exerpt from Christian de Quincey : Deep Spirit (for tom)

[Guest guest]

a bit lengthy but a good read..

 

a tiny tad bit on choice and consciousness:

 

...The Kantian critique of the Cartesian " mirror-model " of

self-consciousness depends on a particular, and limited, notion of

self-inquiry: epistemology through rational introspection. We could

call it rational empiricism, where reason attempts to view or reflect

the " I " by objectifying it as " me, " the phenomenal self. Meanwhile,

the " I " as it is in itself, remains beyond reach, an unknowable source

of knowing residing transcendentally in the numenon. Kant's method of

self-inquiry, though a form of introspection (reason), nevertheless

analytically objectifies the ego, and thus qualifies as a third-person

perspective.

 

But there are other modes of self-inquiry that do not rely wholly on

reason. Meditative and contemplative disciplines, for instance, can

transcend reason and logic to arrive at deep intuitive, or noetic,

knowledge--a knowing that transcends the duality of " I " and " me "

(Merrell-Wolff, 1983; Forman, 1990). Kant's dichotomy, therefore, of

the transcendental ego and the phenomenal ego, which posits an

insurmountable divide between the objectively-known self and the

unknowable transcendental " I " -in-itself, is a result of his limited

empiricism and epistemology. By engaging in contemplative practices,

or inner empiricism (Needleman & de Quincey, 1993) the duality of " I "

and " me " can be transcended. Such inner empiricism (distinct from

rational empiricism) penetrates the essence of subjectivity, and thus

qualifies as first-person perspective par excellence.

 

And there is yet a third approach to self-inquiry: intersubjective

empiricism, which avoids the Kantian impossibility of the " I'

reflecting itself without objectifying itself as " me. " By encountering

others as loci of experiencing selves, just like our self, we can,

indeed, come to know ourselves reflected in the other. Unlike the

failed Cartesian one-way mirror-model of self-consciousness, the

intersubjective approach involves a kind of " two-way mirror, " where

not only can we " see through " to the other self, we see our own

spontaneous self reflected back through them--and this experience is

itself constitutive of the experiencing " I. " Part of who I am, who I

experience myself to be, is formed, perhaps even created, by engaging

with " you. " This was Fichte's approach, modified by Humboldt and

Kierkegaard, and taken up later by Habermas.

 

Fichte's self-positing self. Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1907) attempted

to augment Kant's transcendental ego by the notion of the

" self-positing self. " For Fichte, the ego creates itself through an

existential act of self-choice and achieves individuality through

intersubjective encounters with other egos. Its uniqueness is shaped

by these encounters. Thus Fichte's existential

self-positing-intersubjective ego has both transcendental and immanent

aspects. It also presupposes a pre-existing self that engages other

pre-existing selves. Thus Fichte's approach opens the way to account

for what happens to the self-positing-self, to its forms or contents

(weak/psychological intersubjectivity), but it does not advance our

knowledge of consciousness or self as an ontological context

(strong/philosophical intersubjectivity).

 

Both Søren Kierkegaard and Wilhelm von Humboldt (see below) argued

that Fichte's transcendental-immanent ego led to contradictions and

paradoxes, and did not resolve the paralogisms of self identified by

Kant. The problem, they believed, resulted from the notion of the

transcendental ego. They rejected the transcendental ego altogether,

and instead proposed a wholly immanent self, situated in the concrete

world of life events and life histories (a view developed later, and

along very different lines in John Dewey [1949], and Martin Heidegger

[1978]).

 

Kierkegaard's existential self-choice. Kierkegaard (1987) retained and

reworked Fichte's notion of self-positing into an existential theory

of self-choice--a self that authentically chooses its own particular

life history, and thereby establishes its unique individuality.

Kierkegaard's " self-choice " involves a performative rather than a

descriptive concept of individuality, an idea later taken up by Jürgen

Habermas (1992).

