Husserl Stud DOI 10.1007/s10743-016-9203-y

Representation and Regress Maiya Jordan1

 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2016

Abstract I defend a Husserlian account of self-consciousness against representationalist accounts: higher-order representationalism and self-representationalism. Of these, self-representationalism is the harder to refute since, unlike higherorder representationalism, it does not incur a regress of self-conscious acts. However, it incurs a regress of intentional contents. I consider, and reject, five strategies for avoiding this regress of contents. I conclude that the regress is inherent to self-representationalism. I close by showing how this incoherence obtrudes in what must be the self-representationalist’s account of the phenomenology of experience.

1 Introduction: Self-Consciousness and Self-Representationalism The term ‘‘reflection model’’ is often used in the literature on phenomenology to denote a model that views self-awareness as a reflection on experience—that is, as a consciousness of consciousness, where the former consciousness takes the latter as its intentional object.1 The reflection model straddles two kinds of theory: the higher-order theory and the Brentanian theory. Whereas the former views the reflection which imparts self-awareness to an experience as being numerically distinct from that experience, the latter deems it to be identical with that experience. 1

Throughout, ‘‘consciousness’’ and ‘‘awareness’’ are synonyms. The term ‘‘intention’’ is reserved for acts that have intentional contents, and correlatively, intentional objects.

& Maiya Jordan [email protected] 1

Department of Philosophy, McGill University, Leacock Building, Room 414, 855 Sherbrooke Street West, Montreal, QC H3A 2T7, Canada

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In analytic philosophy the reflection model is described as the ‘‘representational theory’’ of self-awareness. For the representational theory, a conscious state M (say, my desire for x) is self-aware by virtue of being represented by a conscious state M* (my consciousness of my desire for x). To say that M* represents M means that M is the object of reference of M* by virtue of the fact that M* has an intentional content that determines that reference. Mirroring the reflection model, the representational theory straddles two kinds of theory: the higher-order theory and the selfrepresentational theory. The former holds that M is distinct from M*; the latter holds that M = M*. Throughout I treat the reflection model and the representational theory as equivalent, separated only by the language in which each is couched. Regarding the higher-order reflection model, there is this general agreement. Provided that consciousness is necessarily self-aware,2 the higher-order theory leads directly to regress. If my desire, for example, is self-aware by virtue of being the object of a reflection, R1, then we must accommodate the fact that R1—itself an intention, and so necessarily self-aware—must receive its self-awareness from a distinct reflection, R2. R2 must in turn be the object of a distinct reflection, R3. And so forth. We shall thus open a vicious regress of reflective acts. In the language of the representational theory, the regress opens as follows. Let M receive its self-awareness by being represented by the distinct conscious state, M*. Being itself self-aware, M* must now be represented by the distinct conscious state, M**. And so forth.3 Given the above problem, one who is inclined to accept some form of representationalism might prefer to opt for self-representationalism. And indeed, doubtless because of the growing acceptance of the fact that self-consciousness is necessary to consciousness, in recent years the higher-order theory has seen many of its adherents switch their allegiances to self-representationalism, with those loyal to the higher-order theory denying, as they must, that consciousness is necessarily selfaware.4 My central target in this paper will be self-representational models of selfawareness (although my attack yields the consequence that the higher-order theory, too, must be rejected). For the self-representational theory also opens a regress—not a regress of distinct intentions, but a regress of intentional contents. This regress of contents, I argue, is inherent to self-representationalism. For that reason alone, selfrepresentationalism must be rejected. Yet also, as one should expect, this incoherence (of being committed to a regress) obtrudes in what the selfrepresentationalist must say about the phenomenology of experience. In the closing

2

This assumption will be justified in Sect. 4.

3

Treated purely formally, the above argument has two suppressed premises, each accepted by higherorder theorists. (1) Consciousness is transitive. That is, taking ‘‘Rxy’’ to range over acts of consciousness belonging to the same subject, and meaning ‘‘x represents y’’: VxVyVz((Rxy & Ryz) ? Rxz). (2) Consciousness is asymmetrical: VxVy(Rxy ? *Ryx). (1) and (2) are required to exclude finite representational cycles: e.g., Rab, Rbc, Rca. See Williford (2006b, p. 114). 4 Higher-order theorists deny that the final member, Rn, of a series of reflections, R1, R2, …, Rn, is the object of a reflection: Rn is in that sense unconscious. That is what I mean by saying that, for higher-order theorists, self-awareness is not necessary to consciousness.

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sections I show how self-representationalism falsifies the phenomenology of experience in a number of significant ways.

2 Brentano and the Gurwitsch Regress Brentano is the precursor of self-representational theories of self-consciousness. For Brentano, self-consciousness consists in an intention’s taking itself as an intentional object. He expressed this by saying that an intention takes a ‘‘primary object’’ that is distinct from that intention—for example, a table or a melody, or a number or a proposition—and also a ‘‘secondary object’’, this secondary object being the intention itself: [Every consciousness] includes within it a consciousness of itself. Therefore, every [conscious] act, no matter how simple, has a double object, a primary and a secondary object. The simplest act, for example the act of hearing, has as its primary object the sound, and for its secondary object, itself […] (Brentano 1973, pp. 153–4).5 The crucial hurdle that any theory of this type must clear is this. Granted, by identifying the reflecting consciousness with the consciousness reflected on we avoid the regress of intentions that the higher-order model incurs. But do we pay the price by opening another regress? Specifically: is not my awareness (say, of my desire) itself something of which I must be aware? If so, then, as we shall see, a regress of intentional contents threatens. In Brentano’s own case, Brentano insists that I am aware of my awareness of my desire: ‘‘In the same mental phenomenon in which the sound is present to our minds we simultaneously apprehend the mental phenomenon itself. What is more, we apprehend it in accordance with its dual nature insofar as it has the sound as content within it, and insofar as it has itself as content at the same time’’ (Brentano 1973, pp. 127–8, italics mine). Further: ‘‘The presentation which accompanies a mental act, and which refers to it, is part of the object on which it is directed’’ (Brentano 1973, p. 128, italics mine). Not only is the object of my intention the whole conscious structure (say, my desire and my awareness of my desire), but that whole includes as a part that

5

Brentano claims to derive his view from Aristotle. At De Anima III.2 (425b11–7) Aristotle writes: ‘‘Since we perceive that we see and hear, it is necessarily either by means of seeing that one perceives that one sees or by another perception. But the same perception will be both of the seeing and of the colour that underlies it, with the result that either two perceptions will be of the same thing, or it will be of itself. Further, if the perception of vision is a different perception, either this will proceed to infinity or some perception will be of itself; so we ought to posit this in the first place.’’ (Translated by Caston 2002.) To this extent, Aristotle’s thought seems clear: every perception must be ‘‘of itself’’. However, Aristotle’s position does not entail that experiences are aware ‘‘of themselves’’ as intentional objects. Although recent views (Caston 2002; Kriegel 2007) have tended to stress that Aristotle is Brentano’s progenitor, Aristotle’s (undeveloped) position is as compatible with Husserl’s position (defended below) as it is with Brentano’s.

