One of Hume's most well-known works and a masterpiece of philosophy, A Treatise of Human Nature is indubitably worth taking the time to read.

Neurological syndromes in which consciousness seems to malfunction, such as temporal lobe epilepsy, visual scotomas, Charles Bonnet syndrome, and synesthesia offer valuable clues about the normal functions of consciousness and ‘qualia’. An investigation into these syndromes reveals, we argue, that qualia are different from other brain states in that they possess three functional characteristics, which we state in the form of ‘three laws of qualia’. First, they are irrevocable: I cannot simply decide to start seeing the sunset as green, or (...) feel pain as if it were an itch; second, qualia do not always produce the same behaviour: given a set of qualia, we can choose from a potentially infinite set of possible behaviours to execute; and third, qualia endure in short-term memory, as opposed to non-conscious brain states involved in the on-line guidance of behaviour in real time. We suggest that qualia have evolved these and other attributes because of their role in facilitating non-automatic, decision-based action. We also suggest that the apparent epistemic barrier to knowing what qualia another person is experiencing can be overcome by using a ‘bridge’ of neurons; and we offer a hypothesis about the relation between qualia and one's sense of self. (shrink)

One of the most exciting aspects of this journal, of which I am proud to be an executive editor, is that it has become a venue in which so many distinct fields can interact on a single question, that of consciousness. I know of no other question, or journal, which has brought together so many voices, from so many fields, to swirl around a single topic. It is exciting both to provide a forum and to be a part of this (...) debate. In this article I would like to bring the findings of my somewhat unusual but increasingly accepted field -- mysticism-- to the discussion, for I think they may offer some helpful insights about consciousness. Why? When a biologist seeks to understand a complex phenomenon, one key strategy is to look to at it in its simplest form. Probably the most famous is the humble bacterium E. coli. Its simple gene structure has allowed us to understand much of the gene functioning of complex species. Similarly many biologists have turned to the `memory' of the simple sea slug to understand our own more kaleidoscopic memory. Freud and Durkheim both used totemism, which they construed as the simplest form of religion, to understand the complexities of religious life. The methodological principle is: to understand something complex turn to its simple forms. (shrink)

Given the recent interest in the subjective or phenomenal dimension of consciousness it is no wonder that many authors have once more started to speak of the need for pheno- menological considerations. Often however the term ‘phenomenology’ is being used simply as a synonym for ‘folk psychology', and in our article we argue that it would be far more fruitful to turn to the argumentation to be found within the continental tradition inaugurated by Husserl. In order to exemplify this claim, (...) we criticize Rosenthal's higher-order thought theory as well as Strawson's recent contribution in this journal, and argue that a phenomenological analysis of the nature of self-awareness can provide us with a more sophisticated and accurate model for understanding both phenomenal consciousness and the notion of self. (shrink)

It is of great use to the sailor to know the length of his line, though he cannot with it fathom all the depths of the ocean. It is well he knows that it is long enough to reach the bottom at such places as are necessary to direct his voyage, and caution him against running upon shoals that may ruin him.

We can start with some science fiction. Here on Earth, I enter the Teletransporter. When I press some button, a machine destroys my body, while recording the exact states of all my cells. The information is sent by radio to Mars, where another machine makes, out of organic materials, a perfect copy of my body. The person who wakes up on Mars seems to remember living my life up to the moment when I pressed the button, and he is in (...) every other way just like me. Of those who have thought about such cases, some believe that it would be I who would wake up on Mars. They regard Teletransportation as merely the fastest way of travelling. Others believe that, if I chose to be Teletransported, I would be making a terrible mistake. On their view, the person who wakes up would be a mere Replica of me. (shrink)

For better or for worse, I find myself in the company of the `misers' of Galen Strawson's portrayal who, in response to the question, `Is there such a thing as the self?' rejoin: `Well, there is something of which the sense of the self is an accurate representation, but it does not follow that there is any such thing as the self' . Far from representing a form of `metaphysical excess' , the rejoinder seems faithfully and reliably phenomenological. We need (...) not assume that reflection is mere fabrication, or that it crucially distorts the thematic posit that funds our sense of self. The focus, recognition and contextual sensitivity that condition perception may, and admittedly do, limit and modify the activity of reflection as well. Observation disturbs the observed. And likewise, reflection may well compromise its object. But the product of this `compromise', the object as disturbed, the reflective posit as distorted, is nonetheless `there', for reflection. If the way a given object appears to us is a function of our perspectival insertion into the visible world, we need not deny that the world still appears to us in just this way. And analogously, our `sense of self' may represent -- in fact, faithfully represent -- the resultant `distortion', but it would be a breach of logic to infer from this that our `sense of self' therefore represents a self untouched by distortion, an independent, `undistorted' self. Indeed, if reflection distorts, we would have no reflective access to an undistorted self, and would thus have no phenomenological warrant for assuming its existence. Pace Strawson, however, the `something' represented by our `sense of self' is not some thing. It is not `as much a thing or object as any . . . grain of salt' , but rather, as we shall see, an atmospheric haze, or at best, an adventitious `sheen'. (shrink)

