Abstract
When an object is given in experience, the experiencing subject is conscious of the object and has an awareness of this very consciousness of the object. Perceiving a material thing, listening to a musical note, thinking of a mathematical theorem, etc., we are not only conscious of the thing, the note, the theorem, etc., but are also aware of our perceiving, listening, thinking, etc. Thus every act of consciousness is accompanied by an awareness of itself.
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Notes
- 1.
The question of whether or not all mental states are objectivating acts in this sense can be left out of the discussion here.
- 2.
Franz Brentano, Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkt, 2 vols., ed. Oskar Kraus (Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag, unaltered 1973 reprint of the 1924 edition), vol. I, Book I, Chapter II, §§7 ff. [Cf. Franz Brentano, Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint, trans. Antos C. Rancurello, D. B. Terrell, and Linda L. McAlister (New York: Humanities Press, 1972), pp. 92–100.] Brentano’s terms inneres Bewusstsein and innere Vorstellung are here rendered by awareness, inner awareness, and self-awareness.
- 3.
Ibid., vol. I, pp. 179 f., trans., pp. 127 f.
- 4.
This account of each act’s accompanying self-awareness as a marginal datum comes close to Brentano’s own statement: “The act of hearing appears to be directed toward sound in the most proper sense of the term, and because of this it seems to apprehend itself incidentally and as something additional” [Original, Ibid., p. 180; trans., p. 128]. Brentano renews the pertinent views of Aristotle with this formulation.
- 5.
This is in harmony with the existence of an act of consciousness consisting in nothing but its being experienced. Husserl has discriminated several connotations of the term consciousness [Bewusstsein] (Edmund Husserl, Logische Untersuchungen, 2 vols., Halle a. d. S., Max Niemeyer, 5th Investigation, §§2, 3, and 5; hereafter Log. Unt. [Cf. Edmund Husserl, Logical Investigations, trans. J. N. Findlay, 2 vols. (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1970)]). That an act is “conscious” means, according to one connotation, that it is experienced and, according to another connotation, that it is open to and accompanied by “inner perception.” These two definitions of consciousness can and must be distinguished conceptually. Nevertheless, there is an intrinsic relationship between them that appears from the fact, set forth in the body of our text, that whatever falls under one concept or definition ipso facto falls under the other. This intrinsic relationship must be given more emphasis than even Husserl gave it. It must be kept in mind, however, that by “inner perception,” as we have begun to bring out following Brentano and will presently bring out still more clearly, is meant “inner awareness” in contradistinction to “apprehension by reflection.”
- 6.
All a priori conditions of consciousness are of this kind. By such conditions are meant invariant structures exhibited by acts of consciousness either quite in general or by all acts of a certain class (e.g., perception, memory, etc.) of such a nature that the act in question cannot exist or be what it is unless it fulfills the a priori structural conditions. Accordingly, the latter may have universal significance, i.e., concern all acts of consciousness as such, or they may be of a rather specific nature and concern only a certain class of acts. The method of establishing a priori conditions of consciousness is always the same as we have resorted to here. It consists in assuming an act of consciousness not to present the structure in question and in showing how, on that assumption, the act in question cannot exist. The absurdity of this assumption is not always as conspicuous as it is in the case under discussion. [For further comments on the a priori, cf. FC, Part III, Chapter I, §VII.].
- 7.
Edmund Husserl, “Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie,” Jahrbuch far Philosophie und phänomenologische Forschung, vol. I (1913) [hereafter Ideen. Cf. Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy, trans. Fred Kersten (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1982.)], §45.
- 8.
Brentano, Book I, Chapter II, §2, and Book II, Chapter II, §9. Cf. also Franz Brentano, Vom sinnlichen und noetischen Bewusstsein, ed. Oskar Kraus (Leipzig: Felix Meiner, 1928), §11.
- 9.
Husserl, Ideen, §§38, 45, 77 ff.
- 10.
It has already been mentioned that there are relations between self-awareness, on the one hand, and its thematization in reflection, on the other. These relations cannot be studied here.
- 11.
All of these possibilities are possibilities of principle and subsist regardless of “technical” difficulties or even “impossibilities” of their actualization.
- 12.
Cf. Husserl, Ideen, §§81 ff.; “Vorlesungen zur Phänomenologie des inneren Zeitbewusstseins,” ed. Martin Heidegger, Jahrbuch far Philosophie und phänomenologische Forschung, vol. IX (1928), §§7 ff.; Erfahrung und Urteil, ed. Ludwig Landgrebe (Prague: Academia Verlag, 1939), §23 [hereafter Erf. u. Urt. Cf. Experience and Judgment, trans. James S. Churchill and Karl Ameriks (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1973)]. In our paper, “William James’s Theory of the ‘Transitive Parts’ of the Stream of Consciousness” (Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, vol. III, 1943) [reprinted in Aron Gurwitsch, Studies in Phenomenology and Psychology (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1966); hereafter this collection will be referred to as SPP.], §I, we have given a more detailed account of Husserl’s views on the duration and the intrinsic temporality of acts of consciousness. Husserl’s views are very near to James’s concept of the “specious present,” as Alfred Schutz has pointed out (“William James’s Concept of the Stream of Thought Phenomenologically Interpreted,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, vol. I 1941) [reprinted in Alfred Schutz, Collected Papers, 3 vols. (The Hague: Martinis Nijhoff, 1962–1966), vol. I.].
- 13.
[On the margin of the typescript at this point, Schutz wrote: “musical theme.”]
- 14.
Gurwitsch, “William James’s Theory,” §11. SPP, Chapter XII.
- 15.
It must be noted that when the attitude of reflection is not adopted, duration and identity are both experienced but not apprehended as themes. In experiencing an act, it is the object given through the act and not the identity of this object that is our theme, although we are all the time implicitly aware of this identity. Only when reflection occurs are both duration and identity apprehended, rendered explicit, and made the theme of a supervenient act of reflection, and thus prove to be correlates of one another. Cf. our article, “On the Intentionality of Consciousness,” in Marvin Farber, ed., Philosophical Essays in Memory of Edmund Husserl (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1940) SPP, Chapter VII, Section III.
- 16.
Cf. 334 ff.
- 17.
William James, The Principles of Psychology, 3 vols. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1981), I, 231 ff.; hereafter Principle.
- 18.
Cf. [FC, 344 ff.]
- 19.
[Cf. FC, 316 ff.]
- 20.
[Cf. FC, 312 ff.]
- 21.
George F. Stout, Analytic Psychology, 2 vols. (London: Macmillan & Co., 1909), I, 182.
- 22.
Cf. Husserl, Ideen, §82.
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Gurwitsch*, A. (2010). The Self-Awareness of Consciousness. In: Zaner, R. (eds) The Collected Works of Aron Gurwitsch (1901-1973). Phaenomenologica, vol 194. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-3346-8_12
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