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intention onto that whole. As Gurwitsch long ago observed, this opens a regress for the secondary object.6 The intention, being a part of what it is conscious of, must thereby be aware of its awareness of the whole structure. But now this awareness of itself, as being an awareness of the whole, it must be a part of the whole structure, and the intention must be aware of it. It follows that the object of the intention (that is, the whole) will grow in complexity ad infinitum. As Gurwitsch puts it, Brentano’s model yields an ‘‘internal infinity’’ (Gurwitsch 1979, pp. 89–90). The distinction between intentional content and intentional object that we now take for granted is not to be found in Brentano. Brentano uses the terms ‘‘content’’ and ‘‘object’’ indifferently, for one and the same thing. If, however, we import the content/object distinction into Brentano’s model, then we can develop the corresponding regress of contents as follows. Powerful reasons can be given for the conclusion that my experience (say, my desire, or my sadness) must be self-aware—that I must be aware of my experience as such (that is, as my desire, or as my sadness). Indeed, at Sect. 4 a general argument for this conclusion will be given. Yet my awareness of my experience is itself an experience. To be aware, say, of my desire is to experience my desire as my desire. Consequently, it seems we must say that I am also aware of my experience (i.e., my awareness) of my desire, and aware of it as such. And indeed, my experience of my desire might have various phenomenal features that cannot escape my awareness. I might, for example, apprehend my desire with unease, or irritation. However, now a regress does threaten. If self-awareness is an intention—if my awareness of my experience takes that experience as an intentional object—then it seems that my intentional content will grow to infinity. The content under which I apprehend my desire is hmy desire for xi. That means simply that I apprehend my desire as my desire for x. Yet, for reasons just outlined, I must be aware of my awareness of my desire, and aware of it as such. So it seems my intentional content has become hmy awareness of my desire for xi. Also, again for the same reasons, I must be aware of that awareness, and aware of it as my awareness of my awareness of my desire. And so forth. This increased intentional content belongs to one and the same intention; for, by assumption, my desire is my awareness of my desire (or again, my desire is its own secondary object). By making my desire identical with my awareness of my desire, and by making that awareness take my desire as an intentional object, we seem to be faced with a regress of intentional contents. Call this a ‘‘Gurwitsch regress’’. I claim that the Gurwitsch regress is inherent to Brentanian models of selfawareness. I shall consider five strategies which either purport, or might be advanced as purporting, to avoid this regress, rejecting each in turn. En route I shall remark somewhat on how these self-representational models misrepresent the phenomenology of experience.

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Included in Gurwitsch’s essay, Die mitmenschlichen Begegnungen in der Milieuwelt (1931), the argument was not published until 1977.

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3 Kriegel’s Strategy The first suggestion comes from Kriegel.7 He writes: [W]hen I self-consciously think that the almond trees are blooming again, I have a thought […] with two contents: the primary content is the proposition hThe almond trees are blooming againi, whereas the secondary content is something like the proposition hI am herewith thinking that the almond trees are blooming againi. (Kriegel 2003, p. 126) In describing the matter so, Kriegel’s account is phenomenologically unfaithful to our experience: that is not how, in self-awareness, our experience appears to us. In perceiving that the almond trees are blooming again I do not judge that I so perceive, although I am fully aware that I so perceive. As we shall see, consciousness’s necessary self-awareness is non-judgmental. To adopt Kriegel’s terminology: I have a conscious state, M1, which represents an object (say, the fact that the almond trees are blooming) via the content hThe almond trees are bloomingi. M1, being self-aware, is the object of a state, M2. M2 represents M1: that is, M1 is the object of M2, and M2 refers to this object via the content hI am herewith thinking that the almond trees are blooming againi. Also, M1 = M2. However, since M2 is self-conscious, must not M2 be represented by M3, where M3 has the content hI am herewith thinking that I am herewith thinking that the almond trees are bloomingi? That is, even though M1 = M2 = M3, do we not have a representational content that grows in infinite complexity, a content that would mirror the infinite complexity of Brentano’s ‘‘secondary object’’? Kriegel’s answer is as follows: This objection would be valid if what each Mi ? 1 represented was the content of Mi. But […] what each represents is the state Mi. So there is no infinite regress of contents, since the M2-content, M3-content, M4-content, etc. collapse into one: they all represent the ground-level state M1. Consider again the experience of the blue sky. The M1-content is the blue sky, the M2content is state M1, the M3-content is state M2, the M4-content is state M3, etc. But since M1 = M2 = M3, the M2-content is identical with the M3content, which is identical with the M4-content, and so on. (Kriegel 2003, p. 125) It is unclear how Kriegel arrives at his claim that ‘‘the M2-content, M3-content, M4-content, etc. collapse into one’’. He surely cannot mean, as his words might be taken to mean, that this ‘‘collapsing’’ is entailed by the fact that each of these contents has the same reference: the state M1. Multiple distinct contents can share the same reference. 7

Within analytic philosophy Kriegel has perhaps been self-representationalism’s foremost spokesman. His continued adherence to self-representationalism is evidenced by footnote 11 of Kriegel and Zahavi (2016). There Kriegel implicitly distinguishes his own view, that ‘‘we are intentionally ‘aware of’ our occurrent experiences’’, from the view that self-consciousness has a ‘‘more primitive and pre-intentional character’’.

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An alternative avenue of interpretation is suggested by Kriegel’s contention that ‘‘the M2-content is state M1, the M3-content is state M2, the M4-content is state M3, etc.’’ Seemingly, Kriegel is collapsing the distinction between content and object. That allows him to identify the M2-content (which takes M1 as its object) with M1 itself; to identify the M3-content (which takes M2 as its object) with M2 itself; and so forth. Granting this, since M1 = M2, the M2-content = the M3content, etc., and since states M2, M3, M4, etc. have only one content—namely, the state M1—there can be no regress of contents. It remains unclear, however, why we should follow Kriegel in collapsing the content/object distinction in this way. And, provided this interpretation is correct, it yields an unwelcome consequence. The only notion of intentional content we need for this discussion is this. A subject, S, brings an object, x, ‘‘under an intentional content’’ just in case, for some F, S intends x as F. In accordance with this minimal notion of content, the minimal condition for S to be aware of her experience, say, of perceiving a table is that S apprehends her perceiving the table as her perceiving (what seems to be) a table. However, by conflating content with object, in the manner outlined, Kriegel cannot meet this restriction on self-awareness. On this interpretation, S is not conscious of her perceiving the table as her perceiving (what seems to be) a table. Rather, she is simply conscious of it, but not as anything at all. This interpretation, however, does not accommodate Kriegel’s first sentence. The Gurwitsch regress would, he concedes, follow ‘‘if what each Mi ? 1 represented was the content of Mi’’. Seemingly, then, the content/object distinction is not being collapsed. Indeed, in the first quoted passage Kriegel shows his concern to preserve my awareness of my perceiving the table as such: ‘‘the secondary content,’’ he says, of his judgment that the almond trees are blooming again, ‘‘is something like the proposition hI am herewith thinking that the almond trees are blooming againi.’’ The position, then, seems to be this. I am aware of my perceiving X as my perceiving X; that is, under the content hmy perceiving Xi. But I am not aware of my awareness of my perceiving X under the content hmy awareness of my perceiving Xi. Rather, I am aware of it under the content hmy perceiving Xi. And, regarding any putative awareness of my awareness of my perceiving X, I am likewise aware of it under the same content, hmy perceiving Xi. In that case, ‘‘the M2-content, M3-content, M4-content, etc. collapse into one’’—that being, hmy perceiving Xi. Granting this interpretation, we have a candidate for blocking the regress.8 Seeing that Kriegel’s solution falls before the same objection as Williford’s ‘‘layering solution’’, I shall first present the latter before offering a general objection to both.

8

It remains unclear, however, what motivates this position other than the need to avoid the regress. I suggest it can have no phenomenological motivation. I have already observed that, in self-consciousness, I am aware of my experiencing my experience, as such. Indeed, my experience of my desire might have various phenomenal features that cannot escape my awareness (for example, I might apprehend my desire with unease or irritation).

