In
Subjective Consciousness: A Self-Representational Theory (henceforth, SC), I develop and defend a specific version of self-representationalism. Self-representationalism can be formulated
as follows:
- (SR)
-
Necessarily, for any mental state M, M is phenomenally conscious iff M represents itself in the right way.
Different versions of
SR can be obtained by unpacking “in the right way” in different ways. My own version construes “the right way” as “non-derivatively,
specifically, and essentially.”
1What motivates
SR, at least to me, is a certain conception of the structure of phenomenal character. As I look at the blue sky, I undergo a
conscious experience, and there is a bluish way it is like for me to undergo that experience. This “bluish way it is like
for me” is the experience’s phenomenal character. As Levine (
2001) notes, there is a conceptual distinction to be drawn between two components of this “bluish way it is like for me”: (i)
the bluish component, and (ii) the for-me component. I call the former
qualitative character and the latter
subjective character (Kriegel
2005,
2009). To a first approximation, the experience’s bluish qualitative character is what makes it the experience it is, but its
for-me-ness is what makes it an experience at all. A better, if initially less clear, approximation is this: my experience
is the experience it is because it is bluish-for-me, and is an experience at all because it is somehow-for-me (or qualitatively-for-me).
2 Thus qualitative character is what varies among conscious experiences, while subjective character is what is common to them.
Many philosophers have assumed that the core of the problem of consciousness is qualitative character, but an interesting
result of the above conception of the structure of phenomenal character is that it is actually subjective character that is
more central
(Levine
2001;
Kriegel
2009). Although it is important to understand what accounts for the differences among conscious experiences, it is more central
to the problem of consciousness to understand what distinguishes conscious experiences from non-conscious mental states. According
to Levine and me, the deeply mystifying feature of phenomenal consciousness is that when I have a conscious experience, the
experience does not occur only
in me, but also
for me. There is some sort of direct presence, a subjective significance, of the
experience to the subject. This is of course not uncontroversial, but I will not argue for it here. What I want to focus on
is the inference
from this conception of the structure of phenomenal character
to self-representationalism.
Self-representationalism is essentially an account of subjective character: it claims that a mental state has subjective character
just in case, and because, it represents itself in the right way.
3 The argument for this can be thought of as proceeding in three stages. Here I will only sketch the argument.
4First, for a conscious experience to be not only
in me, but also
for me, I would have to be
aware of it. The awareness in question need not be particularly focused or attentive. But there must be some minimal awareness
of a mental state if the state is to be described as exhibiting
“for-me-ness.” So we can reason as follows:
(1) Necessarily, for any mental state M and subject S, such that S is in M, M is phenomenally conscious iff M has subjective character
(is for S).
(2) Necessarily, for any mental state M and subject S, such that S is in M, M has subjective character (is for S) iff S is aware of M in the right way. Therefore,
(3) Necessarily, for any mental state M and subject S, such that S is in M, M is phenomenally conscious iff S is aware of M in
the right way. (1,2)
This is the first stage of the argument. It takes us from phenomenal character to awareness.
The second stage employs crucially a pair of relatively uncontroversial lemmas, to the effects that (a) being aware of something
is a matter of representing it and (b) representing something is a matter of being in a mental state that represents it:
(4) Necessarily, for any entity X and subject S, S is aware of X in the right way iff S has a representation of X of the right
kind. (Lemma)
(5) Necessarily, for any entity X and subject S, S has a representation of X of the right kind iff there is a mental state M*,
such that (i) S is in M* and (ii) M* represents X in the right way. (Lemma) Therefore,
(6) Necessarily, for any mental state M and subject S, such that S is in M, M is phenomenally conscious iff there is a mental
state M*,
such that (i) S is in M* and (ii) M* represents M in the right way. (3,4,5)
This is the second stage, which takes us from awareness to representation.
The third stage takes us from representation to self-representation. It does so by first setting up a dilemma – are the conscious
state and its representation numerically distinct or numerically identical? – and then offering considerations in favor of
the latter horn. Thus:
(7) For any mental states M and M*, either M = M* or M ≠ M*. (Excluded middle)
(8) Necessarily, for no mental state M and subject S, such that S is in M, M is phenomenally conscious iff there is a mental state
M*, such that (i) S is in M*, (ii) M* represents M in the right way, and (iii) M ≠ M*. Therefore,
(9) Necessarily, for any mental state M and subject S, such that S is in M, M is phenomenally conscious iff there is a mental
state M*, such that (i) S is in M*, (ii) M* represents M in the right way, and (iii) M = M*. (6,7,8)
The conclusion, Proposition 9, is equivalent to
SR. The negation of Premise 8, while not equivalent to the
so-called higher-order theory of
consciousness, is a commitment of that theory.
5 What is needed to complete the argument are considerations that support Premise 8.
6In
chapter 4 of SC I offer a battery of considerations against higher-order theory, hence in favor of Premise 8. I cannot go through all
of them, and anyway many are familiar from the literature. But the consideration which is least familiar, yet which personally
has been most persuasive to me, can be put thus:
for-me-ness is internal to the
phenomenology of conscious experience – it is a component of phenomenal character, after all – and this cannot be accommodated
by higher-order theory, only by self-representationalism. There are two parts to this.
