José Luis Bermúdez, The Paradox of
Self-Consciousness. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press 1998, xv + 338pp.
Kent Bach
San Francisco State University
In many ways this is a
masterful book. It is philosophy in the manner of Strawson, but richly
fortified with experimental findings on a wide range of psychological
phenomena. There is much to think about here and plenty to learn, as Bermúdez
guides the reader on a well-organized tour along a progression of complex
issues pertaining directly or indirectly to self-consciousness.
The goal of the book is to resolve its title’s paradox. Like
most paradoxes, this one involves a set of seemingly true but mutually
incompatible propositions. I won’t enumerate them here, but the upshot of this
paradox is that an account of self-consciousness cannot avoid circularity. Now
according to Bermúdez, giving such an account requires analyzing the capacity
to think what he calls ‘I’-thoughts, as canonically expressed by means of the
first-person pronoun (“analyzing” a capacity is not only to explain it but to
characterize what constitutes it). But analyzing the capacity to think such
thoughts requires analyzing the capacity to use the first-person pronoun, and
that seems to require analyzing the capacity to think ‘I’-thoughts. How, then,
to analyze self-consciousness without circularity (either explanatory or
constitutive)?
As Bermúdez sees it,
“the circularity at the heart of the paradox arises from the assumption that
the capacity to think thoughts with the first-person contents characteristic of
self-consciousness is available only to creatures who have mastered the
semantics of the first-person pronoun” (p. 43). This assumption is a special
case of what he calls the Thought-Language Principle:
Thought-Language Principle. The only way to analyze the
capacity to think a particular range of thoughts is by analyzing the capacity
for the canonical linguistic expression of those thoughts. (p. 13)
This principle may be broken
down into two sub-principles, the Priority and the Conceptual Requirement
principles. These have the effect, respectively, of tying conceptual abilities
directly to linguistic abilities and of denying that nonconceptual states can
have representational contents at all. To avoid circularity and thereby solve
the paradox, Bermúdez will reject the Conceptual Requirement Principle.
In so doing he will rely heavily on a notion of nonconceptual
content. “The central idea will be that both in explaining what mastery of the
first-person pronoun actually is and in explaining how such a capacity can be
acquired in the normal course of human development, we can appeal to
nonconceptual first-person thoughts” (p. 45). Accordingly, Bermúdez defends the
Autonomy Principle:
Autonomy Principle. It is possible for a
creature to be in states with nonconceptual content, even though that creature
possesses no concepts at all. (p. 61)
Without this principle the
task of explaining self-consciousness (and cognitive development in general)
would be faced with a dilemma: either we must deny that infants have the sorts
of representational states that best explain the many surprisingly complex
kinds of behavior they are demonstrably capable of, or we must ascribe to them
mastery of concepts they could not possibly have. If we are to escape this dilemma
and “do justice to both the differences and the similarities between infant and
adult cognition then we will have to recognize the existence of states that
represent the world in a way that is independent of concept mastery and,
moreover, that can be ascribed to creatures who possess no concepts whatsoever”
(p. 83).
Although Bermúdez is careful to distinguish constitutive from
developmental issues, clearly he thinks that there is a connection between the
two. In particular, he takes facts about cognitive development concerning the
precursors of full-fledged self-consciousness to be strong evidence not just
for ontogenetic but for constitutive claims. A major portion (chapters 5-9) of
the book is devoted to delineating “a plausible developmental progression from
the cognitive skills and abilities that normal human infants have available to
them at birth via the relevant forms of nonconceptual self-consciousness to
linguistic mastery of the first-person pronoun” (p. 269). In these chapters
Bermúdez skillfully presents and applies an impressive range of recent
psychological findings in order to trace the complex hierarchy of cognitive
abilities that lead to full-fledged self-consciousness. Here I can only
highlight some of the main elements of this progression.
Nonconceptual self-consciousness begins in infancy
with somatic proprioception and with the pick-up of self-specifying information
in exteroceptive perception. Although these comprise “a form of primitive
self-consciousness operative in the very structure of perception” (p. 131),
they involve “a relatively impoverished conception of the self associated with
a comparably impoverished conception of the environment” (p. 272). Even so,
visual perception and somatic proprioception are “the building-blocks for the
bootstrapping process that will eventually result in the mastery of the
first-person concept and the capacity for full-fledged self-consciousness” (p.