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4 Two Suggestions from Williford Williford offers three suggestions for blocking the Gurwitsch regress.9 The first two, discussed in this section, address a principle that is presupposed by the Gurwitsch regress: [Self-Consciousness]

A subject, S, is conscious of x as F just in case S is conscious of her consciousness of x as F, as such.

Williford’s first suggestion (his ‘‘layering solution’’) denies [Self-Consciousness]. His second suggestion (his ‘‘quantificational solution’’) accepts [SelfConsciousness], yet offers a way of understanding [Self-Consciousness] which, he alleges, avoids the regress. I defer discussion of Williford’s third solution until Sect. 6. Woven around my consideration of Williford’s suggestions is my positive argument that self-representationalism is committed to the Gurwitsch regress. I call this the argument from mine-ness. (i) Williford’s layering solution Rejecting [Self-Consciousness], Williford asks: [W]hy couldn’t a self-representing episode represent only some of its representational properties? There seems to be no good reason for thinking that it would have to represent them all. As a physical system, consciousness is under capacity constraints and limited in representational power. (Williford 2006a, p. 2) The thought is developed in greater detail at Williford (2006b, pp. 118–127). There Williford advances the following picture. Regarding some conscious episode, a, and some object, b, that a represents, we have Rab: that is, a represents b. a’s representing this fact will yield Ra[Rab]: that is, a represents a’s representing b.10 This too can be represented by a: Ra[Ra[Rab]]. But this layering of representations must have an outer member: the series is finite, subject to the ‘‘capacity constraints’’ of consciousness. Evidently, this solution to the Gurwitsch regress mirrors the higher-order theorist’s solution to the regress of reflective acts, noted above. Whereas the higherorder theorist restricts the series of higher-order reflections by positing a reflection which is not itself reflected on, Williford restricts the layers of representational content belonging to one reflective act. Each of these moves, I contend, fails for the same reason. Each fails to accommodate the fact that experience has an intrinsic subjective character. One might describe this subjective character as follows. Necessarily, I have an experience only if I am conscious of that experience as mine. Clearly, I do not own my experience after the fashion that I own, say, my laptop. I can own my laptop without being aware that it is (in any sense) mine. Rather, for me to have an experience, E, is for E to be for me my experience; it is for me to experience E as 9 10

Williford no longer accepts self-representationalism (Williford 2015). ‘‘[]’’ is a nominalization operator: it renders ‘‘Rab (a represents b)’’ as ‘‘[Rab] (a’s representing b)’’.

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mine. It is nonsensical to suppose that I could experience the rainfall without attributing that experience to myself, without my experiencing that experience as mine. Moreover, this experiencing of E as mine must also be experienced as mine; it, too, is for me. Otherwise, this experiencing of E’s mine-ness would not include itself in that mine-ness. It would not present itself to me as belonging to the same subject as the experience whose mine-ness it apprehends. Rather, it would posit E’s mineness as it would posit another’s subjective experience. That can only mean that it would not, after all, apprehend E as mine, and we end in contradiction. A selfconscious experience that does not experience itself as such is no self-conscious experience at all. In the typical case, I do not reflectively apprehend my experience as mine. Typically, I apprehend my experience as mine pre-reflectively. For crucially, I am not required to reflect to apprehend my experience as mine. Subjective character is not produced by, or somehow dependent on, reflection. If it were, a regress would open, for the following reason. We should ask: in reflectively apprehending my experience as mine, am I also aware of the reflection as mine? And indeed, I must be. As I have just described, to apprehend my experience as mine requires that I apprehend my experience as belonging to the same subject (me) as that very apprehension. ‘‘Mine’’ must link the act of apprehending something as mine to the object that is being apprehended as mine, and this link must be experienced as such. That is what it is to apprehend an object as mine. Mine-ness, therefore, commits us to the following principle: [Mine-ness]

Necessarily, I apprehend x as mine only if I apprehend my apprehension of x, as such, as mine.

Clearly, if we assume that every apprehension of an experience as mine is a reflective apprehension, we shall open the following regress of reflections. By my reflection, R1, I apprehend my experience, E, as mine. Given [Mine-ness], this requires that I apprehend R1 (as my apprehension of E) as mine and, by assumption, this apprehension of R1 must itself be a reflection. Let R2 be my reflective apprehension of R1. For reasons just cited, if it is by R2 that I apprehend R1 as mine, then I must apprehend R2 (as my apprehension of R1) as mine by means of a reflection, R3. But that requires that I apprehend R3 as mine by a reflection, R4. And so forth. Mine-ness, therefore, cannot be produced by, or somehow dependent on, reflection. Rather, it must be intrinsic to pre-reflective experience. The only alternative is to deny that mine-ness pertains to reflection—to deny that I reflectively apprehend my experience as mine, and to hold that consciousness is thoroughly ‘‘impersonal’’.11 That, I suggest, is absurd.

11

It will not do to accept Rosenthal’s (2012) suggestion that the mine-ness of my conscious episodes is dispositional, that I am only disposed (in appropriate circumstances) to apprehend my experiences as mine. Given [Mine-ness], as soon as this alleged disposition is manifested in an episode the regress will open.

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This regress argument from mine-ness also amounts to a refutation of Kriegel and Williford’s respective solutions. Granting my interpretation of Kriegel, Kriegel holds that I am conscious of my awareness of my perceiving X, but under the content hmy perceiving xi. However, to apprehend my perception as mine requires that I apprehend my perception as belonging to the same subject (me) as that very apprehension. ‘‘Mine’’ must link the act of apprehending something as mine to the object being apprehended as mine, and this link must be experienced as such. Consequently, I must be aware of my apprehension of my perception of X as my apprehension of my perception of X. The above regress of reflections follows immediately. Williford’s solution halts the regress only by sacrificing subjective character. According to that solution, the ultimate layer of self-representation—say, my consciousness of my consciousness of E—cannot be apprehended as mine, since it is not apprehended, as such, at all. Given [Mine-ness], that means that the penultimate layer—my consciousness of E—cannot be apprehended as mine: for I can apprehend my consciousness of E as mine only if I apprehend that very apprehension (that is, my consciousness of my consciousness of E) as mine. By the same argument, I cannot apprehend the innermost layer—E—as mine, and subjective character is lost entirely.12 (ii) Williford’s quantificational solution The argument from mine-ness, as so far developed, makes a crucial assumption. It assumes that the self-representationalist must understand reflective self-consciousness as predicative; that is, as bringing one’s experience, E, singly under a predicate (or some analogue of a predicate). Conjoined with [Mine-ness], that assumption generated the above regress of reflections (R1, R2, R3,…). Williford has questioned this assumption: One can avoid the [Gurwitsch] regress and even accept [Self-Consciousness] by supposing that [a self-conscious episode] represents itself by quantifying over all its representational properties. The property of so quantifying is itself representational and would belong to the domain. It’s analogous to a proposition about all propositions. It would be a representational property in virtue of which consciousness represents all its representational properties. (Williford 2006a, p. 7) Williford’s suggestion seems to be this. In self-consciousness, one apprehends one’s experience, E, predicatively, ‘‘under a description’’, as my E. But one also quantifies over all the representational properties of one’s self-conscious experience via a predicate, G: x is a representational property of this very act of consciousness. Such an act of quantification would hold, for example: these are all the representational properties of this very act of consciousness. The property, U, of so quantifying is itself a representational property of one’s self-consciousness, so it belongs to the domain of quantification. It is, as Williford says, ‘‘a representational property in virtue of which consciousness represents all its representational 12

The parallel application of [Mine-ness] to the higher-order theory is obvious.