The first part is the claim that for-me-ness is internal to the
phenomenology – that it is itself a conscious phenomenon. This seems to me self-evident. The very reason to believe in the
for-me-ness of experience is fundamentally phenomenological: it is derived not from experimental research, nor from conceptual
analysis, nor from any other sources, but
rather from a certain first-person impression. This suggests that
for-me-ness is phenomenologically manifest.
7The second part is the claim that only
SR can accommodate the phenomenological manifest-ness of for-me-ness. The reasoning here is this. If the for-me-ness of a conscious
mental state M is itself conscious, then the mental state that represents M, i.e. M*, must be a conscious mental state. If
M* is numerically identical to M, as per
SR, it is predictable that M* be conscious, since M is conscious and M* = M. But if M and M* are numerically distinct, as per
higher-order theory, M*’s being conscious is not only inexplicable, but in fact leads straightforwardly to an infinite regress:
M*’s being conscious requires the postulation of a third-order M**, and so on.
This argument is developed in much greater detail in SC,
chapter 4. It amounts to splitting Premise 8 in the above argument into two parts:
(8a) Necessarily, for any mental state M and subject S, such that S is in M, M is phenomenally conscious iff there is a mental
state M*, such that (i) S is in M*, (ii) M* represents M in the right way, and (iii) M* is conscious. (Phenomenological observation)
(8b) Necessarily, for no mental state M and subject S, such that S is in M, M is phenomenally conscious iff there is a mental state
M*, such that (i) S is in M*, (ii) M* represents M in the right way, (iii) M* is conscious, and (iv) M ≠ M*. (On pain of infinite
regress)
Together,
8a and
8b entail 8. With 8 in place, and given our starting point in 1 and 2 and the relatively uncontroversial lemmas in 4 and 5,
we obtain 9. Call this the
master argument for self-representationalism.
I mentioned that, according to the conception of phenomenal character that motivates self-representationalism, the core of
the problem of consciousness pertains to subjective character. This can be put in terms of the so-called
explanatory gap
(Levine
1983): while there may be some perplexity as to how we might reductively explain differences in phenomenal character in terms
of neural activity, surely the heart of the philosophical anxiety
surrounding consciousness concerns how we might reductively explain the very existence of phenomenal character. It is the
existence conditions of phenomenality, not its identity conditions, which present the deep mystery.
If this is right, then the core of the philosophical problem of consciousness is the explanatory gap between subjective character – the for-me-ness of conscious states – and physical properties. This is a surprising result, insofar as there is clearly a close
connection between subjective character and self-consciousness, and yet it is a staple of recent discussions of consciousness
that the explanatory gap is properly applied to phenomenal consciousness but not self-consciousness. In this section, I want to explore the connection between subjective character and self-consciousness,
and its implications for the explanatory gap. More specifically, I want to argue that there are two different phenomena of
self-consciousness, and while one of them is at most contingently connected to subjective character, the other is essentially connected.
The distinction between two phenomena of self-consciousness that I have in mind can be brought out by contrasting two types
of
report of self-consciousness:
(R1) I am self-conscious of perceiving the laptop.
(R2) I am self-consciously perceiving the laptop.
In
R1, the self-consciousness term (if you please) is a transitive verb. If we take the surface grammar at face value, this suggests
a
relation between me and my perceiving. In
R2, however, the self-consciousness term is an adverb, which suggests an
intrinsic modification of my perceiving. That is, in
R2 the self-consciousness term does not denote a state of standing in a relation to my perception (or my perceiving), but rather
designates the
way I am having (or doing) my perceiving. We may call the
self-consciousness reported in
R1 transitive self-consciousness and that in
R2 intransitive self-consciousness (Kriegel
2003,
2004).
To draw a terminological, or even conceptual, distinction between transitive and intransitive self-consciousness is not to
beg the question of whether they are two distinct and irreducible properties. Indeed, a natural thought is that intransitive
self-consciousness is analyzable in terms of transitive self-consciousness. For example, one might hold that I am self-consciously
perceiving
x iff I (i) am perceiving
x and (ii) am self-conscious
of perceiving
x. On this suggestion, to perceive self-consciously is simply to perceive
and be self-conscious of doing so.
8However, this particular analysis is belied by an important feature of the surface grammar of
R1 and
R2. In
R1, the state of self-consciousness takes one’s perception as an object. So the perception of which I am self-conscious and
the state of self-consciousness itself are treated as two
numerically distinct mental states. By contrast, in
R2 there is no numerical distinction between the perception and the state of self-consciousness: the perception
is the state of self-consciousness. Since the adverb ‘self-consciously’ denotes a
way I am having my perception, no
extra act of self-consciousness need take place
after the perception occurs. Rather, self-consciously is
how the perception occurs.
