presently existing
conscious being to exist at a different moment in time or in a considered counterfactual situation
can only be grasped when we engage in that conceptual activity (see Nida-Rümelin 2008, 2012).
The expression ‘taking up the perspective of someone’ is obviously metaphorical. A central task
in this part of the project is to elaborate a substantial account of what that conceptual activity
consists in. A natural way to do so would be to say that taking up X’s perspective amounts to
taking the point of view from which the world is phenomenally given to X. But this does not
capture the way in which taking up a perspective is relevant to understanding identity and
individuality of conscious beings since it does not differentiate between qualitatively identical
phenomenal states of different individuals (see Zahavi 2011). A further misunderstanding would
be to think that taking up a perspective can be somehow accounted for in spatial or indexical
terms. The conscious perspective that we try to take up in that way of thinking should not be
confused with the way in which a camera or an unconscious robot can be said to have a
perspective.
In order to show why this is a misleading route to take, we need, in our view, a systematic
analysis of the notion of taking up the perspective of a conscious being and of the closely
Phenomenal Consciousness and Self-Awareness. Martine Nida-Rümelin
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related – and often used – metaphor of a ‘conscious perspective.’ Accounts of perspective merely
in terms of representations of the world from one particular point of a space-time frame of
reference or attempts at reducing ‘conscious perspectives’ to the phenomenon of indexicality are
misleading for that purpose, or so we shall argue. The metaphors of ‘perspectives’ or ‘points of
view’ are omnipresent in the debate about consciousness but it has not been clarified in a
satisfactorily manner how much they can contribute to our understanding of the phenomena
and in what way they can lead astray. In our research we will explicitly address those issues.
2.4.
Schedules and milestones
It should be clear that our five main research goals (sections 2.3.1. to 2.3.5.) are systematically
interrelated in various ways. For that reason, our work on those five issues shall not be strictly
separated. With this caveat in mind, the following projected schedule should rather be
considered as indicating the respective amounts of time we plan to attribute to each of these
steps than specifying a strict chronological timetable.
First year (2016-2017)
1st half (Apr 2016-Oct 2016)
2nd half (Oct 2016-Apr 2017)
- Work on research goal 1.
- Work on research goal 2.
Second year (2017-2018)
1st half (Apr 2017-Oct 2017)
2nd half (Oct 2017-Apr 2018)
- Work on research goal 3.
- Work on research goal 4.
Third year (2018-2019)
1st half (Apr 2018-Oct 2018)
2nd half (Oct 2018-Apr 2019)
- Work on research goal 5.
- Revision of all research results
- Preparation for relevant publications.
2.5.
Relevance and impact
The issues this project aims at tackling are intimately related to several fundamental and
extensively discussed questions belonging to different areas of philosophy. The research that we
plan about the role of phenomenal concepts and the nature of our epistemic situation with
respect to consciousness is a particular case of the general issue concerning our cognitive access
Phenomenal Consciousness and Self-Awareness. Martine Nida-Rümelin
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to reality, which is crucial for the theory of language, the theory of knowledge and the
metaphysics of properties, modality and essences. Within the philosophy of mind, we aim at
contributing substantially to the debates about what it is to be a conscious subject, in what way
we are aware of ourselves in experience and action and, thereby, to the on-going controversy
about self-knowledge and self-awareness. Moreover, the particular way we frame our research
questions should integrate different fields of enquiry, in particular phenomenal consciousness
and self-awareness. These systematically related issues are usually discussed quite separately.
Our research should thus contribute to a change of perspective in this respect, which is perhaps
necessary to develop a more unified and coherent understanding of the mind.
Furthermore, we expect the core of our philosophical research to contribute to the
comprehensive project of constructing a science of consciousness. The planned research on the
metaphysical nature of conscious beings and on the meta-philosophical question about the
choice of terminology in which the relevant phenomena of consciousness can be adequately
captured should provide useful inputs to the relevant empirical domains. In particular it should
contribute to clarifying the desirable explananda for scientific approaches and the way they
should be conceptualized within a science of consciousness.
Developing a better understanding of the nature of conscious subjects is obviously fundamental
to our understanding of ourselves as human beings. Claims about the nature of conscious beings
have consequences for the question as to where to make metaphysically significant distinctions
within the realm of living creatures. In our view, the distinction between conscious and nonconscious beings is a place where a deep, fundamental boundary is to be drawn. The distinction
between human and non-human animals is, according to the view we will elaborate,
metaphysically much less significant, despite its indubitable ethical importance. Accepting the
ethical relevance of what distinguishes human from non-human animals is quite compatible
with the insight that the distinction between conscious and non-conscious beings bears farreaching consequences for the attitude one should take towards non-human animals.
3.
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