Descartes, Kant and Self Consciousness (Priest, 1981).pdf

8/13/2019 Descartes, Kant and Self Consciousness (Priest, 1981).pdf

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Descartes, Kant, and Self-ConsciousnessAuthor(s): Stephen PriestReviewed work(s):Source: The Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 31, No. 125 (Oct., 1981), pp. 348-351Published by: Blackwell Publishingfor The Philosophical QuarterlyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2219405.

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348

DESCARTES, KANT, AND SELF-CONSCIOUSNESSBY STEPHEN PRIESTIn this paper two of TerenceWilkerson's onclusions oncerningheCartesian nd Kantianaccounts ftheself re contested.'He claimsthat Descartes did not hold the ( Lockean ) view that theself s a substance ntologicallyistinct romhoughts,ndthereforeant'scriticismf the rationalist octrine f the self n the Paralogisms missesitsmark . Wilkersonlso attributeso Kant theview that consciousnessentails elf-consciousness ,n attributionhared nvariousforms yseveral

Kantiancommentatorsncluding trawson nd Bennett.TakingDescartesfirst,ven if it weretruethat Kant and Hume areguilty fa seriousmuddle, or hey ttributeo Descartes Lockeanaccountof ubstancewhichhe neither eedsnordesires , hismight e an interestingpointabout the Historyof Ideas but not necessarily reportof a philo-sophicalmuddle. Hume in the Treatise ectionOf Personal dentity,ndKantintheParalogisms, ould tillbe saying omethingoherentncriticismofany possiblephilosopher ho held thatthe selfwas an entity over andabove in thesenseof ontologically istinct rom set ofthoughts,venif Descarteswas not such a philosopher.There is, though, lear textualevidence hatDescarteswas sucha philosopher.In theSecondMeditation e says I am . . .precisely peaking thingwhich hinks ndthenrepeats he claim I am ... a realthing, ndreallyexisting;but whatthing? I have alreadysaid it; a thingwhichthinks .2Descartesdoes not say thathe is a thought r a seriesofthoughts ut athing . His claimto be speakingprecisely hould be taken seriously.Descartes' onclusionsn substancesndpropertiesan becorrectlyxtendedto applyto his theory f the self. There s no dangerof confoundingheideas of modeand substance n the case of selves and their xperiencessthere s in thecase ofobjectsand theirproperties.3 nthony ennyunder-stands hispointwhenhe says,A thing s notto be identified ith ts essence. WhenDescartes aysthathisessence s thinking e doesnotmeanthat he canuse 'I' and'thought' s synonyms. he essenceof a substance s somethinghatsubstancehas,4and quotesthefollowingrom letter rom escartes o Burman:Besidesthe attributewhich pecifies substancewe mustrecognisethesubstance tself eneath heattribute; or nstance hesoul,beinga thinking hing,s, n addition o thought, substancewhich hinks.(Kenny,p. 66)So Wilkersons wrong o claim p. 50) that I can talk ofmyself hinkingorofmythoughts utmustbe waryoftalking fmyselfndmythoughts .Nor areDescartes'argumentsonsistentwitha viewofthe self as a set of

1T. E. Wilkerson, Kant on Self-Consciousness , The Philosophical Quarterly,30(1980), 47-60.2Descartes,Meditations Harmondsworth,1970), p. 105.3See Wilkerson,p. 50, quotingfromDescartes' PrinciplesI.4A. Kenny, Descartes New York, 1968), p. 64.