Little, Brown, 1992 Review by Glenn Branch on Jul 5th 1999 Volume: 3, Number: 27.

What is the cognitive significance of talking to ourselves? I criticize two interpretations of this function , and offer a third: I argue that inner speech is a genuine dialogue, not a monologue; that the partners in this dialogue represent the independent interests of experienced meaning and logical articulation; that the former is either silent or capable only of abbreviated speech; that articulation is a logical, not a social demand; and that neither partner is a full-time subordinate of the other. (...) I examine the views of Plato, Arendt, Gadamer, Ryle, Piaget and Vygotsky on the nature of inner speech, and the views of Gazzaniga and Dennett on the role of inner speech in the constitution of human consciousness. (shrink)

A rDzogs-chen interpretation of the sense of self is presented that is grounded in the disciplined method of shamatha-vipashyana meditation. This model of self/non-self agrees with Strawson's analysis as far as the discontinuity of self, but elaborates the momentary self not as any kind of ‘thing', but as an energy process having both particle-like and field-like aspects. The moment-by-moment appearance of a sense of self is described as arising in stages over a finite duration from a background of non-dual intelligence (...) and energy. There are implications for further scientific research into the structure of self-consciousness as well as for the cultivation of individual wisdom and compassion. (shrink)

Can we understand what makes someone the same person without understanding what it is to be a person? Prereflectively we might not think so, but philosophers often accord these questions separate treatments, with personal-identity theorists claiming the first question and free-will theorists the second. Yet much of what is of interest to a person—the possibility of survival over time, compensation for past hardships, concern for future projects, or moral responsibility—is not obviously intelligible from the perspective of either question alone. Marya (...) Schechtman encourages us to adopt a more unified perspective. (shrink)

Galen Strawson accepts that the common experience of being a social self is of something that continues through time. However, he excludes this from what ‘the self’ means in a stricter ontological sense. Here I will argue that this experience of self as enduring can be taken to be ontologically real as well. I will suggest that selfhood arises from the assimilation of cultural signs by a semiotic process that is a fundamental aspect of nature. I will also consider how (...) the phenomenological encounter with ‘the self’ is conditioned by prior beliefs and their ethical entailments. (shrink)

We often do metaphysics by intuitions about possible cases. An example is the argument for functionalism about belief and desire. The argument starts from the premise that, intuitively, it is not possible for belief and desire to vary independently of functional nature —functional duplicates are necessarily belief-desire duplicates—and concludes that belief and desire are functional states. An equally famous example is the argument against functionalism for sensory qualities. The argument starts from the premise that, intuitively, it is possible for sensory (...) nature to vary independently of functional nature—functional duplicates might be sensory inverts—and concludes that sensory states are not functional states. (shrink)

This paper presents the pure consciousness theory of self, derived from Eastern meditation traditions, and uses it to unravel some of the paradoxes of Western philosophical models of the self. The theory is ontologically neutral and compatible with the widest variety of different ontologies. However the theory does, I think, have significant implications for questions of personal identity, emotional maturity and moral values, but exploring these topics here would take us too far afield. The article attempts to show something of (...) the potential value for our traditional philosophical discussions of self of taking into account the pure consciousness experience, widely discussed in Eastern, but not Western, philosophical traditions. For if the phenomenological analyses are even roughly correct, it would appear that the experience is capable of resolving some major Western issues about self, clarifies our commonsense intuition, and is properly identified by philosophical analysis as being experience of self itself. (shrink)

Covers the philosophical concept of the self. Kenny concentrates here on two of the roots of ""self"" - the epistemological root and the psychological root. It is the purpose of this lecture to claim that the self of the philosophers is a mythical entity, and so likewise is the self of the poets and dramatists to the extent to which it is modelled on the philosophers' myth.