 

In other words, when I choose myself as this person with this

particular life history, and simultaneously assert and project myself

into the world, what matters is not any third-person (or first-person)

description of this self, but my claim to radical authenticity. Self,

then, becomes not something to be described, but something to perform.

The self is a claim: " I am who I am. " But as a claim, the self must

then be recognized or acknowledged, accepted, or rejected by other

selves--by Other. For Kierkegaard, this Other was God (Kierkegaard, 1987).

 

Humboldt's linguistic community. Wilhelm von Humboldt took a different

approach. For him, the " other " became a community of other selves,

united in a linguistic system. Instead of describing the self as an

individual subject, he described encounters between speakers and

hearers in a linguistic community--an exchange or meeting of

perspectives, acknowledging, without objectifying, each other. Instead

of Kant's transcendental subject, the locus of consciousness for

Humboldt was a plurality of linguistic participants and perspectives.

Unity in the participating community was achieved through " unforced

agreement in conversation " without canceling diversity (Habermas,

1992, p. 163).

 

Humboldt, thus, emphasized three elements that would later be

essential to Habermas' theory of communicative action: the notions of

" linguistic community, " " intersubjectivity, " and " unforced agreement

in dialogue. " Because of his emphasis on linguistic exchanges,

Humboldt's position is a version of standard, consensual agreement,

" intersubjectivity-1. "

 

Mead's intersubjective alter egos. From Kant, through Fichte,

Kierkegaard, and Humboldt, the philosophy of consciousness

progressively moved away from its moorings in the Cartesian

subject-object dualism and the one-way mirror-model of self-reflective

consciousness. However, even with Kant's transcendental ego, Fichte's

self-positing ego, Kierkegaard's existential self-choice, and

Humboldt's intersubjective linguistic community, no clear path had yet

emerged by which the gap between first-person " I " -subjects and

third-person " it " -objects could be bridged. George Herbert Mead

(1967), social psychologist and social philosopher, introduced the

crucial missing element: the second-person.

 

With this innovation, Mead made it possible for the self to know

itself by mirroring itself in an " object. " But this was no ordinary

third-person object; in fact, it was not an " object " at all. It was

another self--a second-person, alter ego. Instead of the

epistemological contortions of a first-person " I " attempting to adopt

the third-person perspective of an external observer of itself, the

self becomes known through the interactions of first-person and

second-person perspectives of participants in active linguistic

communication.

 

Now, the self is not mirrored as an object from a third-person

perspective, but as communicating egos mutually reflecting each other.

My self, then, is perceived as the alter ego to your alter ego. I am

" other, " as a self, to you as another self: an encounter of

mutually-acknowledging selves. I perceive you as a subject in the

second-person, and " me " as your subject in the second person. From the

second-person view, who I am--the self I experience myself to be--is

shaped, or informed, by being with you.

 

Given this circle of intersubjectivity, of mutually participant

subjects engaged in linguistic communication, how do we account for

individual subjects? Underlying the " intersubjective project " --common

to theorists from Mead and Buber to Habermas--is a motivation to not

only counteract the exaggerated subjectivist bias in philosophy of

consciousness, but also to avoid swamping the individual in

overwhelming social norms of the collective, thereby depriving the

individualized person of his or her autonomy and spontaneity.

Intersubjectivity aims to create a middle course between the extremes

of Cartesian subjectivism and Marxist collectivism (Voloshinov, 1996).

 

But if, as Mead argues, the self shows up only in the linguistic

circle of intersubjectivity how do we account for the individual

subjects that intersubjectivity would seem to presuppose? How can

there be a circle of intersubjectivity unless there are subjects

already present to start with?

 

Mead recognized this problem and proposed as a solution that in the

same moment the self encounters an alter ego-the moment " I " encounter

" you " -the concrete organism establishes a relationship to itself. " The

self, as that which can be an object to itself, is essentially a

social structure, and it arises in social experience " (Mead, 1962, p.

140). The self is thus " first encountered as a subject in the moment

when communicative relations are established between organisms. "

(Hohengarten, 1992, p. xvi).