The conceptual distinction between transitive and intransitive self-consciousness does not
entail a corresponding metaphysical distinction, but it does create a
prima facie case, or presumption, in favor of one. We may think of it as producing defeasible evidence for the metaphysical distinction.
Until the evidence is actually defeated, by the presentation of a viable analysis of intransitive in terms of transitive self-consciousness,
we ought to proceed on the assumption that these are two different properties. Elsewhere, I develop a more sustained argument
to the effect that they are indeed two different properties
(Kriegel
2004).
It is interesting to note a certain parallelism between the kind of phenomenon intransitive self-consciousness is and the
nature of subjective character according to self-representationalism. In the former, there turns out to be numerical identity
between the conscious state and the state of self-consciousness; in the latter, between the conscious state and the subject’s
awareness of it. This may suggest that there is an intimate connection between intransitive self-consciousness and subjective
character. The simplest account of this connection would be a certain identity thesis: subjective character just is intransitive self-consciousness. On this view, the fact that a conscious experience is for the subject and the fact that the subject self-consciously undergoes the experience is one and the same fact: to say that there is a
way it is like for me to perceive the sky is to say that I self-consciously perceive the sky.
The reasoning we have pursued leads to an interesting conclusion: the core of the problem of consciousness is the explanatory gap between a certain kind of self-consciousness – namely, intransitive self-consciousness – and physical properties.
It is the fact that we cannot reductively explain in terms of neural activity that makes it the case that a subject not only
perceives x, but does so self-consciously, without quite being self-conscious of doing so, that is at the source of the philosophical anxiety surrounding consciousness.
In SC
chs. 6–
8, I suggest a potential neural reducer of subjective character. My strategy is to first specify the abstract structure involved
in a mental state’s self-representing, and then identify a neural structure that realizes this abstract specification. This
means, in the first instance, getting clear on what is involved in self-representation, preferably in naturalistic terms.
The natural approach to this challenge is to consult naturalistic theories of mental representation, and suggest that whatever
natural relation they identify as underlying mental representation – informational, teleological, or what have you – is the
kind of relation that mental states can sometimes bear to themselves.
Call the kind of self-representation this would be
crude self-representation. The problem with crude self-representation is that when we actually consult such theories as
Dretske’s (
1981,
1988),
Millikan’s (
1984), and
Fodor’s (
1990), we find that they identify natural relations that are anti-reflexive: nothing can bear them to itself. At its heart, the
problem is that these relations typically involve causal relations, and those are often anti-reflexive.
9In
chapter 6 of SC, I offer an account of self-representation intended to make it consistent with naturalistic accounts of mental representation.
To a first (and rough) approximation, the story is this. First, there is a distinction to be drawn between direct and
indirect representation. For example, I might represent a house by representing its façade. In this case, I represent the
façade directly and the house indirectly. Secondly, for M to self-represent is for M to have two parts, M1 and M2, such that
M2 represents both (i) M1
directly and (ii) M
indirectly. (M2 represents M
by representing M1, just as a picture represents the house by representing its façade.) Thirdly, a naturalistic theory of mental
representation can have two components: one accounting for
direct representation in terms of the natural relation identified by the best naturalistic theory, and one accounting for
indirect representation in terms of the combination of the relevant natural relation and some story about what makes it the case that
a direct representation of
x is also an indirect representation of
y. Presumably, some relation must hold between
x and
y when and only when any direct representation of
x also serves as an indirect representation of
y; we may call the relation R that
x bears to
y just when this is so the
representation-transmission relation.
10 For example, a picture might represent a façade in
virtue of bearing the right teleo-informational relation to it, and represent the house of which it is a façade in virtue
of (i) bearing that relation to the façade and (ii) the façade bearing the representation-transmission relation to the house.
When we put together all three elements into an overall account of self-representation, we obtain the following: a self-representing
mental state is a mental state with two parts, such that one part bears the right natural (e.g. teleo-informational) relation
to the other part and this second part bears the representation-transmission relation to the whole of which they are both
parts. More precisely: M represents itself iff there are states M1 and M2, such that (i) M1 is a proper part of M, (ii) M2
is a proper part of M, (iii) M1 bears the right natural relation to M2, and (iv) M2 bears the representation-transmission
relation R to M. To distinguish it from crude self-representation, call this
subtle self-representation.
11Once this relatively specific structure has been identified, we can seek brain structures and processes that implement it:
neural structures we have good reasons to describe as involving two parts one of which bears the right natural relation to
the other while the other bears the right representation-transmission relation to the whole of which they are both parts.
Although an endeavor of this sort is extremely speculative at present, I indulge in it in
ch. 7 of SC. With the aid of several empirical claims, the speculative hypothesis I arrive at is this: a conscious experience of
blue, say, is realized by neural synchronization of activation in the right part of
the visual cortex – V4, as it happens – and the dorsolateral
prefrontal cortex
(dlPFC). The V4 activation realizes M1, the dlPFC activation realizes M2, and the neural synchronization between them realizes
the cognitive-unity relation between M1 and M2 in virtue of which they are parts of a single state rather than two separate
states. Thus a brain state such as this realizes the perceptual experience’s qualitative character through the specific activation
in
sensory cortex (in this case, the right subpopulation of neurons in V4) and its subjective character, or intransitive
self-consciousness, through the neural synchronization with dlPFC activation.
