Descartes, Kant, and Self-Consciousness Author(s): Stephen Priest Reviewed work(s): Source: The Philosophical Quarterly, Vol.

31, No. 125 (Oct., 1981), pp. 348-351 Published by: Blackwell Publishing for The Philosophical Quarterly Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2219405 . Accessed: 04/04/2012 09:45
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Blackwell Publishing and The Philosophical Quarterly are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Philosophical Quarterly.

http://www.jstor.org

348

DESCARTES, KANT, AND SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS

BY STEPHEN PRIEST

the In this paper two of Terence Wilkerson'sconclusionsconcerning and Kantian accountsofthe selfare contested.' Cartesian He claims that Descartes did not hold the ("Lockean") view that the and therefore Kant's from selfis a substanceontologically distinct thoughts, doctrineof the selfin the Paralogisms"misses of the rationalist criticism to Kant the view "that consciousness also attributes its mark". Wilkerson an attribution sharedin variousforms entailsself-consciousness", by several and Bennett. Strawson Kantian commentators including even if it were true that "Kant and Hume are Taking Descartes first, to Descartesa Lockean account for of serious a muddle, theyattribute guilty thismight be an interesting needsnordesires", whichhe neither ofsubstance a not of Ideas but the about necessarily reportof a philoHistory point and sophical muddle. Hume in the Treatisesection Of PersonalIdentity, criticism in coherent wouldstillbe saying Kant in the Paralogisms, something who held that the selfwas an entity"over and of any possiblephilosopher even from"a set of thoughts, distinct above" in the sense of "ontologically if Descartes was not such a philosopher.There is, though,clear textual evidencethat Descarteswas such a philosopher. he says "I am . . .preciselyspeakinga thing In the Second Meditation and really whichthinks"and thenrepeatsthe claim "I am ... a real thing, existing;but what thing? I have already said it; a thingwhichthinks".2 Descartes does not say that he is a thoughtor a seriesof thoughtsbut a "thing". His claim to be "speakingprecisely"should be taken seriously. extended can be correctly and properties on substances Descartes'conclusions the to apply to his theoryof the self. Thereis no dangerof "confounding as ideas of mode and substance"in the case of selves and theirexperiences thereis in the case of objects and theirproperties.3 KennyunderAnthony standsthispointwhenhe says, withits essence. When Descartessays A thingis not to be identified he does not mean that he can use 'I' and that his essenceis thinking that 'thought'as synonyms.The essenceof a substanceis something substancehas,4 Descartesto Burman: a letterfrom from and quotes the following a substancewe must recognise whichspecifies Besides the attribute forinstancethe soul,being beneaththe attribute; the substanceitself a substancewhichthinks. a thinking is, in additionto thought, thing, (Kenny,p. 66) is wrongto claim (p. 50) that "I can talk of myself So Wilkerson thinking and mythoughts". but mustbe waryoftalkingof myself or ofmythoughts consistent with a view of the self as a set of Nor are Descartes' arguments
1T. E. Wilkerson, "Kant on Self-Consciousness", The Philosophical Quarterly,30 (1980), 47-60. 2Descartes, Meditations (Harmondsworth, 1970), p. 105. 3See Wilkerson,p. 50, quoting fromDescartes' Principles I. 4A. Kenny, Descartes (New York, 1968), p. 64.

DESCARTES,

KANT,

AND

SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS

349

to eitherby verbal and adjectival phrases that can be referred experiences in ontological difference or by noun phrases,withoutany corresponding a choice betweena verb phrase and a commitment. There is sometimes Bennett therebeinga corresponding nounphrasewithout changeofmeaning. provides a useful example; 'they foughtfor four hours' and 'the fight in meaningand can be used to mention lasted forfourhours'do not differ But this is not the case withthe Cartesian one and the same occurrence.5 self.Descriptions or mentions of selves and of thoughts are (or experiences) one and the same entity.Not onlyare not alternative meansof designating distinct names and experiential but on Descartes' grammatically predicates view selves and thoughts are not identical,even thoughthey are logically undera description and ontologically The notionof falling interdependent. sometimes is an interesting and valuable one, but different descriptions exhibit different ontologicalcommitments. Althoughfor Descartes there is clear; cannot be thoughtswithouta selfto thinkthem,the distinction used to 'soul', 'thinking expressions thing', 'I', and 'myself'are different referto one and the same non-material substance. His use of the spatial metaphors'besides' and 'beneath' and the phrase 'in additionto' in the to letter to Burman quoted above presupposes a furthercommitment thoughts. These relationalconceptsrequiretwo terms;a substancewhich not just thoughts. thinks, Descartesemphasises this doctrine: In his Replyto ThirdObjections and in general No thoughtcan exist apart froma thingthat thinks, a substancein whichto exist. no activityor accidentcan be without in whichtheyresidewe call a thinking thingor a mind.6 formental condition The doctrine that the existenceof a selfis a necessary fromthe doctrine that the selfis activitymust be carefully distinguished nothingover and above mentalactivity. Logical dependencemust not be withidentity.To creditDescarteswiththe latterviewrather than confused to hima Humean "bundleof perceptions" the former wouldbe to attribute doctrine ofthe selfwhichhe wouldhave rejected. It followsfromthis clarification of Descartes' positionthat Kant was to hold in the First Paralogismthat it was a doctrine of correct perfectly that "the soul is substance"and it has not been shown Rational Psychology that his attack, or that of Hume, "missesits mark".7 a necessary I am consciousof it as mine" truththat if I have an experience (p. 51). Kant did not hold this view, whichis in any case false. What is it is mine,not that I am true is that if I have an experience necessarily consciousof it as mine. This is a consequenceof the trivialanalytictruth to assert that all my experiences are mine. It would be self-contradictory that I had an experience that was not my own, but it would not be selfto say that I had an experience but was not consciousof it contradictory as my own. 'Being consciousof having an experience'is not to be confusedwith be logically derivedfrom norcan the former 'havinga consciousexperience' I am conscious, the latter. When I am having a consciousexperience but
5s. Bennett, Kant's Dialectic (Cambridge, 1974), p. 73. 6Replyto Third Objectionsin The Philosophical Worksof Descartes,ed. E. S. Haldane and G. R. T. Ross (Cambridge, 1911), p. 64. 7Kant, Critique,A344, B402 (p. 330 in Kemp Smith's edition).

