1. Consciousness and Self-Consciousness: Reflective Critical Attention Charles Siewert Rice University siewert@rice.edu

2. How is a state’s being conscious related to state self-consciousness? Not in the sense claimed by state-reflexive accounts of consciousness (e.g., higher-order thought; inner sense/perception; self- representing state). That is, it’s not by requiring there be state self- consciousness of every conscious state.

3. Even if state-reflexive accounts of consciousness are wrong… Their shortcomings can help us to focus on what we need to understand. Consider: HOT theory tries to reduce what it’s like for you to be in sensory state to having an “assertoric thought” that you are in a sensory state of a type you could have though there was nothing it was like for you to have it. One reason this won’t work...

4. HOT theory can’t account for improved reflection The theory says what it’s like for you to be in this state is just constituted what type of state you think you’re in But then you can’t improve your description of what it’s like for you (how the wine tastes to you) by forming new thoughts about it, for the thought you already had is guaranteed to capture precisely what it was like (how the wine tasted to you). And new thoughts you have will change what it’s like (how it tastes). In your HOTs, you cannot learn to improve your classification of how something tastes to you, nor acquire and deploy new concepts for doing this. (Among other things this makes it impossible to become a wine connoisseur.)

5. How is improved reflection possible? This is a problem, even with the more modest (quasi-Brentanian?) claim that every conscious state must be matched with a judgment that affirms of it the character it in fact has. Such thoughts (if they occur) won’t be the ones generated in the reflection of a subject who is improving her classification of (eg) how something tastes to her, and learning to apply new concepts to it. It’s unclear how some such alleged primitive ubiquitous level of state reflexive judgment could help account for the kind of attention to experience that generates improved reflection.

6. Another problem with HOT theory-- reportability Rosenthal tries to argue for HOT theory on the grounds that positing ubiquitous HOT’s explain why conscious states are distinctively first-personally reportable. But this doesn’t work because the posited occurrences are too close to the exercise of the ability to be explained you don’t explain the possession of an ability by conjecturing that it is always partly being exercised.

7. Will HOP (inner sense) do better? Perhaps then there is, distinct from reflective thought on experience, a kind of inner sense or higher-order perception (which either constitutes or is essential to consciousness generally). Maybe: conscious states are distinctively first-person reportable because they are innerly sensed/perceived. Maybe: You can improve your judgments about them by attending to them with inner sense/perception (“looking at them more closely with the inner eye”)

8. Will HOP (inner sense) do better? But no such substantial inner sense is phenomenologically discernible, and its hidden existence is not justified on grounds of explanatory value.

9. To find substantial inner sense in critical first-person reflection… You’d need to find a way in which you sense your own sensing, and do not merely think about it, that is not just: coincident experiencing your own experience …a way in which you sense your own sensing, where the manner of sensing does not simply coincide with, but is distinguishable from, the features sensed. For this you’d need to find in reflection either: – a form of objectual sensing of your own sensing (displaying object constancy)—e.g., a subjectively discernible change in how the visual appearance of a figure is sensed (not thought of) by you, while the way the figure looks to you remains constant, or – a form of sensory registration of your own sensing (e.g., a sensing of the feeling of nausea, distinct in kind from the feeling itself and any thought about it, which registers this feeling, as much as that feeling registers the condition of [your] stomach).

10. Would positing a phenomenologically hidden inner sense explain reflective attention? To the extent we have reason to judge-- this would have no phenomenal character of its own. It would be a kind of “inner blindsight” A non-phenomenal (blindsight) vision by itself would not enable us to attend to visual objects so as to confirm or disconfirm our judgments about them by “getting a better look at them”—it would not furnish an “epistemically enhancing attention. A “blind” (nonphenomenal) inner sensing would be no more able to furnish an epistemically-enhancing attention than would blindsight. So it cannot help explain how we attend to our own experience, in an epistemically enhancing way

11. Wanted… A phenomenology of first-person reflection without substantial inner sense that helps us to explain: – why conscious states are distinctively first- personally available for report – how attention to your own experience can improve your thought about it.