 

The self, thus, has two components: the theoretical " me, " my

consciousness of myself, and the practical " me, " the agency through

which I monitor my behavior (such as speaking). " The 'I' is the

response of the organism to the attitudes of the others; the 'me' is

the organized set of attitudes of others which one himself assumes "

(Mead, 1962, p. 175). Hohengarten explains:

 

This practical " me " comes into existence when the subject establishes

a practical relation to herself by adopting the normative attitude of

an alter ego toward her own behavior. . . . such a conventionally

constituted self is nonetheless a precondition for the emergence of a

nonconventional aspect of the practical self: the practical " I, " which

opposes the " me " with both presocial drives and innovative fantasy. .

.. . Yet the self is intersubjectively constituted through and through;

the relationship to a community is what makes the practical

relation-to-self possible (Hohengarten, 1992, pp. xvi-xvii. Italics

added).

 

Mead's emphasis on the intersubjective constitution of the self, of

the subject's sense of continuity and identity, accounts for self as

an " individualized context " for the contents of experience. But it

still does not account for the " metacontext " --the non-individualized

ontological context that underlies all contents of consciousness.

Mead's " self, " although a context for contents of individual

experience, is itself a content within the ontological metacontext of

consciousness-as-such. Mead's intersubjectivity still leaves

unexplained ontological subjectivity--the fact that at least some loci

in the universal matrix have a capacity for interiority, for a

what-it-feels-like from within. It would still be possible, in Mead's

theory, for a universe consisting wholly of objects to produce, via

linguistic and social relations, what he calls " intersubjectivity. "

But this could logically be an " intersubjectivity " without any

interiority, without any true subjectivity (in other words,

intersubjectivity-1)--and therefore not truly intersubjectivity (as

defined here) at all.

 

Buber's 'I and Thou.' Probably the theorist most readily associated

with the notion of intersubjectivity (as a mutual engagement of

interior presences) is the philosopher-anthropologist and theologian

Martin Buber (1878-1965). As he himself acknowledged, he picked up the

germ of the idea, in 1843, from the philosopher of religion Ludwig

Feuerbach: " The individual man does not contain in himself the essence

of man either in so far as he is a moral being or in so far as he is a

thinking being. The essence of man is contained only in the community,

in the unity of man and man-a unity which rests upon the reality of

the difference between 'I' and 'Thou' " (Quoted by Gabriel Marcel, in

Buber, 1967, p. 42). Feuerbach, however, did not pursue the idea, and

Buber's priority, rightly, rests on the fact that he devoted his

professional career, and a long list of works, to developing the

implications of Feuerbach's revolutionary insight.

 

For Buber, Feuerbach's insight was comparable to the Copernican

revolution, opening up new vistas in understanding about the nature of

human beings, and not only with profound epistemological relevance but

also ontologically revealing. In Buber's hands, these implications

were worked out in great detail (1961; 1965; 1970). Specifically, the

essence of human being was relationship, and Buber gave ontological

status to the " between " --a mysterious force, " presence, " or creative

milieu, in which the experience of being a self arises. Relations,

then, not the relata, were primordial, if not actually primary.

" Spirit is not in the I but between I and You " (Buber, 1970, p. 89).

 

Only when " I " respond to " you, " a fellow locus of presence or spirit,

does my own being transcend the " oppressive force which emanates from

objects " (Marcel, 1967). According to Buber, human beings have two

responses available to the world: to relate to what is present either

as an object ( " I-it " relationship) or as another responsible being

( " I-thou relationship). When we engage with the " other " as I-thou,

relationship is mutually co-creating. The ontological status of the

relationship, the " between, " is emphasized by Buber when he refers to

I-thou as " one word, " representing a fundamental human reality of

mutuality.

 

Buber's claim that a concrete reality may be related to as either an

" it " or a " thou " raises some profound implications for philosophy of

mind-particularly the issue of " other minds. " As Charles Hartshorne

(1967) observed, there are at least three options available if we

choose to relate to some creature as a " thou " : (1) animistically, as a

sentient and perhaps conscious individual, with a " soul " of its own

(animistic-panpsychism); (2) as part of, or a manifestation of, such

an individual, such as some member of a " cosmic organism " (e.g.