Observe that this account of the neural implementation of self-representation, founded as it is on a distinction between crude
and subtle self-representation, casts self-representation as neurobiologically perfectly plausible.
Prinz (this volume) complains of neurobiological implausibility
in self-representationalism, on the grounds that neurons do not appear to represent themselves. This objection misfires, however,
as subtle self-representation does not require, and in fact shuns, the notion that some neurons represent themselves. What
self-represents is not this or that neuron, but a structured neural state, which moreover self-represents only insofar as
some part of it represents the whole of it.
In any case, given the argument of this section, the above account of neural implementation suggests that the alleged explanatory
gap between consciousness and matter comes down to a much more specific explanatory gap between intransitive self-consciousness
and synchronization with dlPFC activation. The problem of consciousness can thus be distilled into the problem of bridging the explanatory gap between
intransitive self-consciousness and synchronization with dlPFC activation.
How could those brute and blind processes unfolding in the dark corners of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex constitute a subject’s not only perceiving something, but perceiving it self-consciously, in a way the blindsight
patient who perceives the same thing does not?
Consider a sorites series that takes you from a yellow circle to a red circle. As you are force-marched through the series,
any pair of adjacent circles are visually indistinguishable to you, yet the first and last circles are very much distinguishable.
In other words, when the steps in a sequence of this sort are small enough, the relation of visual indiscriminability will
hold between the two sides of each step but not between the start and end points of the sequence. The relation of explainability
– or perhaps just reductive explainability (as distinguished, say, from causal explainability) – might exhibit similar behavior,
though perhaps for different reasons (not because it is vague). A series of claims can be envisaged, such that every claim
n+1 is a reductive explanation of claim n, but there is no reductive-explanatory relation between the first and last claims.
In light of the previous sections, we might wish to consider the following sequence of proposed explanatory steps:
- Step 1:
-
explain subjective character/intransitive self-consciousness in terms of a certain type of awareness
- Step 2:
-
explain this type of awareness in terms of representation
- Step 3:
-
explain the relevant kind of representation in terms of self-representation
- Step 4:
-
explain the naturalistic possibility of self-representation in terms of subtle self-representation
- Step 5:
-
explain subtle self-representation in terms of synchronization with dlPFC activation
Each step seems to involve an explanatory move that does not strike us immediately as outlandish: the gap between explanandum
and explanans does not seem obviously unbridgeable. So the relevant explanation relation
does hold within each step.
12 Yet the explanatory gap looms ominously when we consider, in one intellectual act as it were, intransitive self-consciousness
and synchronization with
dlPFC activity. The same sense of mystery obtains if we add:
- Step o:
-
explain phenomenal consciousness in terms of subjective character/intransitive self-consciousness
This is the more familiar explanatory gap, between phenomenal consciousness and neural activation, which I claim is due to
the more specific gap concerning subjective character or intransitive self-consciousness
.
In any case, on this line of thought the explanatory gap arises because of an unwarranted expectation that a complex sequence
of explanations could be appreciated in one intellectual act. When we look at water and H
2O, a single intellectual act would leave us equally puzzled about how it is that the right interlocking of an oxygen atom
and two hydrogen atoms could make something
wet. It is a general feature of the relationship between the manifest image and the scientific image that structures and processes
from the latter do not illuminate ones from the former in such a direct way. The illumination is not provided in a single
encompassing act of apprehension. Rather, it is appreciated indirectly through patient consideration of a sequence of local
explanations too long or complex to grasp at once (see
Pollock and
Cruz
1999).
13Note as well that we are familiar, in everyday life, with two kinds of understanding. Sometimes we understand something in
a purely intellectual, somewhat cold-blooded manner. On other, relatively rarer occasions, we understand something in a more
visceral way, where we feel like we can
see the truth (or plausibility) of some notion. Indeed, it sometimes happens that we understand something first in the cold-blooded
manner and suddenly in the more visceral way. The latter experience of understanding is much more phenomenologically impressive,
and is also more
satisfying and more confidence-imbuing. But it is also rarer, and there is no reason to suppose that it is always available: there may
be areas where the human cognitive system does not have the resources that would allow us to undergo the experience of this
more visceral variety of understanding. We must there rest content with the phenomenologically lamer variety of understanding
– and remember that it is still a variety of
understanding.
14Taking these considerations into account, one may suggest that the explanatory gap is an illusion grounded in the attempt
to take in a complex sequence of explanations in a single intellectual act.
15 The sequence may simply be too complex for us to do so successfully, in a way that summons the visceral
phenomenology of understanding. But the other variety of understanding, the more “cold-blooded” variety, can still be enjoyed
when we consider patiently the sequence of explanatory steps presented above, perhaps precisely because we do experience the
visceral variety whenever we consider any single step in the sequence.