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properties’’. We can also hold that one is aware of one’s experience as being (represented by) U, and as mine (as my U, for short). Regarding the Gurwitsch regress, the crucial question to ask is: am I aware of my awareness of my experience as my U? And the answer is: yes. Only, my awareness of my awareness of my experience, as my U, consists in my awareness that my experience is represented by U. The property, my being aware of U, being itself a representational property, enters the domain of U. I am, therefore, aware of my awareness of my experience, as my U, in the quantificational way, not by bringing it singly under the description ‘‘my awareness of my U’’. If this suggestion is acceptable, then the regress argument from mine-ness collapses. I shall be aware of my experience E (predicatively) as mine. Given [Mine-ness], that requires that I am aware of my awareness of E as mine. Yet (granting the present suggestion) I am so aware, in the quantificational way, by being aware that my experience is represented by U. No other representational property needs to be introduced. So we meet the demands of [Mine-ness] and avoid the Gurwitsch regress. However, I do not think this suggestion is acceptable. I do not wish to saddle Williford with an equivocation, yet by exposing an equivocation I can illustrate why I think this suggestion fails. The term ‘‘representation’’ has various connotations. Moreover, one can see that, short of making it a term of art, it is not well-suited to describe one’s typical selfconsciousness. Consciousness rarely re-presents itself to itself (as when one recalls an experience from yesterday); rather, it presents itself to itself. That should give us pause. Since a term better suited to other means is being coined as a technical term to describe consciousness, we should be wary of the possibility of equivocation. Take a variant of Williford’s example: P: All propositions are perspectival (truths or falsehoods). P represents the alleged fact that P itself is perspectival. That is: if P is true, then since P is a proposition, P is perspectival. However, it does not follow from the fact that one believes P that one thereby believes Q: Q: P is perspectival. To suppose otherwise is to commit what is often termed an ‘‘intensional fallacy’’. On the contrary, in presenting P to herself as true, S might well be surprised (or at least informed) when told she had thereby committed herself to Q. Now we can highlight an equivocation. Let ‘‘x represents* y (to herself)’’ mean that a subject, x, experiences an object, y. This includes all species of experience: believing, desiring, wishing, etc. By assumption, P represents Q, in the manner noted above. But though a subject, S, represents* P to herself (she believes P, suspects that P, is worried that P), she does not thereby represent* Q to herself, even though P represents Q. To hold otherwise is to equivocate between ‘‘represents’’ and ‘‘represents*’’. It is to understand ‘‘P represents Q’’ as ‘‘P represents* Q (to S)’’; or again, as ‘‘Via P, S represents* Q (to herself)’’. Similarly, U represents the property my being aware of U, in the manner outlined above: my being aware of U enters the domain of U. But to represent* U to oneself

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is not thereby to represent* my being aware of U to oneself, even though the former represents (contains in its domain) the latter. In other words, to be aware that my experience, E, is represented by U is not thereby to experience my awareness of E in some non-predicative manner; it is not to experience it at all. But in that case, the quantificational model cannot guarantee that I apprehend E as mine. To do so, I must experience (represent*, not represent) my awareness of E as mine: mine-ness requires this. As I have stressed, the subjectivity, or mine-ness, of an experience must be experienced as such. In self-consciousness, I experience my experience as mine and I am aware of that experiencing of experience as mine. The quantificational model tries to deflate my awareness of my experiencing E by means of U. Thereby it fails to capture subjective character: for though via U I represent my experiencing E, I do not thereby represent* it. Conversely, if one insists that all ‘‘my awareness of my awareness of E’’ can mean is what the quantificational model says it means—if she insists on thus deflating subjective character—then she faces the following problem. By the same token she should say, regarding the above example, that S, in representing* P to herself as true, thereby represents* Q to herself as true, given that P represents Q. But that is just false. As this objector must concede, in representing* P to herself as true, S might well be surprised (or at least informed) when told that she had thereby committed herself to Q. By parity, this objector must also concede that, on the quantificational model, while experiencing E I can be surprised (or at least informed) when told that I am aware of E. That, I submit, is absurd. (iii)

Consequences of the above argument

This argument from mine-ness yields three significant conclusions: (1) Experiences are, necessarily, pre-reflectively apprehended as mine, and consequently, are necessarily self-aware. Since experiences are necessarily selfaware, the regress argument against higher-order representationalism, rehearsed above at Sect. 1, goes through. (2) Pre-reflective self-consciousness does not apprehend an experience as an intentional object; it does not apprehend an experience via an intentional content. Rather, to apprehend one’s experience pre-reflectively is, as Husserl puts it, to live one’s experience—directly, without the mediation of an intentional content. Experiences apprehended pre-reflectively are thus apprehended without profile. They are lived, experienced (erlebt) as they, qua experiences, are.13 For the above argument shows that self-representationalism, conjoined with [Mine-ness], commits us to the Gurwitsch regress. For example, to apprehend my desire as mine, I must apprehend the act of apprehending my desire as mine, as such—that is, as my apprehending my desire as mine—where the ‘‘as’’ introduces 13

That I am aware of my experience as it qua experience is, is perfectly consistent with the claim that my experience is, say, a chemical process, and that I am not directly aware of (do not live) my experience as a chemical process. In other words, for my experience to be as it pre-reflectively appears to me does not require that my experience be nothing more than that appearance.

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an intentional content. This is clearly entailed by [Mine-ness] conjoined with the assumption that self-consciousness passes through an intentional content. But, reapplying [Mine-ness], it follows that I must apprehend as mine the act of apprehending my apprehension of my desire as mine. Clearly, because the ‘‘as’’ in [Mine-ness] is being read as introducing an intentional content, a regress of contents has opened. This regress is the Gurwitsch regress. There are two ways to express this consequence. Either we say that selfrepresentationalist accounts of self-consciousness avoid the Gurwitsch regress only by sacrificing mine-ness. Or we say that, since mine-ness is essential to selfconsciousness, self-representationalist assumptions about self-consciousness incur a commitment to the Gurwitsch regress (since those assumptions, conjoined with [Mine-ness], entail the regress). I prefer the latter. This result matches the phenomenology of our experience. Granting the above— that pre-reflective experiences are experienced (erlebt) directly as they are, without the mediation of an intentional content—one cannot pre-reflectively have a perspective on one’s experience. Pre-reflectively, one’s experience is lived throughand-through as it, qua experience, is. One cannot pre-reflectively adopt a point of view on one’s experience, as one does when reflecting upon it. Pre-reflectively, experiences are apprehended without profile. One cannot pre-reflectively infer that one’s experience might have this or that quality. Such inferences can occur only on the reflective level. One cannot pre-reflectively be mistaken about one’s experience. To be thus mistaken, one must reflect upon one’s experience—apprehend it via a (mistaken) content. And that is how, in the typical (non-reflective) case, experiences are experienced. Pre-reflectively, my yearning for x is not experienced from a point of view; it does not present me with facets from which I might (with probability) infer other facets. Rather, my awareness permeates it through-and-through: I live my yearning as it qua experience is. Turn pre-reflective self-awareness into an intention and all that will be lost: being intentional objects for me, my experiences will offer themselves in profile. (3) A final consequence of this argument from mine-ness is that I must be aware of my pre-reflective awareness: [Mine-ness] clearly requires this. Moreover, this awareness must also be pre-reflective—that is, a living-through of my pre-reflection. For if it were reflective, that would open the regress of reflections (R1, R2, R3, …) developed above. Furthermore, if A = my pre-reflective awareness of my experience as mine, and B = my pre-reflective awareness of A as mine, then—if we are to avoid a regress of pre-reflective apprehensions—we must conclude that A = B. We must conclude, that is, that my apprehension of my experience is by the same stroke an apprehension of itself and that it must directly live itself as my apprehension of my experience. Indeed, fully living through B, A could not be anything but B. That is what lived-experience is: a direct living-through of one’s consciousness as it is, a living-through that lives itself. I return to this notion at Sect. 6.