Plotinian emanationist idealism, or Spinozistic monism); or (3) as a

collection, or unity, of sentient, experiencing individuals

(panexperientialism).

 

Science is incapable of determining whether any of these options is

valid (we lack a " Chalmers' consciousness meter " ); Buber's " I-thou "

relationship may well extend beyond human interactions.

Epistemologically, empirical validation of consciousness would require

a major shift to the kind of radical empiricism advocated by William

James (1977)--where all contents of experience (and only those), not

just sense-mediated data, are legitimate data for a science of

consciousness. It would require also a radical ontology that allows

for the intrinsic reality of consciousness or experience all the way

down (de Quincey, 1994). The process philosophies of both Hartshorne

(1991) and A. N. Whitehead (1979), advocating a panpsychist or

panexperientialist ontology, are deeply compatible with this aspect of

Buber's vision-replacing the notion of substance with dynamic relations.

 

However, Buber is not always consistent about whether the

relationship, the " betweenness, " is fundamental, or whether, as logic

seems to require, any relationship must always be between some

pre-existing entities. Philip Wheelwright (1967, p. 75) sums up

Buber's position in Between Man and Man, which appears to support this

latter view: " By nature each person is a single being, finding himself

in company with other single beings; to be single is not to be

isolated, however, and by vocation each one is to find and realize his

proper focus by entering into relationship with others. "

 

Jacques' Tripartite Intersubjectivity. The primacy of relations, of

intersubjectivity, becomes most explicit in the more recent work of

Francis Jacques-perhaps the leading contemporary dialogue philosopher

and linguist in France. His self-proclaimed project is to " found the

conception of subjectivity on relations between persons . . . treating

the relation as a primordial reality, a reality which constitutes one

of the very conditions of possibility of meaning and which is prior

even to I and you " (Jacques, 1991, p. xii). For Jacques, as for

Habermas, " the self is a function of the communicative interaction

which occurs in dialogue " (1991).

 

Jacques has developed a theory of " being-as-speaking " and of the

" being-who-speaks. " He parts company with most other

intersubjectivists, by presenting a tripartite schema of the

subject--not just " I " and " thou, " but one that includes also " he/she. "

Self-identity, he says, results from integration of the three poles of

any communication: " by speaking to other and saying I, by being spoken

to by others as you, or by being spoken of by others as a he/she that

the subject would accept as appropriate " (Jacques, 1991, p. xv). He

takes issue with Buber who claimed that human beings become I and

derive their interiority only when they encounter a you. Jacques

argues that a human being becomes a personal self only when, in

addition to I-thou, the " otherness " of an absent third-party, he/she,

is acknowledged. Besides the I and you, self-identity requires " taking

account of the third person and integrating it into the

identificational process . . . For when one speaks of someone else,

he/she is not the same as it--a point that neither Buber nor Gabriel

Marcel, nor Levinas appreciated " (Jacques, 1991 p. xv).

 

Jacques' main point may be encapsulated in the paradoxical notion of

" presence of absence " --the felt presence of the departed other as an

indispensable constituent of the sense of self. The absent third-party

(not to be confused with third-person it) does not stand outside the

intersubjective or interlocutive process. The other person is simply

not present in the moment of dialogue, but has a decisive influence

nonetheless. Just think, for instance, how even an absent spouse or

boss hovers in the background of many conversations. In a paradoxical

way, their absence is a felt presence.