On this interpretation of the line of thought under consideration, there is no genuine explanatory gap between intransitive
self-consciousness and synchronization with dlPFC activity. There is in fact a reductive explanation of the former in terms of the latter. It is just that this reductive explanation is not such
as to elicit in us a visceral phenomenology of understanding.
The analogy with the sorites series points to a different interpretation, however. In that series, the red circle
really is dissimilar to the yellow. The two are
not visually indistinguishable. It is just that the continuity between them, which would otherwise be surprising, can be appreciated
through the series. If we take the analogy at face value, intransitive self-consciousness
really is unexplainable in terms of synchronization with
dlPFC activity. There is no reductive explanation to be had of the former in terms of the latter. What there is, however,
is a sort of intellectual domestication of consciousness without reductive explanation of it. This admittedly elusive intellectual
domestication may allow us to accept that intransitive self-consciousness reduces to neural processes even though it is not
reductively explainable in terms of them.
To clarify this approach, let me position it within the familiar dialectic around explanatory gap arguments. Start with the
distinction between
ontological and
epistemic reduction. Let us say that F is
epistemically reducible to G iff there is no explanatory gap between F and G; and that if there is an explanatory gap between F and every other property,
such that F is not epistemically reducible to anything, then F is
epistemically primitive. Correspondingly, let us say that F is
ontologically reducible to G iff there is no ontological gap between F and G; and that if there is an ontological gap between F and every other property,
such that F is not ontologically reducible to anything, then F is
ontologically primitive. In these terms, the explanatory gap argument for dualism may be formulated as follows:
(1) Intransitive self-consciousness is epistemically irreducible to physical properties;
(2) If intransitive self-consciousness is epistemically irreducible to physical properties, then it is ontologically irreducible
to them as well;
(3) If intransitive self-consciousness is ontologically irreducible to physical properties, then intransitive self-consciousness
is ontologically primitive; therefore,
(4) Intransitive self-consciousness is ontologically primitive.
Since the argument is valid, there are only three ways to deny it. Some materialists would deny Premise 1, rejecting any explanatory
gap for intransitive self-consciousness. Other materialists would deny Premise 2, conceding an explanatory gap but rejecting
the inference to ontological irreducibility. Finally, certain neutral monists would deny Premise 4, namely, those who posit
a third type of property, neither physical nor conscious, and attempt to reduce both to it. Accepting all three premises,
by contrast, leads one to dualism about intransitive self-consciousness.
16Sociologically speaking, most materialists would deny Premise 2: they would concede an explanatory gap but insist on ontological
reducibility.
17 What dualists find objectionable about such denial is that it allows for reduction that is not
epistemically transparent (see Chalmers and Jackson
2001). The connection between two facts,
p and
q, is epistemically transparent to subject S just in case S can see why
p should be the case given that
q is the case.
18 According to Chalmers and Jackson, ontological reduction requires epistemically transparent connections between reduced and
reducer. Even in the case of water and H
2O, although their identity is
a posteriori, it is nonetheless epistemically transparent, in that a subject who knew all the non-identity truths about water and all
the non-identity truths about H
2O would be in a position to establish the identity of water and H
2O. However, Chalmers and Jackson argue, once the connection between reduced and reducer is epistemically transparent, the
reduction is not only ontological but also epistemic: one is in a position to
explain the facts about the reduced in terms of the facts about the reducer.
19Applying Chalmers and Jackson’s reasoning to the above argument for dualism about intransitive self-consciousness, we obtain
the following defense of Premise 2 in the argument: (2.1) We are justified in holding that one property ontologically reduces
to another only if the connection between them is epistemically transparent; but (2.2) When the connection between two properties
is epistemically transparent, we are also justified in holding that one
epistemically reduces to the other; therefore, (2.3) We are justified in holding that one property ontologically reduces to another only
if we are also justified in holding that one
epistemically reduces to the other; so, (2) If intransitive self-consciousness is epistemically irreducible to physical properties, then
it is ontologically irreducible to them as well. What materialists typically reject in Chalmers and Jackson’s reasoning is
Premise 2.1: they insist that the paradigmatic ontological reductions (e.g. of water to H
2O) are epistemically opaque (see
Block and
Stalnaker
1999). The debate then centers on the proper treatment of paradigmatic instances of ontological reduction
.
The approach suggested above to the explanatory gap avoids such debates. For instead of denying Premise 2.1, it denies Premise
2.2, allowing
that epistemic transparency can arise even in the absence of epistemic reduction. On the emerging view, a sequence of explanatory
steps may be such that there is a genuine explanatory gap between the first and last items in the sequence, but the continuity
that can be traced between them through consideration of the intermediary steps generates epistemic transparency in the entire
sequence: the connection between the first and last items in the series is epistemically transparent to any subject who can
follow each explanatory step in the series. Thus because every step in the series with which I opened this section is an instance
of reductive explanation, and we can follow the sequence, the identification (or ontological reduction) of intransitive self-consciousness
to synchronization with
dlPFC activity is epistemically transparent; but because the relation of reductive explainability is not transitive – whether
for reasons of vagueness or some other reasons – intransitive self-consciousness is not reductively explainable in terms of
synchronization with dlPFC activity. This seems to be the correct analogy with the sorites series of circles.