132), as well as in richer conceptions of the environment.
Somatic proprioception provides information about the state
and position of the body at a particular location and about states of body
parts relative to the rest of the body and to other body parts. Importantly,
these are pieces of “self-specifying information.” So is the information
provided by visual kinesthesis, which provides information on the perceiver’s
movements, indicating that “the self has a place in the content of visual
experience” (p. 112). Self-specifying information is also provided in how
perceivers view objects in relation to their own action, e.g., “as within reach
or as too heavy for one to lift” (p. 200). And the sense of touch, “because it
is simultaneously proprioceptive and exteroceptive, provides an interface
between the self and the nonself” (p. 164).
Bermúdez examines in detail how the child develops a
nonconceptual point of view on the world, which “involves taking a particular
route through the environment in such a way that one’s perception of the world
is informed by an awareness that one is taking such a route” (p. 273).
Bermúdez’s discussion (Chapters 7 and 8) of this and related phenomena,
including the capacities to track perspectival changes in spatial relations
among objects caused by one’s own movements and to think about places
independently of what occupies them, is reminiscent of Strawson’s rendition of
Kant’s metaphysics of experience in The Bounds of Sense (Methuen 1966),
but is splendidly enhanced by the extensive research he invokes, e.g. on object
permanence, autobiographical memory, spatial reasoning, and navigational
abilities.
Finally, there are the
abilities to think of oneself as a perceiver, as an agent, and as possessing
various psychological properties. This last ability is, as Strawson argued long
ago in Individuals (Methuen 1959), inseparable from the ability to
ascribe such properties to others (it is essential to the capacity for
“nonsolipsistic consciousness”), and that ability is essential to being able to
draw others’ attention to things, to engage in joint attention and in joint
activity, including communication.
Now it is time to register a few worries, none of which is
meant to detract from the immense value of Bermúdez’s subtle and erudite
account of the hierarchy of forms of self-consciousness.
(1) His paradox of self-consciousness depends on the
Thought-Language Principle and, in particular, its two component principles:
Conceptual Requirement
Principle. The
range of contents that one may attribute to a creature is directly determined
by the concepts that the creature possesses. (p. 41)
Priority Principle. Conceptual abilities are
constitutively linked with linguistic abilities in such a way that conceptual
abilities cannot be possessed by nonlinguistic creatures. (p. 42)
These two principles
together comprise what Bermúdez calls the “classical view of content.” However,
it is not obvious what is classical about this view or why he thinks it has
been widely held—that needs documentation. I don’t doubt that there have been
plenty of others who have held it, but the only philosopher he cites as holding
it is Dummett, and Dummett’s views are not exactly classical. More importantly,
Bermúdez does not explain why anyone should find the “classical” view
plausible. To the extent that one does not, it is difficult to be exercised by
his paradox.
Clearly Bermúdez himself finds the “classical” view
plausible, at least plausible enough to be worth refuting. Indeed, he accepts
the Priority Principle with little explanation or comment, noting that it
“allows us to make a very clear distinction between conceptual and
nonconceptual modes of content-bearing representation, because the connection
between language and concepts gives us a clear criterion for identifying the
presence of conceptual representation” (p. 43). But this doesn’t begin to show that
there is such a connection, much less what that connection is. To suppose that
linguistic abilities are necessary for conceptual abilities is to deny that
even the most advanced apes possess concepts. Also, considering the extent to
which language is rife with ambiguity and semantic underdetermination, it would
seem that there are certain fine-grained conceptual abilities for which
linguistic mastery is not sufficient. In any case, Bermúdez’s complaint is with
the Conceptual Requirement Principle. Although he goes to sublime lengths to
refute this principle, it is not clear why he finds it plausible in the first
place. It seems that only a philosophical dinosaur, by maintaining that
unconceptualized perception is mere sensation, would claim that seeing or
feeling that p is impossible without thinking that p. It is hard
to see or conceive why anyone in this day and age would insist that
representational states must be conceptual.