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5 Conscious Parts and Conscious Wholes The above argument shows that one wishing to retain the spirit, if not the detail, of Brentano’s model must deny that consciousness is literally its own intentional object. A number of models have appeared that seem to satisfy this aim. From varied motivations, these models appeal to mereology. More specifically, they utilize the notions of logical part and logical whole. For most, their common feature is that they model self-awareness by having some part of a conscious state representing another part of that state, or that state itself, thereby rendering that state self-aware. More rarely (as with [Neo-B2] below), they take the form of having a conscious state, M, receive its self-awareness by being represented by a distinct state, M*, that contains M as a proper part. These models, then, are not Brentanian, but neo-Brentanian.14 Whatever their other motivations for turning to mereology might be, my sole concern with these models is this. Do these neo-Brentanian models avoid the Gurwitsch regress? Noting three examples of such neo-Brentanian models, I shall argue that these models simply open other versions of the Gurwitsch regress. Some of these models take the following form: [Neo-B1]

For any mental state, M, and any subject, S, such that S is in M, M is a self-conscious state of S if, and only if, there is a state, M*, such that (i) S is in M*, (ii) M* represents M, and (iii) M* is a proper part of M.

Versions of [Neo-B1] are advanced by Gennaro (1996, Ch. 2; 2008) and Van Gulick (2001). Other models take the following form: [Neo-B2]

For any mental state, M, and any subject, S, such that S is in M, M is a self-conscious state of S if, and only if, there is a state, M*, such that (i) S is in M*, (ii) M* represents M, and (iii) M is a proper part of M*.

[Neo-B2] appears to be accepted by Kobes (1995). Finally, some models take the following form: [Neo-B3]

For any mental state, M, and any subject, S, such that S is in M, M is a self-conscious state of S if, and only if, there are states, M* and M**, such that (i) S is in M* and S is in M**, (ii) M* is a proper part of M, (iii) M** is a proper part of M, and (iv) M* (indirectly) represents M by (directly) representing M**.15

[Neo-B3] is endorsed by Kriegel (2009, 2012).16 14

It would be equally correct to follow Gennaro (2008, p. 42) in describing these models as hybrids of higher-order and Brentanian models.

15

‘‘Just as a perception (or […] a painting) can represent a cabinet by […] representing the cabinet’s front door, so a higher-order representation can represent a mental state by representing a part of it. In this way, M* may represent the whole of M by representing [M**].’’ (Kriegel 2007, p. 368). 16 [Neo-B1]—[Neo-B3] are not intended to exhaust the possibilities here. They serve rather to illustrate different forms that can be taken by the shared general position, that consciousness receives its self-

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In saying that some conscious state, M*, is a part of another conscious state, M, these theorists do not mean that M* is a spatial or temporal part of M, but rather that M* is a constitutive part of M; that a subject’s being in M partially consists in her being in M*. The notion of proper part means that part-hood is restricted by identity as a limiting case: nothing can be a proper part of itself. Consequently, for such models, no conscious state can be literally self-conscious; for that would require, on these models, that a conscious state be a proper part of itself. How does this notion of proper part apply to consciousness? Kriegel (2007, pp. 364–5) provides the following gloss: When I have a conscious experience of blue, I am aware of my conscious experience. But the awareness is not an extra mental act, which occurs in addition to the experience. Rather, the awareness is inherent in – it is built into – the experience. It is in this sense, then, that M* is claimed […] to be a logical (proper) part of M. This, then, is how we shall understand the notion of proper part as it is applied to consciousness. Perhaps each of the above models improves upon Brentano’s model in significant ways. These improvements, however, if they be such, do not bear upon the problem of regress, and that problem alone concerns us here. In fact, each of these models opens a new form of the Gurwitsch regress. Let us begin with [Neo-B1]. For illustration, taking ‘‘M’’ to stand for my perception and taking ‘‘M*’’ to stand for my awareness of my perception, [Neo-B1] holds: (a) My awareness (M*) of my perception (M) is a proper part of my perception; and (b) my awareness represents my perception via an intentional content. However, in representing my perception, M, and thereby bestowing selfawareness on M, my awareness, M*, must thereby represent M as mine. As I have argued, M can be self-aware only if apprehended as mine. Or better: unless the state, M*, represents M as mine, then I could not be aware of M. And the intended outcome of the model is that I be aware of M. Now recall [Mine-ness]: [Mine-ness]

Necessarily, I apprehend x as mine only if I apprehend my apprehension of x, as such, as mine.

Consequently, if M* is the state that represents M as mine, then M* must itself be apprehended as mine—by me. For M* cannot be anything but my apprehension of M, and I cannot apprehend M as mine without apprehending my apprehension of M as mine. This means that M* must be self-aware; or better expressed, it means that I am aware of M*, and hence, aware of M* as mine. According to [Neo-B1], that means that M* is itself constituted as self-aware by some proper part of M*.

Footnote 16 continued consciousness by being represented, either by a proper part of itself, or by a state of which it forms a proper part. It is that general position that is refuted here.

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It is immediately clear that a new form of the Gurwitsch regress has already opened. Let M** be such a proper part of M*. Then, for reasons just given, [Mineness] requires that I am conscious of M* as mine only if I apprehend M** as mine. Consequently, M** is self-conscious. So M**’s self-consciousness must be constituted by a proper part, M***, of M**. And so forth. We thus open a regress of proper parts, each of which is required to constitute the self-awareness of its successor in this infinite series of proper parts. Is this regress of parts a new form of the Gurwitsch regress, or should it merit its own term? To see why I describe it so, consider that the regress requires that I be aware of (my) M as such, aware of (my) M* as such, etc. It therefore requires that my self-consciousness pass through an intentional content that grows to infinity. That is why I describe it as another form of the Gurwitsch regress. This regress of proper parts is obviously derivable from [Neo-B3] in exactly the same manner as above. In [Neo-B3], M* represents M, this yielding the result that I am aware of M as mine, and also, that I am aware of M* as mine. Consequently, M* is self-aware. As soon as we ask, what proper part of M* renders M* self-aware, the regress is already rolling. It is also clear that this regress will open for any model which shares with [Neo-B1] and [Neo-B3] the premise that a conscious state’s selfawareness is constituted by a proper part of that state. In the case of [Neo-B2] a different regress opens. Yet it, too, may be viewed as a different form (or relative) of the Gurwitsch regress. Here a conscious state, M, is selfconscious by virtue of M’s being a proper part of a state, M*, which represents M. In this case—for reasons now familiar—since M* represents M, I must be aware of each of M and M* as mine. That means that M*, too, is self-aware. Given [Neo-B2], that means that M* is a proper part of a distinct state, M**, such that M** represents M*. Once again, it is clear that a regress has already opened. Whereas [Neo-B1] and [Neo-B3] commit us to an inwards-running regress of proper parts which must themselves have proper parts, [Neo-B2] commits us to an outwards-running regress of wholes that must belong to larger wholes. In each case, the regress commits us to an ‘‘internal infinity’’ which must be overcome if self-awareness is to be achieved (Gurwitsch 1979, pp. 89–90). I think it clear, therefore, that a commitment to the Gurwitsch regress is inherent in all forms of self-representationalism. As soon as we assume that there is a conscious state, M*, which, by virtue of representing M via a content, bestows selfconsciousness upon M, the Gurwitsch regress is already rolling. Since this assumption is essential to all forms of self-representationalism, so is the regress.