On this interpretation, the explanatory gap between intransitive self-consciousness (or subjective character) and synchronization
with
dlPFC activity is real, in that we cannot explain why the “subjective facts” (the facts of intransitive self-consciousness)
are what they are in terms of the neural facts being what they are. Intransitive self-consciousness is genuinely epistemically
irreducible to synchronization with dlPFC activity. Nonetheless, it does not follow that an ontological reduction of intransitive
self-consciousness to synchronization with dlPFC activity must be epistemically opaque, leaving us with no insight into why
it should be that intransitive self-consciousness is nothing but synchronization with dlPFC activity. On the contrary, by
tracing a sequence of reductive explanations step by step, we can come to appreciate why it should be that intransitive self-consciousness
is nothing but synchronization with dlPFC activity, say – even though contemplating the notion that it is in a single intellectual
act produces in us only the
phenomenology of incredulity.
20To conclude. I started this section with an analogy between a sequence of (reductive) explanations leading from intransitive
self-consciousness to the neural process of synchronization with
dlPFC activity, on the one hand, and a sequence of visually indistinguishable pairs of circles leading from a yellow circle
to a red one, on the other. I then offered two interpretations of the analogy. On the first interpretation, the explanatory
gap between intransitive self-consciousness and synchronization with dlPFC activity is illusory: there is no explanatory gap
between the two, but the appearance of such a gap arises from the unwarranted expectation that we undergo a visceral
phenomenology of understanding upon contemplating the start and end points of the explanatory sequence.
21 A tighter analogy is offered by the second interpretation: the explanatory gap is genuine, in that we really do not understand
how intransitive self-consciousness could be nothing but synchronization with dlPFC activity, but nonetheless it is so reducible,
and moreover in an epistemically transparent manner (thanks to the sequence of reductive explanations connecting the two).
I am happy with either interpretation, but find the second vastly more satisfactory, insofar as it manages to respect rather
than dismiss the force of the explanatory gap intuition
.
This self-representational approach to the explanatory gap can be resisted in two main ways. One is to deny the general claim
that a series of reductive explanations can underlie an epistemically transparent physicalistic reduction of intransitive
self-consciousness even in the absence of reductive explanation of it in physical terms. The other is to claim that, however
the general issue turns out, one of the five individual steps of reductive explanation I described in the
previous section fails. The most acute criticism of self-representationalism that takes this second form is developed by Levine (
2006), who argues that the for-me-ness of experience cannot be recovered by self-representation, because the kind of awareness
involved in it cannot be accounted for in terms of the notion of representation at play in the relevant type of self-representation.
This is to reject Step 2 in the explanatory sequence (explaining awareness in terms of representation).
For Levine, self-representation cannot account for
for-me-ness, because just as something needs to bestow
for-me-ness – a “subjective significance” – on any old representation, so something needs to bestow that subjective significance
on
self-representations. As long as self-representing representations represent themselves in the same sense in which other-representing
representations represent things other than themselves, it is not clear what would make the former “for the subject” even
though the latter are not. Levine writes (
2006, 194):
Subjectivity, as I described it earlier, is that feature of a mental state by virtue of which it is of significance for the
subject; not merely something happening within her, but “for her.” The self-representation thesis aims to explicate that sense
of significance for the subject through the fact that the state is being represented. But now, what makes that representation
itself of significance for the subject, and thus conscious?
The answer to this question cannot be, of course, that a self-representing representation is of significance to the subject
because it represents itself to be self-representing. That would quickly lead to an infinite regress. The suspicion Levine
raises is that there may not be a way to answer his question without invoking phenomenality.
Certainly what makes a representation “for the subject” cannot be what it represents. It cannot be that when a representation
represents x, it is not for the subject, so that the subject does not self-consciously represent x, but when it represents y, it is. And at a first pass, it might seem that this is precisely what self-representationalism claims. It claims that what
makes some representations “for the subject” is that what they represent is themselves. Yet the fact that a state represents
itself rather than something other than itself does not dissolve the mystery involved in it representing whatever it does
to oneself, i.e. in a self-conscious sort of way. Much more plausible is that representations endowed with subjective character, in
virtue of which the subject represents self-consciously, are of a categorically different kind from other representations.
If this is right, then what gives such representations their subjective character, or intransitive self-consciousness, is
an aspect not of what they represent, but of how they represent – not their object of representation, but their manner of representation.