For most people a sense of self includes an embodied component: when describing our selves we describe those aspects of our physical bodies which can be easily codified: height, hair colour, sex, eye colour. Even when we consider ourselves we tend not to consider our intellectual cognitive characteristics but our describable anatomy. Wittgenstein's dictum, ‘the human body is the best picture of the human soul’, is relevant here but I would like to go further: the body-part we feel most embodied (...) in is our face, even though it is difficult to describe and so forms little part of how we describe ourselves to others. (shrink)

This study attempts to describe the notion of the ‘self’ using dynamical systems language based on the results of our robot learning experiments. A neural network model consisting of multiple modules is proposed, in which the interactive dynamics between the bottom-up perception and the top-down prediction are investigated. Our experiments with a real mobile robot showed that the incremental learning of the robot switches spontaneously between steady and unsteady phases. In the steady phase, the top-down prediction for the bottom-up perception (...) works well when coherence is achieved between the internal and the environmental dynamics. In the unsteady phase, conflicts arise between the bottom-up perception and the top-down prediction; the coherence is lost, and a chaotic attractor is observed in the internal neural dynamics. By investigating possible analogies between this result and the phenomenological literature on the ‘self', we draw the conclusions that the structure of the ‘self’ corresponds to the ‘open dynamic structure’ which is characterized by co-existence of stability in terms of goal-directedness and instability caused by embodiment; the open dynamic structure causes the system's spontaneous transition to the unsteady phase where the ‘self’ becomes aware. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore the implications of adopting one model of self rather than another in respect to one particular feature of our mental life. The need to explain synchronic unity in normal subjectivity, and also to explain the apparent and puzzling absence of synchronic unity in certain symptoms of severe mental disorder, I show, becomes more pressing with one particular model. But in the process of developing that explanation we learn something about subjectivity and perhaps also something about (...) brain functioning. (shrink)

I am in complete sympathy with Galen Strawson's conclusions in ‘The Self’ . He takes a careful, measured approach to a topic that lends itself all too easily to speculation and intellectual extravaganzas. The results are for the most part balanced and plausible. I am even in sympathy with his claim that a memory-produced sense of continuity over time is less central to selfhood than many researchers think, though he may go too far in the opposite direction. Thus my purpose (...) in these comments is not to criticise his conclusions. Instead, I want to look at certain aspects of the framework of argument and observation that he uses to reach them. In particular, I want to look at elements and in his list of features that we conceive a self to possess. concerns synchronic singularity, i.e. being one mental being at a time, and concerns diachronic singularity, i.e. being one mental being over time. I will argue that the spirit of Strawson's claims about and is supportable but that the letter of them is flawed, due mainly to a failure to distinguish singleness of self from a self being unified. The feature relevant to Strawson's overall analysis is being unified, not being single. (shrink)

What is the cognitive significance of talking to ourselves? I criticize two interpretations of this function , and offer a third: I argue that inner speech is a genuine dialogue, not a monologue; that the partners in this dialogue represent the independent interests of experienced meaning and logical articulation; that the former is either silent or capable only of abbreviated speech; that articulation is a logical, not a social demand; and that neither partner is a full-time subordinate of the other. (...) I examine the views of Plato, Arendt, Gadamer, Ryle, Piaget and Vygotsky on the nature of inner speech, and the views of Gazzaniga and Dennett on the role of inner speech in the constitution of human consciousness. (shrink)

One of the most exciting aspects of this journal, of which I am proud to be an executive editor, is that it has become a venue in which so many distinct fields can interact on a single question, that of consciousness. I know of no other question, or journal, which has brought together so many voices, from so many fields, to swirl around a single topic. It is exciting both to provide a forum and to be a part of this (...) debate. In this article I would like to bring the findings of my somewhat unusual but increasingly accepted field -- mysticism-- to the discussion, for I think they may offer some helpful insights about consciousness. Why? When a biologist seeks to understand a complex phenomenon, one key strategy is to look to at it in its simplest form. Probably the most famous is the humble bacterium E. coli. Its simple gene structure has allowed us to understand much of the gene functioning of complex species. Similarly many biologists have turned to the `memory' of the simple sea slug to understand our own more kaleidoscopic memory. Freud and Durkheim both used totemism, which they construed as the simplest form of religion, to understand the complexities of religious life. The methodological principle is: to understand something complex turn to its simple forms. (shrink)