(2) It is also unclear why Bermúdez takes the
conceptual/nonconceptual distinction to pertain to content. For surely at least
some conceptual states and some nonconceptual states have contents in common,
e.g., the proposition that a certain tomato is red. But if states of both types
can have identical contents, then how can the conceptual/nonconceptual
distinction pertain to content itself? Fortunately, it is not essential to
Bermúdez’s intricate resolution of his paradox that the operative distinction
be one of content. Terminological adjustments aside, he could make all his main
points while taking this distinction to pertain to types of states or perhaps
to ways of taking contents.
My impression is that lurking in the background is a certain
view of attitude ascription and a certain conception of propositional content.
It is clear from what he says in various places (pp. 3, 33, and 83) that
Bermúdez assumes that the ‘that’-clauses of attitude ascriptions fully specify
or otherwise individuate attitude contents, but, as I have argued recently (Pac.
Phil. Quar., Jan. 1997), this widespread assumption is problematic. He also
seems to assume that the constituents of propositions expressed by
‘that’-clauses are concepts. In so doing, he effectively rules out the
currently popular view that such propositions are “Russellian,” and have as
their constituents not concepts but objects, properties, and relations. On that
view, there is no meaningful distinction between conceptual and nonconceptual
content. If attitudes and experiences have propositional contents of this sort,
then obviously the conceptual/nonconceptual distinction can meaningfully apply
only to states that have them or to ways of taking them.
(3) Bermúdez does not set the problem of explaining
self-consciousness against a background account of what is involved in being
conscious of objects in general. Nor does he set the problem of explaining
mastery of the first-person against a background account of what is involved in
mastery of singular terms in general. It would be unreasonable to expect a
general treatment of singular thought and singular reference in an already long
and involved book, but it would have been desirable to have an explanation what
is special about thinking and referring to oneself, as opposed to anything
else. Who knows, perhaps an adequate account of what is required for
consciousness of and reference to things in general would show that nothing
special is required for self-consciousness and self-reference. Indeed, it seems
to me, such an outcome would be consonant with Bermúdez’s many observations
about the complementarity of object- and self-consciousness.
(4) It is puzzling why Bermúdez finds it even initially
plausible that the capacity for self-consciousness should be intimately tied to
the capacity to use the first-person pronoun. Particularly puzzling is why, in
the discussion which occurs almost as an afterthought in the concluding
chapter, he thinks that the communicative use of ‘I’ (its use to refer others
to oneself) is essential to the analysis of the capacity for
self-consciousness. And, although he rightfully argues that there are the forms
of self-consciousness which do not require the capacity to use the first-person
pronoun, there are also aspects of full-fledged self-consciousness which
require more than linguistic mastery of the first-person pronoun. He
acknowledges that “forms of self-consciousness [vary with] the richness of the
conception of the self that they provide” (p. 272), but the richer ones can and
do go far beyond what is required for competent use of the word ‘I’. They
pertain to what one takes oneself to be, and it is not possible to take oneself
to be anything without already being able to think of oneself.
Bermúdez plausibly holds that “a crucial element in any form
of self-consciousness … enables the self-conscious subject to distinguish
between self and environment” (p. 272). Several of the cognitive agnosias he
considers illustrate how this distinction can become distorted in one way or
another. I wish he had looked into some of the more extreme psychiatric ways in
which this distinction can break down. People with chronic uncontrollable
impulses, radical mood swings, multiple personalities, or schizophrenic breaks
have to different degrees difficulty in forming a stable self-conception, but
their problems go well beyond anything having to do with mastery of the
first-person pronoun. In extreme cases, a person’s sense of where the boundary
is between himself and the rest of the world is not at his skin but somewhere
well within it, perhaps not far from the pineal gland.
* * * * *
Even though the paradox of
self-consciousness rests on principles that I find much less plausible than
Bermúdez does, I am glad he was gripped by it. This enabled him to produce a
rich and deeply rewarding book on one of the most difficult topics in
philosophy. No philosopher heretofore has come close to bringing such a wide
range of scientific findings to bear on self-consciousness in its many stages
and aspects. Paradox or no paradox, the reader can safely venture into the
Bermúdez triangle. An edifying experience awaits.