Experiential Self-Consciousness: Rationalism About the Value and Content of Experience
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Experiential Self-Consciousness: Rationalism about the Value and Content of Experience by David Micha de Bruijn BA Philosophy and Political Science, University College Utrecht, 2006 MPhil Philosophy, University of Cambridge, 2007 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2017 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences This dissertation was presented by David Micha de Bruijn It was defended on July 17, 2017 and approved by Anil Gupta, Alan Ross Anderson Distinguished Professor of Philosophy Wayne Wu, Associate Professor, Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition Dissertation Co-Director: Stephen Engstrom, Professor of Philosophy Dissertation Co-Director: John McDowell, Distinguished University Professor of Philosophy ii Copyright © by David Micha de Bruijn 2017 iii Experiential Self-Consciousness: Rationalism about the Value and Content of Experience David de Bruijn, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2017 In having a visual experience, we can come to know facts of at least two kinds: facts about our environment (“there is a red cup before me”), and facts about ourselves (“I am having an experience as of a red cup”). How do these types of knowledge—perceptual knowledge and perceptual self-knowledge—relate? For a certain type of rationalist a visual experience is identical with a form of self- awareness of the relevant visual experience. For you to be aware of having an experience E is nothing over and above you having E. Specifically, the rationalist holds that this fact is grounded in the way a capacity for thought expresses itself in experience as what I call experiential self- consciousness. I argue that this form of rationalism provides a novel way of approaching critical debates about visual experience, including the structure of perceptual representation and the grounds for perceptual knowledge. In experience things can self-consciously look to the subject to be specifically thinkable ways: the way experience makes things look to the rational subject can, in part, be expressed through the sort of contents experience makes it available for the subject to think. Moreover, in experience the objects of perceptual knowledge can be self-consciously present to the subject. I argue this type of perceptual presence supports a novel, non-evidentialist internalism about perceptual knowledge and justification. Moreover, I suggest rationalism illuminates an association between experience bearing representational content and a type of self- conscious experiential unity. iv I also spend significant time placing rationalism in its historical context, specifically a broadly Leibnizian theme running through Kant’s views on experience. I argue that placing a type of rationalism central to a reading of Kant allows us to (i) appreciate the way Kantian intuitions (Anschauungen) are conceptual and yet non-judgmental representations; (ii) see the way sensations (Empfindungen) figure in Kant’s thinking merely as abstractions from self- conscious states; and (iii) read the Paralogisms chapter of the Critique of Pure Reason as consistent with Kant holding a substantial conception of the thinking and perceiving subject. v TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE .................................................................................................................................... XI INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................ 1 A RATIONALIST THEME ................................................................................................ 1 OVERVIEW OF CHAPTERS ............................................................................................ 5 1.0 UNDERSTANDING: THE FORM OF INTUITION...................................................... 10 1.1 CONCEPTUALISM .......................................................................................... 12 1.2 TWO STEMS OF COGNITION ...................................................................... 13 1.3 THE NON-CONCEPTUALIST THESES ....................................................... 16 1.4 THE TEXTUAL CASE FOR NON-CONCEPTUALISM ............................. 19 1.5 THE CONDITIONS OF THE UNDERSTANDING ...................................... 23 1.6 HYLOPMORPHISM IN KANT: THE CASE FOR CONCEPTUALISM.. 26 1.7 CONCEPTUALISM AND JUDGMENT ........................................................ 31 1.8 NON-CONCEPTUALIST EVIDENCE REVISITED .................................... 34 1.9 CONCLUSION .................................................................................................. 38 2.0 SENSIBILITY: THE MATTER OF INTUITION .................................................. 40 2.1 THE NATURE OF SENSATION .................................................................... 45 2.2 LEIBNIZ ON PRIMARY AND SECONDARY MATTER ........................... 50 2.3 EMPFINDUNG AS PRIMARY MATERIAL ................................................. 57 vi 2.4 “THE GRUNDSTÜCK OF OUR COGNITION” ............................................ 65 3.0 UNITY AND SUBSTANTIALITY IN KANT’S SUBJECT .................................. 70 3.1 ACHILLES: NARROW AND BROAD ........................................................... 75 3.2 KANT’S CRITIQUE OF THE ACHILLES IN THE PARALOGISMS ...... 79 3.3 A DILEMMA FOR FUNCTIONALISTS ....................................................... 83 3.4 KANT’S CRITIQUE OF RATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY ............................... 87 3.5 KANT’S PURE ACHILLES ............................................................................. 95 3.6 OBJECTIONS .................................................................................................. 103 4.0 EXPERIENTIAL SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS AND PERCEPTUAL LOOKS .. 107 4.1 TWO REQUIREMENTS ON THE ARGUMENT FROM LOOKS .......... 111 4.2 EXPLAINING LUCIDITY ............................................................................. 121 4.3 LUCIDITY AS SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS ................................................... 129 4.4 THE ARGUMENT FROM SELF-CONSCIOUS LOOKS .......................... 136 4.5 OBJECTIONS .................................................................................................. 141 5.0 EXPERIENTIAL SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS AND PERCEPTUAL PRESENCE .................................................................................................................................... 149 5.1 PERCEPTUAL PRESENCE .......................................................................... 156 5.2 DISJUNCTIVISM: EVIDENCE OR PRESENCE? ..................................... 161 5.3 PRITCHARD-STYLE DISJUNCTIVISM .................................................... 163 5.4 DISJUNCTIVISM: EVIDENCE OR PRESENCE? ..................................... 169 5.5 THE DIALECTICAL INFELICITY PROBLEM ........................................ 173 5.6 THE BASIS PROBLEM ................................................................................. 182 5.7 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................ 185 vii 5.8 REFLECTIVE BADNESS .............................................................................. 188 6.0 CONTENT AND THE UNITY OF EXPERIENCE ............................................. 195 6.1 EXPERIENTIAL UNITY ............................................................................... 201 6.2 INTELLECTUAL COMBINATION ............................................................. 205 6.3 KANT ON THE PERCEPTUAL CONCEPT ............................................... 214 6.4 PERCEPTUAL SELF-COMPREHENSION ................................................ 218 BIBLIOGRAPHY ..................................................................................................................... 227 viii LIST OF TABLES Table 1 The Narrow Achilles and the Broad Achilles .................................................................. 75 Table 2 The Plotinian Achilles and the Proclean Achilles ........................................................... 77 Table 3 Kant’s Pure Achilles ....................................................................................................... 98 Table 4 The Entailment Model (1) .............................................................................................. 164 Table 5 The Entailment Model (2) .............................................................................................. 167 Table 6 The Access Model.......................................................................................................... 169 Table 7 Reflective Badness (1) ................................................................................................... 190 Table 8 Reflective Badness (2) ................................................................................................... 192 ix As we perceive something, we rouse ourselves, so to speak, as though from a sleep with respect to the object. We grasp [it], comprehend it, we grasp ourselves with respect to it, [and] reflect upon ourselves. J. N. Tetens, 1913, p. 284 By the term ‘thought’ I understand everything which we are aware of as happening within us, insofar as we have awareness of it. Hence, thinking is to be identified here not merely with understanding, willing and imagining, but also with sensory awareness. René Descartes CSM 1. 195 x PREFACE In many ways, writing a dissertation in general is a personal