There are activities which we call intellectual. . . . The substance

I turn now to Wilkerson's attribution to Kant of this belief: ". .. it is

350

STEPHEN

PRIEST

when I am consciousof having an experienceI am self-conscious. In the first case I am just conscious, in thesecondI am conscious ofbeingconscious. This distinction mustnot be confused withthat betweenconsciousand unconsciousmental events (with whichit may indeed be compatible). The distinction is betweenbeingconsciousand beingself-conscious, not between beingconsciousand beingunconscious. A failure to make the distinction betweenownership and self-consciousness has led to misinterpretation of Kant's famouspassage in the B-version ofthe Transcendental Deduction: It mustbe possibleforthe "I think"to accompany all myrepresentawould be represented in me which tions; for otherwisesomething could not be thought at all, and that is equivalentto sayingthat the would be impossible, or at least would be nothing to representation B 131-2,pp. 152-3) me. (Critique, do not commit These remarks Kant to the view that beingconsciousentails Kant is making two different beingself-conscious. points. He is sayingthat - all myexperiences thereare no unownedexperiences are necessarily mine - and he is saying thatit mustbe possiblein principle formeto be conscious as mine. The 'must be possible'above does not commit of my experiences Kant to 'all the time'. is not the first commentator to thinkthat the 'I Wilkerson mistakenly think'ofapperception or has to accompany all ourexperiences. accompanies, Bennettsays: Jonathan Kant says that every representation must occur not just in some mind but specifically in the mind of a self-conscious or self-aware he concedesthat a representation being. Sometimes mightexist unbut insists that such a representaby self-consciousness, accompanied tion would "be nothing" to its owner.8 Bennett impliesthat every representation must be accompaniedby selfnot just capable of beingaccompaniedby self-consciousness. consciousness, and Bennetttacitlyassimilatetwo sets of viewsthat need to be Wilkerson of the carefully separated. First, there are at least two interpretations mind' that are possible here. A self-conscious expression'self-conscious mind could be one that was capable of self-consciousness or one that was All Kant needs for his argumentis potential perpetuallyself-conscious. not actual or occurrentself-consciousness. self-consciousness, Similarly, Strawson'sphrase,'self-conscious awarenessof the succession of experience in time',is open to either until he makesit clear that he has interpretation the "potential"view of apperception: It is not necessary in orderfordifferent to belongto a experiences the of that those should be consciousness, subject single experiences ofthemas his experiences.9 constantly thinking The second distinction needed is in the reasonswhy an experience not would not be possible, capable of being accompaniedby self-consciousness or at least would be nothing to its owner. Part of the ambiguity lies in the Kantian text. At least prima facie, 'not possible' is incompatiblewith to'. The disjunction betweenthereeitherbeingno experience or 'nothing therebeing an experience of whichthe owneris not consciousseems clear on one reading. But thereis another readingwhichrenders compatible'not
8J. Bennett, Kant's Analytic (Cambridge, 1966), p. 104. 9p. F. Strawson, The Bounds of Sense (London, 1966), pp. 20, 98.

DESCARTES, KANT, AND SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS

351

to'. This secondreadingconcerns the necessary conpossible'and 'nothing ditionsforan event's being an experience.All experiences are eventsbut not all eventsare experiences.It is a necessarycondition foran event to be an experience thatit be "had" or "owned" by a person, notthat a person shouldbe conscious ofits occurrence. ofx, I am having WhenI am conscious an experience.It is not necessary forme to be consciousof beingconscious of x forme to be consciousof x, althoughthis would indeed be sufficient. Bearingthisin mind,Kant's passage can be takenin thisway: the representation would be impossible in the meaning because the "owned" element of 'experience' and 'representation' wouldbe lacking. A representation that was "nothing"to a personwould be precisely an experience that was not couldnot be an experience had, that is at most,a mereevent. Therelogically that was "nothing"to its ownerin thissense. is a potentiality or Finally,once we have seen that pure apperception we mustnot lose sightof the factthat Kant capacityforself-consciousness, this from "empiricalapperception"with which it is easily distinguishes confused.'Empirical foreveryday is Kant's term apperception' introspection which is simplyour occasional and discontinuous awarenessof our own mentalstates. "Pure apperception" is the relationbetweena subject and his experiences thatis expressed thatthe "I think"mustbe capable by saying of accompanying them. This is a purelyformal relationbetweena person and his experiences It ensuresthat certain and not a sortof introspection. sets of mentaleventsare eventsin a singlemindand are thus experiences, rather than discontinuous and unrelated occurrences. like 'consciousness 'self-aware beentailsself-consciousness', Expressions shouldbe of experience' awarenessof the succession ing' and 'self-conscious avoided in explaining unlessit is the transcendental unityof apperception remembered that Kant is concerned of the "I think" onlywiththe capacity to accompanyall our experiences.10 Manchester Polytechnic

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