 

Jacques, with his tripartite interlocutive model of self-identity, has

addressed head-on the subject-object " impasse " characteristic of

modern philosophy of consciousness. In a comparable way, though from a

different angle, Jürgen Habermas has developed a thoroughgoing

intersubjectivity based on the centrality of language to

consciousness. I will now spend a little more time on Habermas than I

have on other theorists because, I believe, Habermas is arguably the

most influential contemporary philosopher for whom the idea of

intersubjectivity is central to his work. I will also explain why,

despite Habermas' immensely valuable contribution to second-person,

dialogic philosophy, his version of " intersubjectivity, " relying on

linguistic communities, still falls short of intersubjectivity as

" engaged presence. "

 

Habermas: Language and Consciousness

Building on Mead's view of the subject in Mind, Self & Society, and

incorporating developmental ideas from Piaget and Kohlberg, Jürgen

Habermas emphasizes that the process of individuation of the self

depends on the development of a postconventional identity--a subject

who simultaneously is shaped in intersubjective communicative action

and who transcends the otherwise binding norms of that linguistic

society. Although the claim of radical authenticity depends on the

recognition (though not necessarily the acceptance) of others, by the

imaginative act of projecting a " universal community of all possible

alter egos " the subject authentically retains autonomy-remaining a

true subject within a creative web of intersubjectivities:

 

The idealizing supposition of a universalistic form of life, in which

everyone can take up the perspective of everyone else and can count on

reciprocal recognition by everybody, makes it possible for

individuated beings to exist within a community--individualism as the

flip-side of universalism (Habermas, 1992, p. 186).

 

Habermas is pre-eminently concerned with the role of language in

shaping who we are as human beings. But his concern is not limited to

an analysis of the structure or grammar of language, to its

propositional content--he is not a linguistic analyst. Habermas is

concerned with the real-world speaking of language, to its impact on

who we take ourselves to be, and on how we act in the world. He is

hardly interested in the theory of language, but is emphatically

concerned with the practice of language--with its performative

function. Language engages speakers and hearers in such a way that

both participate and risk themselves in communication. In the process,

consciousness intersubjectively creates and reveals itself.

 

We can identify three central elements of Habermas' work--the three

" Ps " : (1) emphasis on practice away from theory; (2) the public or

intersubjective origin and role of language and meaning; and (3) the

performative function of language.

 

From Theory to Practice. Habermas is concerned to show that

philosophy, to have any value and meaning, must engage with the world.

Abstractions without the meat and muscle of practical action are

little more than intellectual self-indulgence. Such philosophy can do

nothing for us. In this earlier phase of his work, Habermas displays

the deep influence of Western Marxism in his thought and political

engagement. (Habermas was active in German student political action in

the Sixties.)

 

The Public Sphere. Later, Habermas reveals what has become a

consistent theme throughout all his work: that language is first and

foremost a public or social enterprise. At this stage, Habermas'

central concern is political rather than philosophical (although in

his work the two are never far apart). His focus is on working out an

intellectual and practical basis for public discourse so that

everyone, not just the bourgeois elite, would participate in effective

control of public policy.

 

Communicative Action. Implicit in his political stance of discourse in

the public sphere is a philosophical insight that he later made far

more explicit: Meaning is not dependent on the grammatical structures

or private " monological " subjective intentions of a speaker's

language; meaning is derived from interaction of intersubjective

communication. Language and meaning unfold from the " dialogical "

reciprocity of " I-speakers " and " you-listeners. " The two most dominant

influences on Habermas here are pioneer linguist-philosopher Wilhelm

von Humboldt and philosopher-psychologist George Herbert Mead.

 

Language and meaning are products of the " public sphere, " not the

creation of individual, lone-operating subjects. Habermas' central

concern is to argue that all language involves a performative

function. That is, language does not merely describe the world but

engages the subject with the world through the listener.

 

Intersubjective Meaning. While Habermas agrees that meaning cannot be

understood independently of the conditions of its occurrence, he

denies that these conditions are determined exclusively by structures

of power and dominance, as claimed by deconstructive postmodernists.

Instead, Habermas argues, the conditions for " interpretant relations "

(that is, meaning) are dependent on conditions of intersubjective

communication oriented toward mutual understanding. This is a picture

of language relations, and the consequent role of reason, very

different from that of postmodernists such as Derrida (1967) and

Foucault (1970). Instead of individual and separate subjects engaged

in interminable power struggles, Habermas' theory of communicative

action refers to communities of subjects who partially create each

other, and therefore strive for mutual understanding. Reasoning, thus,

becomes a public enterprise.