6 Lived-Experience and Lived-Subjectivity If self-representationalism is committed to the Gurwitsch regress, then that incoherence should manifest itself in what the self-representationalist must say about the phenomenology of experience. I have remarked somewhat on how selfrepresentationalist models distort the phenomenology of experience. Here I shall supplement those remarks. (a) Earlier we saw how Kriegel made self-awareness judgmental. On the contrary, in counting the plates on my table I do not judge that I count. Nor do I

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have any other species of intention directed upon my counting as an object. My intentional objects are outside, in the world: they are the plates, the table, and so forth. Nevertheless, in counting the plates I have a pre-reflective awareness of my counting, and I am aware of it as my counting: it is only thus that my action unfolds as a temporal unity. This ‘‘as’’, however, does not introduce an intentional content. Rather, it expresses the fact that I apprehend my act directly, as it qua experience is, without the mediation of an intentional content. Indeed, if this awareness were a judgment, my counting would be for me a focal object. Yet (see (c) below) my focal objects are my intentional objects—the plates, the table, and so forth—and my act of counting is pre-reflectively experienced as marginal. It is, as Aristotle said, ‘‘on the side’’—in some sense, a background for me: ‘‘It seems that knowing, perceiving, believing and thinking are always of something else, but of themselves on the side’’ (Metaphysics XII. 9, 1074b35–6. Translated by Caston 2002). Furthermore, I cannot judge that P without being aware that I so judge. If my self-awareness is itself judgmental, then I shall judge that I judge that P, and a regress of judgments will open. Given self-representationalism’s core assumption that consciousness self-intends, this will be a regress of judgments (=propositions), not judgments (=acts of judgment): it will be a Gurwitsch regress. Must self-representational models follow Kriegel in making pre-reflection judgmental? If self-awareness is an intention, it is hard to see what it can mean to say that I apprehend my counting as my counting if I do not thereby judge that I count. It will be to no avail to say that my apprehension of my counting is judgmentlike (Rosenthal 1997), or indeed perception-like (Lycan 1996). Each of these quasijudgments or quasi-perceptions must apprehend my experience as, say, my counting, and it is that that causes the problems. Take this ‘‘as’’ as expressing an intentional content and the Gurwitsch regress will open. (b) Not only am I pre-reflectively aware of my experience, I am aware of my awareness. That is a phenomenological fact that we saw guaranteed on theoretical grounds by the argument from mine-ness, advanced in Sect. 4. Let us employ Sartre’s useful device of using parentheses to express pre-reflective self-awareness: ‘‘I am conscious (of) my experience, E’’ means that I apprehend E pre-reflectively. Equivalently, one can say that E is (for) me, or that E appears (to) me. Then, one might recall, consequence (3) of the argument from mine-ness was that one’s awareness (of) E is of necessity also one’s awareness (of) one’s awareness (of) E.17 Since one’s awareness (of) E must also be one’s awareness (of) one’s awareness (of) E, I shall say that pre-reflective self-awareness is iterative (i.e., in pre-reflection the (of) is iterated). Within the structure of pre-reflection, we can distinguish my lived-experience (my awareness (of) E) from my lived-subjectivity (my awareness (of) my awareness (of) E). This distinction is conceptual, not ontological. Or better: lived-experience and livedsubjectivity are two necessary moments of one and the same self-consciousness.18 17

Section 4, (iii).

18

Husserl expresses the distinction by saying that the flow of self-consciousness is at one and the same time a transversal consciousness (Querintentionalita¨t) of experience and a longitudinal consciousness (La¨ngsintentionalita¨t) of itself. Longitudinal self-consciousness and transverse self-consciousness require ‘‘one another like two sides of one and the same thing, [and are] interwoven with each other in the one, unique flow of consciousness.’’ (Hua X, p. 381/393).

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Lived-experience (of) E is readily distinguished from reflective consciousness of E as follows. In the latter, we can make the threefold distinction between act (my reflection), content (the sense hEi) and object (E). Within lived-experience, the distinction between content and object collapses, for the simple reason that prereflection has no intentional content. The content (=object) of my consciousness (of) E is E itself: E is directly apprehended as it qua experience is. Here one must not think that E is not any kind of object (for) me at all. E is (for) me an object, though not an intentional object. I shall expand upon this point below, at (c). Within lived-subjectivity, all three elements—act, content and object—collapse into one. The act (my awareness (of) my awareness (of) E) is its own content and is its own object: it apprehends itself as it qua awareness is. Consider my awareness (of) E. Apprehending E as mine, I thereby apprehend my pre-reflection as mine: that is required by mine-ness. To experience my pre-reflection as mine, however, I do not need a higher-order reflection (as higher-order theories maintain); nor do I need some additional intentional content (as self-representationalism requires): prereflection has no intentional content.19 Rather, my pre-reflection apprehends itself as mine; and, since pre-reflection has no intentional content, it thereby apprehends itself as it is, that is, as my awareness (of) E. My awareness (of) E is thus at one and the same time an awareness (of) itself as such: it is an awareness (of) my awareness (of) E, as mine. Act, content and object are therefore one within lived-subjectivity. Hence the true identity: [Lived-Subjectivity] My awareness (of) E as mine = my awareness (of) my awareness (of) E as mine. Formally, let ‘‘b’’ denote my experience, and let ‘‘a’’ denote my pre-reflective apprehension of b. Also, let ‘‘Rxy’’ range over my conscious episodes, meaning: ‘‘x is an awareness of y as mine’’. Then the following models lived-subjectivity: [Lived-Subjectivity]* [Rab] = [Ra[Rab]] Granting that identity, any substitutional regress formed by substituting ‘‘[Ra[Rab]]’’ for ‘‘[Rab]’’ in [Lived-Subjectivity]*—to yield: [Rab] = [Ra[Ra[Rab]]]; [Rab] = [Ra[Ra[Ra[Rab]]]]; etc.—is trivial and non-vicious. It corresponds to no ontological regress.20 Otherwise expressed, to substitute ‘‘my awareness (of) my awareness (of) E as mine’’ for ‘‘my awareness (of) E as mine’’ in [Lived-Subjectivity]—to yield ‘‘my awareness (of) E as mine = my awareness (of) my awareness (of) my awareness (of) E as mine’’; etc.—is to produce a trivial, non-ontological regress. It follows that pre-reflection, which necessarily involves an iterated (of), cannot permit the (of) to be (ontologically) re-iterated. There is no

19

Of course, each of these representational theories holds that my pre-reflection is in fact a reflection on

E. 20 Consider that, since [Rab] = [Ra[Ra[Rab]]], one can replace ‘‘[Ra[Ra[Rab]]]’’ with ‘‘[Rab]’’ in ‘‘[Rab] = [Ra[Ra[Ra[Rab]]]]’’ to yield: [Rab] = [Ra[Rab]].