However, the heart of Levine’s objection cannot be that representations have subjective character in virtue of how they represent
and not what they represent. For this is something that standard versions of self-representationalism can accommodate. Compare
“I am happy” and “my
mother’s nieceless brother’s only nephew is happy.” Both statements represent me as happy, but there is a sense (perhaps elusive,
perhaps not) that the former does so
essentially whereas the latter
accidentally. In specifying what makes a “suitable” self-representation – the kind of self-representation that bestows subjective character
or intransitive self-consciousness – it is natural for the self-representationalist to insist that only the essential variety
is relevant. Only essentially self-representing states are “for the subject” and hence intransitively self-conscious. Merely
accidentally self-representing states are not. The point is that
what is represented in both essential and accidental self-representation is the same, so what accounts for the fact that only
the former involves subjective character must be the
manner of representation (
how what is represented is represented).
The heart of the objection is therefore not the what/how (object/manner) distinction. Rather, it must be the thought that
there is no way to account for the right manner of representation in non-subjective terms, as would be required for any ontological reduction of subjective character. Even
if a certain non-subjective, non-phenomenal specification of the right manner were extensionally adequate, such that no counter-example
could be found to the thesis that necessarily, a mental state has subjective character/intransitive self-consciousness iff
it self-represents in that manner, we would still have on our hands an explanatory gap between subjective character/intransitive
self-consciousness and this non-phenomenal specification of the relevant manner. It would still be unclear how this specific
kind of self-representation, understood in non-phenomenal terms, could give rise to the distinctive kind of awareness of one’s
conscious experiences that is imbued with subjective significance and constitutes intransitive self-consciousness. Thus as
long as representation is understood in non-phenomenal terms – certainly as long as it is understood in purely physical terms
– it does not help to appeal specifically to self-representation.
The problem with self-representation, then, is that it is
just more representation. As Levine (
2006, 195) puts it,
Somehow, what we have in conscious states are representations that are intrinsically of subjective significance, “animated”
as it were, and I maintain that we really don’t understand how that is possible. It doesn’t seem to be a matter of more of
the same – more representation of the same kind – but rather representation of a different kind altogether.
The awareness we have of our conscious experiences, in virtue of which they are “for us,” involves a kind of direct acquaintance
with those states that
brute representations simply do not seem to replicate, not even when they are representations of themselves. For a self-representation
as for an other-representation, we can always ask: why is there something it is like
for me to have this representation? Call this the
just more representation objection.
22This objection undermines the self-representational approach to the explanatory gap presented in the
previous section. For suppose it is true that epistemically transparent ontological reduction of intransitive self-consciousness can proceed
without closing the explanatory gap, that is, without epistemic reduction. Suppose it is true that through a sequence of more
local reductive explanations, we can obtain an epistemically transparent ontological reduction that does not quite amount
to epistemic reduction. Still, this kind of epistemically transparent ontological reduction, although possibly available in
the case of water and H
2O, is not available for intransitive self-consciousness and physical phenomena, because the reductive explanation of
awareness in terms of representation (in Step 2 of the above explanatory sequence) fails
.
23 What Levine’s line of objection seems to press is the need for a
sui generis notion of
representation-for-me, a kind of primitive intentional relation borne by subjects, rather than by subjects’ internal states. The problem with positing
such a relation is that it seems to resist physicalist reduction.
The upshot, in any case, is that the self-representational approach to the explanatory gap developed in
§3 fails.
24
I think this is the deepest objection to self-representationalism. In fact, I am persuaded by Levine that there is something fundamentally mysterious about for-me-ness, hence intransitive self-consciousness, which is not removed simply by citing self-representation. Levine is right
that the question of subjective significance applies with equal force to self-representation as to other-representation. For
a self-representing state too, we can ask what it is about the state that makes it represent itself to me, rather than merely represent itself in me. In this section, I present the reaction I think a self-representationalist ought to have to Levine’s objection; the reaction
is more concessive than confrontational.
The first thing to point out is that although I would be keen to defend a version of self-representationalism that embraces
epistemically transparent ontological reduction, self-representationalism as such admits of many varieties: a dualist variety,
a materialist variety with epistemically opaque ontological reduction, a materialist variety with epistemic reduction, and
even a neutral-monist variety.
25Recall that according to dualism about intransitive self-consciousness, intransitive self-consciousness is ontologically irreducible
to any other properties, and is therefore ontologically primitive. An irresponsible kind of dualism would maintain that intransitive
self-consciousness is completely dissociated and insulated from the physical realm. A responsible dualism would connect intransitive
self-consciousness to the physical realm via laws of nature – probably causal laws – that dictate what instantiations of intransitive
self-consciousness are caused (under what conditions) by what
physical property instantiations. Because intransitive self-consciousness is ontologically primitive, on this view, these
laws of nature would be themselves primitive. As a result, intransitive self-consciousness would supervene upon physical properties
with
nomological necessity, but not with
metaphysical necessity. This is a sort of responsible dualist self-representationalism.
26 This dualist self-representationalism is not threatened by Levine’s just more representation objection.
This is not surprising, since the objection is not
meant to threaten them. But it does bring out the difference between self-representationalism as such and self-representationalism
as an attempt to address the
explanatory gap. The following two theses are obviously different:
(T1) Self-representationalism neutralizes the
explanatory gap.
27
(T2) Self-representationalism is true.