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DESCARTES, KANT, AND SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS 349experienceshat can be referredo eitherbyverbal and adjectivalphrasesor by noun phrases,without ny correspondingifferencen ontologicalcommitment. here is sometimes choicebetweena verbphraseand anounphrasewithouthere eing correspondinghange fmeaning. ennettprovidesa usefulexample; 'they foughtfor four hours' and 'the fightlasted forfourhours' do notdiffernmeaning nd can be used to mentionone and the same occurrence.5 ut this s not the case withtheCartesianself.Descriptions r mentions f selves and ofthoughtsorexperiences)renot alternativemeansofdesignatingne and the sameentity.Not only renames and experiential redicates rammaticallyistinct ut on Descartes'view selves and thoughts re not identical, venthough heyare logicallyand ontologicallynterdependent. he notionoffalling nder descriptionis an interestingnd valuable one, but differentescriptionsometimesexhibitdifferentntological ommitments.Although or Descartes therecannotbe thoughtswithout self to think hem, he distinctions clear;'soul', 'thinkinghing', I', and 'myself' re differentxpressions sed torefer o one and the same non-material ubstance. His use of the spatialmetaphorsbesides' and 'beneath' and the phrase in additionto' in theletter to Burman quoted above presupposesa further ommitmentothoughts.These relational onceptsrequire wo terms; substancewhichthinks, ot ustthoughts.In hisReply o ThirdObjectionsescartesemphasises his doctrine:No thought an existapartfrom thing hatthinks, nd in generalno activity r accident an be without substance n which o exist.. There are activities whichwe call intellectual. . . . The substanceinwhich heyresidewe call a thinking hing ra mind.6The doctrine hatthe existence f a self s a necessary ondition ormentalactivitymustbe carefully istinguishedrom he doctrine hat the self snothing verand above mental ctivity. Logical dependencemust not beconfusedwith dentity.To creditDescarteswith he atterview rather hanthe former ould be to attributeo hima Humean bundleofperceptionsdoctrine f the selfwhichhe wouldhaverejected.It follows rom his clarificationf Descartes'position hat Kant wasperfectlyorrect o hold in the FirstParalogism hat it was a doctrine fRationalPsychologyhat the soul s substance nd ithas notbeenshownthat his attack,or that ofHume, misses ts mark .7I turn now to Wilkerson's attributionto Kant of this belief: . .. it isa necessary ruth hat f have an experience am conscious f t as mine(p. 51). Kant did not hold thisview,which s in any case false. What isnecessarily rue s that if I have an experiencet is mine,not that I amconscious f t as mine. This is a consequence f the trivial nalytic ruththat all myexperiencesre mine. It wouldbe self-contradictoryo assertthat I had an experience hat was not myown,but it would not be self-contradictoryo say that I had an experience ut was not conscious f itas myown.

'Being consciousof havingan experience' s not to be confusedwith'having conscious xperience' orcan theformere logically erived romthe latter. WhenI am havinga conscious xperience am conscious, ut5s. Bennett,Kant's Dialectic (Cambridge,1974), p. 73.6Replyto ThirdObjectionsn The Philosophical Works fDescartes,ed. E. S. Haldaneand G. R. T. Ross (Cambridge,1911), p. 64.7Kant, Critique,A344, B402 (p. 330 in Kemp Smith's edition).


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350 STEPHEN PRIESTwhen am conscious f havingan experience am self-conscious.n thefirst ase I am ustconscious,n the second amconscious fbeing onscious.This distinctionmustnot be confusedwiththat between onscious nd un-consciousmental events (withwhich t may indeedbe compatible). Thedistinctions between eingconscious nd being elf-conscious,otbetweenbeingconscious nd beingunconscious.A failure o make the distinction etween wnershipnd self-conscious-ness has led to misinterpretationf Kant's famouspassageinthe B-versionofthe Transcendental eduction:It mustbepossible or he I think o accompany llmyrepresenta-tions; for otherwise omethingwould be representedn me whichcould notbe thought t all, and that s equivalent o saying hat therepresentation ould be impossible, r at leastwould be nothing ome. (Critique, 131-2,pp. 152-3)Theseremarks o notcommitKant to the view thatbeingconscious ntailsbeing elf-conscious. ant is making wo differentoints. He is saying hatthere re nounowned xperiences all myexperiencesrenecessarilymine- andhe s saying hat t mustbepossiblenprinciple orme to be consciousofmyexperiencess mine. The 'must be possible'above does not commitKant to 'all the time'.Wilkersons not the first ommentatormistakenlyo think hat the Ithink' fapperceptionccompanies, rhasto accompany ll ourexperiences.Jonathan ennett ays:Kant says that everyrepresentationmustoccurnot just in some