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logical room for (ontological) re-iteration.The series of iterated (of)s necessarily terminates at two.21 We thus avoid the Gurwitsch regress. The solution we have arrived at, by rejecting self-representationalism, is actually Williford’s third suggestion for blocking the regress, alluded to in Sect. 4.22 Evidently, then, this solution is not available to the self-representationalist. Consider: mine-ness commits both me and the self-representationalist to [Mine-ness]*: Vx(Rax ? Ra[Rax]).23 Also, Rab&Vx(Rax ? Ra[Rax]) entails the regress Ra[Rab] Ra[Ra[Rab]] Ra[Ra[Ra[Rab]]] Ra[Ra[Ra[Ra[Rab]]]] Etc. For the self-representationalist, this regress is vicious. It corresponds to an ontological regress. For crucially, she cannot halt this regress by claiming that [Rab] = [Ra[Rab]], because the required self-representationalist principle, corresponding to [Lived-Subjectivity], is [SR-Awareness]: [SR-Awareness]* My awareness of E as mine = my awareness of my awareness of E as mine. And [SR-Awareness] is not a true (since regress-engendering) identity. It must give way to: [SR-Awareness]* My awareness of E as mine = my awareness of my awareness of my awareness of E as mine. And [SR-Awareness]* must give way to [SR-Awareness]**, etc. That was the conclusion of the regress argument from [Mine-ness]. This solution, therefore, is not open to the self-representationalist. Consequently, self-representationalism cannot admit the phenomenological fact that I am aware (of) my awareness (of) E because of its core mistake: it cannot make 21 In Husserl’s terms, there can be no additions to transverse and longitudinal self-awareness. Longitudinal self-awareness is not itself constituted by some distinct, more basic self-awareness: ‘‘The self-appearance of the flow does not require a second flow; on the contrary, it constitutes itself as a phenomenon in itself.’’ (Hua X, p. 382/393). 22 That solution being: to identify a conscious act with one of its representational properties (Williford 2006a, p. 7; 2006b, pp. 116–118.) That is exactly what [Lived-Subjectivity] holds: the pre-reflective act is its being conscious (of) itself as being a consciousness (of) b. The solution, however, should surely be credited to Husserl (see note 21 above). 23 For any of my conscious episodes, x, my conscious episode, a, is a consciousness of x, as mine, only if a is conscious of a’s being so conscious of x, as mine.

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the right kind of distinction between our pre-reflective awareness (of) experience and our reflective awareness of experience. For Husserl, the distinction is one of kind, not of degree. For the self-representationalist, self-consciousness is reflection. For her, so-called pre-reflective experience is in fact reflective, and the distinction between so-called pre-reflection and so-called reflection is one of degree, not of kind. As Kriegel (2012, p. 482) puts it: [We can see that self-consciousness admits of] degrees of luminosity […] by appeal to a traditional conception of attention as a resource that can be distributed among the various items a person may represent at a time. The more of this resource is dedicated to a conscious state’s representation of itself, the more phenomenally vivid the state is. So-called reflection will be distinguished from so-called pre-reflection by making the former more attentive than the latter. Given this, my awareness of my awareness of E must itself be reflective. And, as the argument from mine-ness showed, this opens the Gurwitsch regress. (c) As noted at (a), self-representationalism is prima facie open to the charge of misrepresenting the phenomenology of pre-reflective experience by making such experience a delineated particular (or figure) for me, when its phenomenological status is rather that of a background. Aristotle expressed this phenomenological fact by saying that I am, in the typical case, aware of my perceptions ‘‘on the side’’. Husserl expressed the matter so: [Experiences apprehended pre-reflectively] are there already as a ‘‘background’’ when they are not reflected on and thus of essential necessity are ‘‘ready to be perceived’’ in a sense which is […] analogous to the one in which unnoticed physical things in our external field of regard are ready to be perceived. Physical things can be ready to be perceived only in so far as already, as unnoticed things, they are intended to and this signifies: only if they are appearing. (Hua III, pp. 84/98–99) This dense passage makes, explicitly and implicitly, several points. First, in pre-reflective experience my focal object (or figure) is not my experience, but the intentional object of that experience. Second, my pre-reflective experience is apprehended as somehow marginal. The manner in which it is marginal is analogous to the manner in which perceptual grounds are backgrounds for perceptual figures. Third, this analogy furnishes an explanation of how we pass from pre-reflection to reflection. Being already apprehended as marginal, my experience stands ‘‘ready’’ to become a focal object for a reflecting consciousness, in a sense of ‘‘ready’’ that bears analogy to the sense in which perceptual backgrounds—being already background-objects for me—are ready to become perceptual figures. And fourth, being thus ‘‘ready’’ for reflection, being (for) me already discriminable from other experiences prior to reflection, my experience is (for) me some kind of object: it is a background-object. I shall address each of these points.

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This claim, that experiences are background-objects, has enjoyed widespread acceptance among phenomenologists.24 It may be divided into two claims: experiences apprehended pre-reflectively are (i) backgrounds-(for)-me, and (ii) objects-(for)-me. The self-representationalist’s gloss on (i) falsifies the phenomenology of experience, while a consideration of (ii) will show that an objection often raised against Husserl’s model rests on a misunderstanding. I shall discuss each in turn. (i) Experiences apprehended pre-reflectively are backgrounds-(for)-me.—Intentionality and lived-experience are two types of awareness that differ in kind, not in degree. This is why Husserl says, in the above passage, that experiences-(for)-me are backgrounds in a sense of ‘‘background’’ that bears analogy to the sense in which perceptual backgrounds are backgrounds. Backgrounds-(for)-me bear analogy to perceptual backgrounds-for-me for the simple reason that neither is a focal object; each is rather a ground against which one’s intentional objects stand forth. But, to understand the notion of backgroundobject-(for)-me, it is equally important to understand the disanalogy between backgrounds-(for)-me and perceptual backgrounds-for-me. Perceptual backgrounds-for-me are apprehended via an intentional content, in profile and from a perspective. To appropriate Sartre’s metaphor, they are characterized by their opacity for me. And this opacity might increase or diminish relative to one’s degree of attention. There is here, then, a homogeneity between perceptual figure and perceptual background: each is opaque. In contrast, backgrounds-(for)-me are not apprehended in profile, but lived, and one cannot in principle pay attention to them. To appropriate Sartre’s metaphor, lived-experiences are translucent (to) me. To pay attention, say, to my desire, I must reflect upon it. In that case, I no longer live my desire. My desire is now my intentional object. What I now live is my reflection. So, unlike backgrounds-for-me, backgrounds-(for)-me also function as backgrounds—as contrasting grounds against which one’s intentional objects stand forth—because they are not homogeneous with their objects. It is that contrast, between the lived-nature of one’s experience and the intended-nature of its object, which informs the phenomenology of pre-reflectively experiencing one’s desire, say, as a background, as ‘‘on the side’’. Backgrounds-(for)-me, therefore, differ in kind from backgroundsfor-me. And clearly, the Brentanian cannot capture this notion of background-(for)-me. Perhaps the best she can do is to follow Kriegel (2009, p. 360) and cash the notion of background-(for)-me in terms of the notion of attention: The distinction between focal and peripheral awareness is primarily a distinction regarding the distribution of attention: focal awareness of something is highly attentive awareness of it, peripheral awareness of it is less attentive awareness. The bullet bitten here is the implicit denial that backgrounds-(for)-me differ in kind from backgrounds-for-me. Granting this, the self-representationalist can rebut 24

For example: Brough (1972, p. 318), Sokolowski (1974, p. 156), Gurwitsch (1985, p. 4).