Levine’s objection threatens
T1, but not
T2. It is thus not an objection to self-representationalism as such, strictly speaking. It is an objection to something else.
This is important, because the master argument for self-representationalism (from
§1) can be readily reframed in such a way that it does not
require that the relevant kind of inner
awareness be recovered by self-representation. The premises of the argument involve a modal operator, but while it is natural
to interpret the modal force in those premises as
metaphysical, the argument can be reframed as involving rather
nomological necessity – without commenting
on whether it is
merely nomological necessity. Thus Premise 4 in the master argument could be reconstrued as follows:
(4*) Nomologically-necessarily, for any entity X and subject S, S is aware of X in the right way iff S represents X in the right
way.
With this weakened premise in place, and leaving all other premises untouched, we can obtain the following weakened conclusion:
(9*) Nomologically-necessarily, for any mental state M and subject S, such that S is in M, M is phenomenally conscious iff there
is a mental state M*, such that (i) S is in M*, (ii) M* represents M in the right way, and (iii) M = M*.
This guarantees that
at least a dualist variety of self-representationalism is right. The weakened master argument thus concedes that self-representationalism
may not recover
for-me-ness, or subjective character, but insists on the following two points: (a) self-representationalism can at least
accommodate this for-me-ness; (b) no other theory of phenomenal consciousness can accommodate it. This is not everything a self-representationalist
might want, but it is not all that weak a conclusion either.
Of course, not only dualist versions of self-representationalism fail to neutralize the
explanatory gap; materialist versions that embrace epistemically opaque reduction do as well.
28 And so a self-representationalist might consider reverting to this sort of materialist self-representationalism in light
of the just more representation objection, conceding that the reduction of subjective character, or intransitive self-consciousness,
to self-representation is epistemically opaque – due to the epistemic opacity of explaining awareness in terms of representation.
Thus someone who is impressed with both the weakened master argument for self-representationalism and the just more representation
objection could still embrace the disjunction of this hard-nosed materialist self-representationalism and dualist self-representationalism.
Both are forms of self-representationalism that cohabits with a persisting explanatory gap.
What would lead one to prefer such a materialist self-representationalism to dualist self-representationalism is, of course,
an antecedent commitment to physicalism.
Consider what
Perry (
2001a) calls “antecedent physicalism,”
the view that physicalism should be our default position – we should be physicalists pending reasons not to be (physicalism
is innocent until proven guilty, if you will). Someone who is impressed with both the weakened master argument for self-representationalism
and the just more representation objection, but also embraces antecedent physicalism, would be naturally led to what we may
call “antecedent materialist self-representationalism.”
29For my part, this is indeed where I find myself led. I have already indicated why I am impressed with the weakened master
argument for self-representationalism and the just more representation objection. As for antecedent physicalism, it should
not be confused with physicalism as an unargued-for article of faith, nor with physicalism as an attitude rather than a thesis
(
Ney
2008), both of which do not call for argumentation.
30 An argument for antecedent physicalism is needed, but the argument needed is not nearly as strong as the argument needed
to establish all-things-considered
physicalism. What it calls for is a
prima facie rather than
ultima facie case for physicalism. This is a burden we can certainly meet. Thus, citing
Occam’s razor as a reason to adopt a single type of properties over a duality thereof, while an underwhelming argument for
all-things-considered (
ultima facie) physicalism, is a perfectly cogent argument for antecedent (
prima facie) physicalism. Likewise, the inductive argument that physicalism turned out to be true about many other initially recalcitrant
phenomena (e.g. life) is underwhelming as an argument for
ultima facie physicalism but an overwhelming one for
prima facie physicalism.
31Of course,
antecedent materialist
self-representationalism does allow that, given appropriate reasons, one might have to relinquish materialist self-representationalism
. So if one were inclined to reject epistemically opaque reduction as incoherent, or as otherwise necessarily false, say for
Chalmers and
Jackson’s reasons, one would have to reject this version of materialist self-representationalism. Thus someone who is impressed
with both the weakened master argument for self-representationalism and the just more
representation objection, but also accepts
Chalmers and Jackson’s argumentation, would be naturally led to dualist self-representationalism.
The dialectical upshot seems to me to be this. The issue of whether there is a case for self-representationalism and the issue
of whether there is a case for materialism are orthogonal, since one can be a self-representationalist without being a materialist
or a materialist without being a self-representationalist. The problem of the explanatory gap is relevant to the issue of
whether there is a case for materialism, not to the issue of whether there is a case for self-representationalism. Given the
“just more representation” consideration, epistemically transparent reduction of
intransitive self-consciousness, and therefore of phenomenal consciousness, seems elusive. Whether
some reduction may nonetheless be achieved depends on whether there is another kind of reduction to be had. That is, it depends
on the general viability of epistemically opaque reduction (or whether it may sometimes make sense for us to believe that
feature F reduces to feature G even though we cannot quite see how it could). However this debate is resolved will determine
whether a self-representationalist ought to be a materialist self-representationalist or a dualist
self-representationalist.
32