mind but specificallyn the mind of a self-consciousr self-awarebeing. Sometimes e concedes hat a representation ight xist un-accompanied yself-consciousness,ut nsists hat such a representa-tion would be nothing o itsowner.8Bennett mpliesthat everyrepresentationmustbe accompaniedby self-consciousness, ot ust capable ofbeingaccompaniedby self-consciousness.Wilkersonnd Bennett acitly ssimilate wo sets of viewsthatneed to becarefully eparated. First,there are at least two interpretationsf theexpression self-consciousmind' that are possible here. A self-consciousmind could be one thatwas capable of self-consciousnessr one that wasperpetually elf-conscious.All Kant needs for his argument s potentialself-consciousness,ot actual or occurrent elf-consciousness. imilarly,Strawson's hrase, self-consciouswareness f the succession f experiencein time', s open to eithernterpretationntilhemakes t clearthathe hasthe potential view ofapperception:It is not necessaryn orderfor differentxperiences o belongto asingleconsciousness,hatthe subjectofthoseexperienceshouldbeconstantlyhinkingf them s hisexperiences.9The second distinction eeded s in the reasonswhyan experience otcapable ofbeing accompaniedby self-consciousnessould not be possible,or at leastwouldbe nothing o itsowner. Part of theambiguityies in theKantian text. At least primafacie, 'not possible' is incompatiblewith'nothing o'. The disjunction etween hereeitherbeingno experience rtherebeingan experience f which he owner s not conscious eemsclearon onereading. But there s another eadingwhich enders ompatiblenot

8J.Bennett,Kant's Analytic Cambridge,1966), p. 104.9p. F. Strawson, The Bounds ofSense (London, 1966), pp. 20, 98.


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DESCARTES, KANT, AND SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS 351possible'and 'nothing o'. This secondreading oncernshenecessary on-ditionsfor an event'sbeingan experience.All experiencesre eventsbutnot all eventsare experiences. t is a necessary ondition oran event tobe an experiencehat tbe had or owned bya person, otthata personshouldbe conscious f tsoccurrence.When amconscious fx,I amhavingan experience. t is notnecessary orme to be conscious fbeingconsciousof x forme to be conscious fx, although hiswould ndeed be sufficient.Bearing his nmind,Kant's passagecanbe taken n thisway:therepre-sentationwouldbe impossible ecause the owned elementnthemeaningof experience' nd 'representation' ouldbe lacking.A representationhatwas nothing o a personwouldbe precisely n experience hat was nothad,that s atmost, mere vent. There ogically ouldnot be an experiencethatwas nothing o itsowner nthis sense.Finally,once we have seen that pure apperceptions a potentialityrcapacityfor elf-consciousness,e mustnotlose sight fthefactthat Kantdistinguisheshis from empirical pperception withwhichit is easilyconfused. Empirical pperception's Kant's term or verydayntrospectionwhich s simplyour occasional and discontinuouswarenessof our ownmental states. Pure apperception s the relationbetween subjectandhisexperienceshat sexpressed ysaying hatthe I think mustbecapableofaccompanyinghem. This is a purelyformal elationbetween personand his experiencesnd nota sortof ntrospection.t ensures hat certainsetsofmental vents re events n a singlemindand are thusexperiences,rather handiscontinuousndunrelated ccurrences.Expressionsike consciousnessntails elf-consciousness',self-aware e-ing' and 'self-consciouswareness fthe succession fexperience' houldbeavoided in explaining hetranscendentalnityofapperception nless t isrememberedhatKant is concernednlywith hecapacity fthe I thinkto accompany ll ourexperiences.10Manchesterolytechnic

10I am gratefulto ProfessorGraham Bird and Mr. Michael Smith of the Universityof Manchesterfor several useful discussions about the issues raised in this paper.

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Descartes, Kant and Self Consciousness (Priest, 1981).pdf