I argue that consciousness is an aspect of an agent's intelligence, hence of its ability to deal adaptively with the world. In particular, it allows for the possibility of noting and correcting the agent's errors, as actions performed by itself. This in turn requires a robust self-concept as part of the agent's world model; the appropriate notion of self here is a special one, allowing for a very strong kind of self-reference. It also requires the capability to come to see (...) that world model as residing in its belief base, while then representing the actual world as possibly different, i.e., forming a new world-model. This suggests particular computational mechanisms by which consciousness occurs, ones that conceivably could be discovered by neuroscientists, as well as built into artificial systems that may need such capabilities. Consciousness, then, is not an epiphenomenon at all, but rather a key part of the functional architecture of suitably intelligent agents, hence amenable to study as much as any other architectural feature. I also argue that ignorance of how subjective states could be essentially functional does not itself lend credibility to the view that such states are not essentially functional; the strong self-reference proposal here is one possible functional explanation of consciousness. (shrink)

For better or for worse, I find myself in the company of the `misers' of Galen Strawson's portrayal who, in response to the question, `Is there such a thing as the self?' rejoin: `Well, there is something of which the sense of the self is an accurate representation, but it does not follow that there is any such thing as the self'. Far from representing a form of `metaphysical excess', the rejoinder seems faithfully and reliably phenomenological. We need not assume (...) that reflection is mere fabrication, or that it crucially distorts the thematic posit that funds our sense of self. The focus, recognition and contextual sensitivity that condition perception may, and admittedly do, limit and modify the activity of reflection as well. Observation disturbs the observed. And likewise, reflection may well compromise its object. But the product of this `compromise', the object as disturbed, the reflective posit as distorted, is nonetheless `there', for reflection. If the way a given object appears to us is a function of our perspectival insertion into the visible world, we need not deny that the world still appears to us in just this way. And analogously, our `sense of self' may represent -- in fact, faithfully represent -- the resultant `distortion', but it would be a breach of logic to infer from this that our `sense of self' therefore represents a self untouched by distortion, an independent, `undistorted' self. Indeed, if reflection distorts, we would have no reflective access to an undistorted self, and would thus have no phenomenological warrant for assuming its existence. Pace Strawson, however, the `something' represented by our `sense of self' is not some thing. It is not `as much a thing or object as any... grain of salt', but rather, as we shall see, an atmospheric haze, or at best, an adventitious `sheen'. (shrink)

In this article, I will draw on my own work and related publications to present some intuitions and hypotheses about the nature of the self and the mechanisms that lead to the development of consciousness or self awareness in human infants during the first 6 months of life. My main purpose is to show that the origins of a concept of self include the physical and the mental selves. I believe that it is essential when trying to understand what a (...) mental state is, that one identifies the social and physical aspects of the person to whom the mental state belongs. How can one identify a mental state or thought without making reference to a subject who experiences it (Hobson, 1990)? The other important feature of the self is that it is distinguished from other people and inanimate objects. ‘One's concept of self is a concept of a person; one's concept of persons cannot be a concept applicable only to a single individual (oneself), for the reason that in this case it would no longer constitute a concept'(Hobson, 1990, p. 165). I would like to argue that infants must be able to represent their physical and social selves in order to recognize that they are similar and different from other people, and to develop expectations and predictions about the behaviour of others (theory of mind). Unlike Strawson, I do not believe that the social and physical aspects of the self are, or become redundant to the nature of the self. I posit that the mature conscious self is a unique mythical and constantly changing entity, the formation of which is created not by the individual alone, but through continuous dialectical inquiry with other people. (shrink)

Because there is no agreed use of the term ‘self', or characteristic features or even paradigm cases of selves, there is no idea of ‘the self’ to figure in philosophical problems. The term leads to troubles otherwise avoidable; and because legitimate discussions under the heading of ‘self’ are really about other things, it is gratuitous. I propose that we stop speaking of selves.