 

In Postmetaphysical Thinking, Habermas observes that language performs

three distinct, but intimately and invariably interconnected,

functions: (1) a speaker comes to an understanding with (2) another

person about (3) something in the world. In turn, these three

functions of language correspond to three types of validity claims.

 

In Habermas' theory, meaning is not a product of any " picture theory

of language " (as early Wittgenstein believed in the Tractatus); it is

not a description of a correspondences between words and facts or

states of affairs. There is no independent subject unilaterally

turning out " word pictures " that match some objective reality. Nor is

meaning a matter of Humpty-Dumptyesque arbitrary choosing what words

mean. Nor is meaning an indefinite and indeterminate deferral of

différance, forever sliding beyond reach, so that nothing really has

any meaning at all (as Derrida and his deconstructionist followers

would have it). Rather, says Habermas, meaning is constituted in the

shared speech-acts of a communicating community of mutual-determining,

uncoerced subjects.

 

Language, then, on this view, is a pragmatic, holistic act. Its

smallest unit is not some disembodied or abstract sign, word or

phoneme, but an utterance that involves three mutually interacting

components--the speaker, the hearer, and the world in which they are

situated. Each language utterance, or speech act, is like a token that

the speaker offers to a listener (or community of listeners). This

" token " expresses an experience of the world claimed to be true,

right, and sincere by the speaker, and it may be either rejected or

accepted by the hearer. In either case, the validity claims of " true, "

" right, " and " sincere " can be tested by the community of speakers and

hearers. It is here, in Habermas, where " intersubjective agreement "

(through linguistic tokens) and " intersubjective co-creativity "

(through shared experience) come together. The first is a foundation

for consensual scientific knowledge established between communicating

individual subjects (Velmans, 1992). The second is true

intersubjective mutual beholding--where the experience of self, of

consciousness, arises as a felt experience from the encounter.

 

A final quote from Habermas sums up his intersubjective position:

 

The ego, which seems to me to be given in my self-consciousness as

what is purely my own, cannot be maintained by me solely through my

own power, as it were for me alone--it does not " belong " to me.

Rather, this ego always retains an intersubjective core because the

process of individuation from which it emerges runs through the

network of linguistically mediated interactions (Habermas, 1992, p. 170).

 

The Missing Perspective: Why Intersubjectivity is Transparent

In this paper, I have introduced key ideas of a handful of

philosophers who have attempted to focus on what I take to be a

conspicuous oversight in Western philosophy in general and in

philosophy of mind in particular. With these few exceptions--such as

psychologist George Herbert Mead, theologian Martin Buber, and

contemporary scholars such as Jürgen Habermas in Germany and Francis

Jacques in France--I know of no philosopher in the Western tradition

who has systematically approached the problem of subject-world

relation, and particularly the question of consciousness, by invoking

the second-person perspective as an alternative to the first-person

perspective of subjectivists and idealists, and the third-person

perspective of the objectivists and materialists. (5)

 

Because of his inclusion of the " interior-social (cultural) " in his

detailed four-quadrants model, Ken Wilber (1995) should also be

included as a scholar who recognizes the importance of dialogic

relationship in any comprehensive study of consciousness. However,

unlike Habermas, Jacques, Buber, or Mead, intersubjectivity is not a

central concern for Wilber.

 

The standard approaches to the study of consciousness have bifurcated

along apparently irreconcilable methodologies derived, respectively,

from Cartesian-inspired philosophy of the subject (first-person

epistemology) and from Hobbesian-inspired philosophy of matter

(third-person objects). In the first case, knowledge of the objective

world remains problematic; in the second, knowledge of the knowing

subject (of consciousness)--and therefore of all knowledge--is

inexplicable and radically problematic. Hardly anyone, it seems, in

philosophy of mind has been drawn to approach the study of

consciousness from a second-person perspective (of mutually engaged

subjects). For a long time, I have wondered why there is this glaring

omission.