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the objection that she is committed to treating intentions that are experienced ‘‘on the side’’ as focal objects: the notion of attention will sustain a figure/background distinction. But the first cost of this move is that I can no longer track my experience. Take the case where I count—swiftly and meticulously—the coins on the table. My counting unfolds as the temporal unity it is because I pre-reflectively retend my having just counted (say) a third coin and protend my counting a fourth. I live my counting—and so keep track (of) it—as it unfolds through time. I see no more reason to suppose that an inattentive intention, apprehending my counting as a background-object, could track that counting, than to suppose that I could meticulously track some event that unfolds in my perceptual background. The second cost of this defence is that, being objects of attention, pre-reflective experiences are apprehended in profile. And that failing cannot be removed by cosmetic tinkering: it comes as the essential baggage of the claim that pre-reflection is an intention. On this model my experiences are not lived-through (erlebt) as they qua experiences are. Rather, I can in principle infer some of my experience’s experiential properties from those that I am, in self-awareness, presented with as facets. That is not just wrong. It wildly misrepresents the phenomenology of experience. (ii) Experiences apprehended pre-reflectively are objects-(for)-me.—It is often objected that Husserl treats self-awareness as unstructured and non-objectual—that, unlike Brentanian self-awareness, Husserlian self-awareness is ‘‘an unstructured intrinsic glow’’ (Kriegel 2009, p. 363), and hence mysterious. Kriegel continues: [T]he very suggestion that [pre-reflective self-awareness] is simple and unstructured is rather implausible. [… T]he subject of a conscious experience is aware of her experience. […] Since this awareness is awareness-of, it involves an of-ness relation to the experience. To that extent, it cannot be an unstructured intrinsic glow, because it enables a structure involving a relation between the subject and her experience. (Kriegel 2009, p. 363) The thought that [pre-reflection] is different from familiar awareness-of in that it is a non-objectifying awareness […] strikes me as incoherent, inasmuch as it strikes me as conceptually true that, in the relevant sense of ‘‘object,’’ awareness-of is always awareness-of-object. (Kriegel 2009, p. 363, footnote 13) This objection rests on a misunderstanding. Husserlian self-awareness is not ‘‘an unstructured intrinsic glow’’. Certainly, for Husserl, lived-experiences are not intentional objects; they are not objects-for-me. But they are objects-(for)-me. Lived-experience is objectual, and hence, it is structured: to be aware (of) one’s experience is to be aware (of) an object. The misunderstanding in question, then, misconstrues Husserl’s denial that lived-experiences are intentional objects-for-me as a denial that they are objects-(for)-me.25 25

It will be clear to those who have followed the Brough/Zahavi dispute that I side with Brough (1972, 2010) on the matter of whether experiences are experienced (erlebt) as inner objects. Regarding this dispute, one might wish also to consult Drummond (2006), DeRoo (2011), Brough (2011), and Zahavi (2011).

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An experience is an object-(for)-me, first, because it is a temporal unity which begins, endures and passes away, and which is apprehended as such. In Husserl’s terms, an experience is retended as having just begun, apprehended as being present, and protended as continuing into the future. Experiences apprehended prereflectively are, for Husserl, ‘‘temporal objects’’ (e.g., Hua X, p. 232/239). Husserl typically uses the term ‘‘Objekt’’ for experiences (which are objects-(for)-me), reserving ‘‘Gegenstand’’ for intentional objects (which are objects-for-me). For example, he writes: Everywhere we have to distinguish: consciousness (flow), appearance (immanent object [Objekt]), transcendent object [Gegenstand] (when the immanent object is not a primary content). (Hua X, p. 76/80) Secondly, that I apprehend myself and my experience as objects is required if I am to make a distinction between myself and my experience, discrimination’s being a discrimination between objects. The notion of object that we need here is simply a correlate of the notion of discrimination. An object, in the sense required, is simply an object (or, if you prefer, an x) for (possible or actual) discrimination. Likewise, it is this notion of object we require if we are to allow that I can prereflectively distinguish between concurrent, discrete experiences. I might, for example, watch television while trying to reach a book, while chatting to a friend, etc. Each of those experiences is qualitatively discrete and is pre-reflectively experienced as such. I do not conflate my watching with my trying, do not conflate my trying with my chatting, and do not conflate my chatting with my watching. Moreover, without such pre-reflective discriminations, I would have no awareness of co-existence or succession. Again, as Brough has stressed, were experiences not pre-reflectively apprehended as discrete, reflection’s ability to make them so would be utterly mysterious: ‘‘In the absence of prominences, of peaks and valleys in pre-reflective experience, there would be nothing to guide reflection in making its objectifying cuts. The reflective [sorting of experiences] […] would be arbitrary.’’ (Brough 2010, p. 39) Pre-reflective self-awareness, then, is discriminatory. Hence, discrimination being discrimination between objects, experiences pre-reflectively experienced (erlebt) are objects. The above objection, that construes Husserlian self-awareness as unstructured, is therefore ill-founded. This notion of background-object-(for)-me bears analogy to—but must not be equated with—the notion of background-object-for-me. The latter is instanced paradigmatically by perceptual backgrounds. It is to this analogy, between these distinct notions of background-object, that Husserl appeals in the above quotation (Hua III, pp. 84/98–99) to explain the passage from pre-reflection to reflection. Being background-objects-(for)-me, my pre-reflective experiences stand ‘‘ready’’ to become focal objects for a reflecting consciousness, in a sense of ‘‘ready’’ that bears analogy to the sense in which perceptual backgrounds—being already backgroundobjects-for-me—stand ready to become perceptual figures. Thanks to this analogy, the passage from pre-reflection to reflection is intelligible: experiences lived as background-objects undergo ‘‘attentional transmutation into ‘foregrounds’’’ (Hua III, p. 232/268).

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Yet it is thanks to the contrast between these two notions—of background-object(for)-me and of background-object-for-me—that the claim that experiences are background-objects-(for)-me avoids the regresses that beset representational models of self-awareness. Unlike background-objects-for-me—which are apprehended in profile, via an intentional content—background-objects-(for)-me are lived (erlebt) directly as they are, without profile. So no regress is incurred.

7 Defusing the Dilemma of Subjectivity I close by observing that the notion of lived-subjectivity, defended here, removes a dilemma that might otherwise be advanced against the general notion of subjectivity. According to this dilemma, either a subject appears to itself as an object, or it does not. If it does, then it cannot be a subject; but if it does not, then it cannot be a subject. Regarding the first horn of this dilemma, it might be urged that if my subjectivity consists in my apprehending myself as an object, then my subjectivity dissolves. For a subject must, in the relevant sense, appear to itself, and its subjectivity is exhausted by this self-appearance. The subject must be its self-appearance if it is to appear to itself as a subject. But if this self-appearance of the subject is an object, then the radical distinction between subject and object, required by the general notion of subjectivity, disappears. Regarding the second horn, it can be urged that a subject must be an object and must appear to itself as such. In being aware, in the relevant sense, of my experiences and of my continued awareness of those experiences, I make a distinction between myself and my experiences, and between myself and the objects of those experiences. I must thereby apprehend myself as a discriminable x; that is, as an object. More generally, it seems meaningless to say that as a subject I am (in the relevant sense) for myself if I am not thereby an object for myself. My subjectivity, being experienced, must be an object. The notion of lived-subjectivity defended here accepts the second horn of this dilemma. However, it rejects the first horn by making a distinction between object(for)-me and object-for-me. Granted, as the first horn requires, my appearing (to) myself exhausts my subjectivity: I qua subject must be as I appear (to) myself. Also, we have seen that within lived-subjectivity the threefold distinction between awareness, content and object collapses. There is thus no distinction between my being aware (of) myself as a subject and my being aware (of) myself as an object. To be aware (of) myself as a subject is to be aware (of) myself as an object. But, we have seen, I am not thereby an intentional object for myself. The fundamental distinction, between subject and (intentional) object remains intact. In contrast, self-representationalism cannot escape this dilemma. Since for it selfawareness is an intention, since for it ‘‘object-for-me’’ can only mean intentionalobject-for-me, it is impaled on the first horn. That, in fact, is simply another way of noting what was established by the argument from [Mine-ness]: that mine-ness cannot be captured in terms of intentionality. And that means that self-

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representationalism cannot capture the fundamental feature of the phenomenology of experience: that in my experiencing I apprehend myself as a subject. Acknowledgments Thanks are due to the editors and to an anonymous referee for Husserl Studies. For their remarks on an earlier expression of these thoughts, thanks are due to Alia Al-Saji, Emily Carson, David Davies and Ian Gold.

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