12. My proposal: While there is no state self-consciousness essential to all consciousness… There is a strong connection between a state’s being conscious and state self- consciousness. For there’s a sort of “consciousness of consciousness”—a kind of reflective attention: – which is itself a conscious thought – whose occurrence requires the occurrence of the conscious state it is a thought of, – whose status as conscious, in turn, requires that it be available for reflection of that very kind, in beings who are capable of it (and thus is distinctively first- person reportable). Reflection is susceptible to improvement, not by deploying a quasi-sensory inner “gaze”, but by improving one’s understanding of concepts one deploys in this sort of reflective attention. One can do this by acquiring recognitional skills and by critical self- examination.

13. This first-person reflection is attention to experience Even though (contra Lycan and Carruthers), we should reject “inner sense” --we should accept the reality of attention to one’s own experience… So we should also reject radical versions of the “transparency thesis” with which inner sense is sometimes opposed (e.g., by Tye and Dretske).

14. Attention to experience Negative Thesis. We do not attend to our own experience as we attend sensorially to an object, so that it reveals its constancy through a difference in how it appears, thereby becoming more and better apparent to us. Positive Thesis. Nonetheless, we can attend to experience. Introspective cognitive attention to experience is phenomenologically discernible.

15. A conception of “reflective attention”: “phenomenal-indexical thoughts” involved in “identification for recognition.”

16. Phenomenal-Indexical Thought Consider forms of thought expressible as – “The way this feels to me…” – “The way this tastes to me…” – “The color this looks to me…” Thoughts expressible using complex phrases combining demonstratives (or indexicals) and “appearance” words (or terms for phenomenal features) to identify these features. Call these “phenomenal-indexical thoughts.”

17. Identification for Recognition In some phenomenal-indexical thought you can understand what phenomenal feature you are thinking of… in a way that enables you to recognize further characterizations of what feature you are thinking of as correct or incorrect… provided there is no defect in your understanding of the terms in which you would express your thought, a defect which would impair your capacity to make these classifications. What I mean by saying: this form of thought sometimes constitutes “identification for recognition.”

18. Compare: First-person and second-person phenomenal- indexical thought in which you “identify some phenomenal feature for recognition.” “The color this looks to me…” “The color this looks to you…”

19. The first and second person ways of thinking about experience differ. For: (a) It would be both true and informative to find that the color that this looks to me = the color that this looks to you. (And, of course, this is not because I might discover I am you.)

20. And even more importantly they differ in this way… (b) when I identify for recognition some phenomenal feature in first-person phenomenal-indexical thought, I inevitably actually have the feature identified. (Whereas, when I identify for recognition some feature in second or third person phenomenal-indexical thought, the person in question may well not have the phenomenal feature identified.) Thus there is a type of first-person thought about experience that is essentially dependent on one’s experiencing the very appearance identified. To have the thought the thinker must have the very phenomenal feature identified in the thought.

21. On what grounds (b)? Why do I say that when I identify for recognition some phenomenal feature in first-person phenomenal-indexical thought, I inevitably actually have the feature identified? One important reason is this…

22. The subjective knowledge conception of phenomenality  phenomenal features are inherently subjectively identifiable This the kernel of truth in the idea that conscious experience is “self-presenting” or “self-given”; in the notion of “direct acquaintance” with one’s own experience.

23. Why phenomenal Features are Inherently Subjectively Identifiable Phenomenal features are non-derivatively suited for one to claim or desire a subjective knowledge regarding what features they are. Then at least some will be such that you and I do sometimes know what features they are by having them ourselves. (If such features occur at all, we know what at least some of them are in this way.) But if we didn’t have such features when we identified them for recognition in first-person thought, then we’d never know what such features are by having them. (For there is just no better candidate occasion for us to have this sort of knowledge.) Therefore, whenever you identify phenomenal features for recognition in first-person thoughts, you actually have them.

24. “Self-presentation”? whenever you identify phenomenal features for recognition in first-person thoughts, you actually have them. That is the sense in which they can’t help but “present themselves” in certain types of first- person thought about them, when those thoughts occur. In that sense, your own phenomenal features can’t “hide” from your thoughts.