 

We all use all three ways of knowing--objectivity, subjectivity, and

intersubjectivity--in one form or another most of the time. We all

deal with external material objects, we all feel what it is like to be

a being from within, and we all participate and communicate with other

human beings. But whereas, for centuries, both objectivity and

subjectivity have been investigated as ways of knowing in Western

science and philosophy, intersubjectivity has been ignored for the

most part--particularly with reference to exploration of

consciousness. Why?

 

I wonder if this oversight is an example of a " fish-in-water "

syndrome. We tend not to notice the second-person perspective because

it is right in front of our noses everyday. It's the medium in which

we most naturally live. Whereas for third-person perspective we need

to set up controlled (and artificial) laboratory experiments to induce

(at least the illusion of) a separation between observer and observed,

and thus step back, or step out of the stream of natural living and

human interaction. This stepping-back allows us to notice the

third-person perspective in action--because it's not " normal. "

Similarly, for first-person perspective: in meditation (or other

contemplative or introspective) disciplines we " withdraw " from the

" normal " world, and the subjective perspective shows up in contrast.

 

But normal day-to-day living, interacting with and encountering other

people, is the usual medium for consciousness; the mutuality of

shared-perspective is at least available to us throughout the day in

every encounter (even if we actually rarely consciously engage in it).

Like first- and third-person perspectives, the second-person

perspective can be another mode of conscious inquiry--where

consciousness (and the reality that consciousness reveals) can be

investigated as a process of mutual " taking account of " the other(s).

Something different happens in consciousness when we engage like this.

Physicist David Bohm recognized this potential for consciousness

exploration in his approach to " dialogue " (Bohm, 1985; 1996).

 

Clearly, our language already presents us with three, not just two,

options-first, second, and third-person pronouns, " I, " " you, " and

" it. " And the second-person perspective, both theoretically and

experientially (that is, pragmatically), is a logical and natural

bridge between the apparent dichotomy of the knowing subject and the

world of objects--between " I " and " it, " between interior " I " and

exterior " other. "

 

When I communicate with you, particularly in a face-to-face encounter,

something about who I am and something about the world shows up

through you--and vice versa. The " I " that encounters you (as the locus

of another " I " ) is different from the " I " that encounters the world as

a conglomeration of " its. " Who I am can be revealed (at least

partially) through my encounter with you, whereas I-as- " I " remain

entirely unattainable if I encounter the world as merely a collection

of " its. " I (as subject) am never reflected in things (objects), only

in other " I " s such as you. The " I " that can show up as an object

either in first-person introspection as " me, " or in third-person

analysis (as in standard materialist philosophy of mind and

psychology) is never truly " I " (as experiential subject) but only " me "

or " it " as spatio-temporal object.

 

There is something about the nature of consciousness, it seems, that

requires the presence of the " other " as another subject that can

acknowledge my being. (When I experience myself being experienced by

you, my experience of myself--and of you--is profoundly enriched, and,

in some encounters, even " transformed. " )

 

What is intriguing about Habermas' philosophy is that it is precisely

this missing component of the second-person that is central to his

work. Whereas Habermas restricts this " other " to what can be

communicated through human language-i.e., " you " would have to be

another human being--I remain open to the Whiteheadian possibility

that all organisms are centers of subjectivity and therefore available

to me as " I-thou " partners, not only as objective " its. " Although I am

sure the quality of human-human intersubjectivity is significantly

different from human-nonhuman intersubjectivity.

 

Nevertheless, Habermas' emphasis on the intersubjective nature of

language and consciousness strikes me as a major step forward, and

may, more than Wittgenstein's or Heidegger's linguistic moves, lead

Western philosophy, finally, beyond the perennial dualisms of

subject-object, and mind-matter, providing a philosophical agenda for

a science of consciousness that includes a second-person perspective

to complement third- and first-person perspectives.