Galen Strawson considers the self to be best described as a cognitive, `distinctively mental' phenomenon. He asserts that the mental sense of self comes to every normal human being in childhood and comprises the sense of being a mental presence, of being alone in one's head, with the body `just a vehicle or vessel for the mental thing that is what one really or most essentially is' . His thesis is determinedly cognitivist and it is with this that I take (...) issue. As Reed puts the problem, `cognitivism, with its allegiance to the representational theory of mind and its focus on mental states as internal to the mind, is particularly susceptible to the dualistic separation of self from the environment' . One may add that cognitivism is also susceptible to separating the self from the body. Reed suggests that perception not only provides information for the distinction between self and environment from the outset, but also it provides a means of keeping in contact with the world. Memory provides a means of bridging earlier and later aspects of self and integrating diverse elements of experience. Both perceiving and remembering entail aspects of self but in rather different ways. Perceiving is a spatio-temporal process which provides a continuous flow of information about the embodied self in its encounters with the physical and social world. Autobiographical memory requires a duplication of the self so that `me-experiencing-now' can be related with `a prior me-experiencing-a-prior-environment'. The question of interest is how a perceived self may, through development, give rise to a remembered self. (shrink)

This paper suggests that certain traditional ways of analysing the self start off in situations that are abstract or detached from normal experience, and that the conclusions reached in such approaches are, as a result, inexact or mistaken. The paper raises the question of whether there are more contextualized forms of self-consciousness than those usually appealed to in philosophical or psychological analyses, and whether they can be the basis for a more adequate theoretical approach to the self. First, we develop (...) a distinction between abstract and contextualized actions and intentions by drawing on evidence from studies of rehabilitation after brain damage, and we introduce the notion of intentional attitude. Second, we discuss several interesting conclusions drawn from theoretically and experimentally abstract approaches. These conclusions raise some important issues about both the nature of the self and reflexive consciousness. At the same time they indicate the serious limitations concerning what we can claim about self and self-consciousness within such abstract frameworks. Such limitations motivate the question of whether it is possible to capture a sense of self that is more embedded in contextualized actions. Specifically, our concern is to focus on first-person approaches. We identify two forms of self-consciousness, ecological self-awareness and embedded reflection, that function within the kinds of contextualized activity we have indicated, and can be the basis for a theoretical account of the self. Both forms of self-consciousness are closely tied to action and promise to provide a less abstract basis for developing a theoretical approach to the self. (shrink)

What is mind? This book attempts to give a philosophical answer to that question in language accessible to the layperson, but with a rigor acceptable to the specialist. Published on the centenary of the birth of Wittgenstein and the 40th anniversary of the publication of Gilbert Ryle 's classic The Concept of Mind, this work testifies to the influence of those thinkers on Kenny's own work in the philosophy of mind, and assembles Kenny's ideas on philosophical psychology into a systematic (...) whole. (shrink)

This paper uses certain of Michel Foucault's ideas concerning modern consciousness (from The Order of Things) to illuminate a central paradox of the schizophrenic condition: a strange oscillation, or even coexistence, between two opposite experiences of the self: between the loss or fragmentation of self and its apotheosis in moments of solipsistic grandeur. Many schizophrenic patients lose their sense of integrated and active intentionality; even their most intimate thoughts and inclinations may be experienced as emanating from, or under the control (...) of, some external being or mysterious foreign soul (‘I feel it is not me who is thinking’; ‘I have been programmed’). Yet the same patients may also experience the self as preeminent, all-powerful or all-knowing (‘My thoughts can influence things’; ‘This event happens because I think it'). Here one may feel confronted with the very paradigm of irrationality: profound contradictions suggesting regression to primitive ‘primary-process’ thinking or utter collapse of the higher faculties of mind. I argue, however, that these dualities so basic to schizophrenia can best be understood very differently: as consequences of a kind of alienation and hyper-self-consciousness (‘hyper- reflexivity') that is closely analogous to what occurs in the post-Kantian era of Western intellectual history. The parallel dualities of modern thought have been most extensively discussed by Foucault, who describes paradoxes, tensions and other dilemmas central to what he calls the modern ‘episteme'; these result from what Foucault sees as the modern human being's introverted and ultimately self-deceiving preoccupation with, and overvaluing of, the phenomenon of his own consciousness. Parallels between these contradictions and those characteristic of several withdrawn schizophrenic individuals are described and analysed. The paper concludes with an Afterword in which some possible neurobiological underpinnings of these schizophrenic experiences are discussed. (shrink)

I am in virtually complete sympathy with Galen Strawson's conclusions in 'The Self'. He takes a careful, measured approach to a topic that lends itself all too easily to speculation and intellectual extravaganzas. The results he achieves are for the most part balanced and plausible. I even have a lot of sympathy with his claim that a memory-produced sense of continuity across time is less central to selfhood than many philosophers think, though I will argue that he goes too far (...) in the opposite direction. (shrink)