25. Notice, it doesn’t follow from this… That experiences (instances of phenomenal features) essentially refer to themselves (either objectually or non- objectually), or are conscious of themselves. That your experiences (“appearings”) themselves appear to you via an (“inner”) sense-like faculty. That sincere first-person judgments about your own experience can never be false. That introspectively-based views about what’s necessary or possible where consciousness is concerned cannot be mistaken.

26. Introspective Attention to Experience Such first-person phenomenal-indexical thoughts constitute a form of attention to your experience. Because: They can “anchor inquiry” and enable you to “hold an experience in mind”—they can allow you to maintain it as a continuing common topic or theme for subsequent, otherwise varying cognition. Whatever does that, counts as attention in a non-trivial sense.

27. “Double Duty” The visual appearance—this first-order sensing—can do a sort of double duty. It can be an instance of attending to a visible object, even as it also makes possible an instance of reflective attention in a phenomenal-demonstrative thought about itself. Reflective attention is not essentially “specting” “intro”— “turning attention inward” away from “external objects and qualities”. We shouldn’t be forced to choose between “inward” and “outward” attention; here the “inner/outer” metaphor prevents self- understanding.

28. How this can account for the special first-person reportability of conscious states I have argued it follows from: – the (subjective knowledge/”what it’s like”) account of phenomenality, plus – the “identify-for-recognition” account of first-person reflection that one has the very phenomenal features one attributes to oneself in such first-person thought. But that’s to say: that one has phenomenal features (= one has conscious states) is by its very nature correctly affirmed in first- person thought, and since first-person reports express these thoughts— One’s conscious states are distinctively first-person reportable.

29. How this can account for the improvability of reflection on experience: recognitional skills Reflection is anchored in judgments that can’t be wrong, if one is able to make them at all (The way this tastes to me is the way this tastes to me.) But one’s grasp of constituent experiential concept (tastes to me) depends on one’s acquisition of first-order recognitional abilities (that’s sweet) coordinated with expressions of reflective judgments (one can correctly combine flavor terms with ‘taste to me’ reports). But it’s open precisely which recognitional-semantic abilities fill this role. So one can improve reflection by acquiring new recognitional abilities (and along with them new ways of completing reflections, e.g., one’s “tastes to me” judgments, that also express these recognitions) One can develop new ways to express the recognition—perhaps through analogies (honeyed-sweet). Which can provide a basis for acquiring new first-order recognitions. And this process can be refined indefinitely ( “connoisseurship”)

30. How this can account for the improvability of reflection on experience: critical self-examination Again, reflection is anchored in judgments that can’t be wrong, if one is able to make them at all (The way this looks to me is the way this looks to me.) But one’s grasp of constituent experiential concepts (looks to me) depends on one’s ability to join them with other concepts in ways that one can understand only if one correctly apply them first-personally. (The figures in the array look to me equally detailed, but they do not all simultaneously appear to me in equal detail.) I come to consider and apply such complex concepts in the context of critical consideration of philosophical/theoretical issues (“how detailed is visual experience”). I strive to draw relevant distinctions and consider the implications of relevant claims (thinking about what I mean). This can lead me to correct and refine my reflective judgments. So one can improve reflection by critical self-examination. And this process can be refined indefinitely (“analytic phenomenology”)

31. The proposal, again-- While there is no state self-consciousness essential to all consciousness, there is a strong connection between a state’s being conscious and state self- consciousness. There is a sort of “consciousness of consciousness”—a kind of reflective attention: – which is itself a conscious thought – whose occurrence requires the occurrence of the conscious state it is a thought of, – whose status as conscious, in turn, requires that it be available for reflection of that very kind, in beings who are capable of it (and thus is distinctively first- person reportable). Reflection is susceptible to improvement, not by deploying a quasi-sensory inner “gaze”, but by improving one’s understanding of the concepts one deploys in this sort of reflective attention. One can do this by acquiring recognitional skills, and by critical self-examination.