 

Having surveyed a few pioneers in intersubjectivity, and outlined some

of their reasons for exploring the second-person perspective, I will

now outline my own theoretical perspective on the role and

significance of intersubjectivity in the evolution of consciousness.

 

Intersubjectivity and Evolution of Consciousness

The Original Meaning of Consciousness

The Oxford English Dictionary identifies seven varieties of

consciousness (Natsoulas, 1983; Hunt, 1995), which I've summarized in

the mnemonic SAIPRUD-consciousness as: (1) sentience, (2)

awake/awareness, (3) interpersonal, (4) personal, (5) reflective, (6)

unitive, and (7) dissociative.

 

All varieties reveal a common characteristic, subjectivity--they are

known from " within. " And, with one notable exception, all are

private--the privileged domain of the individual knower. The exception

is Cinterpersonal because it means " knowing or sharing the knowledge

of something together with an other " (Hunt, 1995). What is interesting

about this is that it is actually the form of consciousness that

originally gave rise to the very concept itself--conscientia, meaning

" knowing with " others (Güzeldere, 1995). It reveals that, originally,

the word " consciousness " implied a dialogic process--an interaction or

communication between two or more knowing beings. To be conscious

meant that two or more people were privy to some item of knowledge not

available to others outside the privileged circle. In this sense,

" consciousness " is similar to " conspire " (to " breathe with " others).

" Consciousness " meant that the privileged circle of knowers knew that

each of their conspirators knew, too.

 

Consciousness, therefore, originally implied a " shared secret " or

" knowledge of a privileged few. " Consciousness, in other words, was

originally communal, a property of the group. This sense remains today

in forms of consciousness referred to, for example, as " social

consciousness, " " political consciousness, " " feminist consciousness, "

" racial consciousness, " and is manifested in such diverse groups as

church congregations, religious movements, political parties, sports

teams and fans, and religious and political cults. Such forms of

" social consciousness " imply changes in beliefs of social groups,

rather than of individual people. " Social consciousness " essentially

refers to the contents of consciousness--only this time on a large

scale within a community, rather than in one person. However, since it

still deals with contents--with changes in consciousness at the level

of groups-it is still a form of " psychological " consciousness (we

might call it " psycho-social " consciousness). " Social consciousness "

often masks the deeper, metaphysical, intersubjective nature of

consciousness--the very condition that allows for any individual or

social form of consciousness to emerge in the first place. (6)

 

Intersubjectivity and Interpersonal Consciousness

 

In the previous section I noted that " consciousness " originally meant

to " know with " others--it was interpersonal or intersubjective.

However, I now want to unpack this claim, and propose some further

subtle distinctions that may help clarify why we may now have an

opportunity to explore intersubjectivity in a way that was not

available to our predecessors. These distinctions will borrow a

concept central to Ken Wilber's critique of the evolution of

consciousness in Sex, Ecology, Spirituality (1995).

 

Wilber argues that it is a fallacy to equate " pre-egoic " consciousness

(or self)--as in the so-called participation mystique of animistic

worldviews--with " trans-egoic " consciousness of mystical experience.

There is an evolutionary progression, Wilber argues, from pre-egoic,

through various stages of egoic, to trans-egoic consciousness. And it

is a serious category mistake to equate (confuse or conflate) the

" pre " with the trans. "

 

Similarly, the SAIPRUD mnemonic of varieties of consciousness I

introduced earlier may be viewed as an evolutionary sequence-from

consciousness as Sentience, Awake, Interpersonal, Personal, Reflexive,

to Unitive. (D, dissociative, is a pathology that may occur at any

stage in the process; for this reason, it may be better to write the

mnemonic " SAIPRU(D). " )

 

In this model, it is clear that interpersonal consciousness precedes

personal consciousness--intersubjectivity is prior to subjectivity, it

is " pre. " This accords with the position implicit in Buber and

explicit in Jacques and Habermas. However, taking a cue from Wilber's

" pre/trans " distinction, I want now to distinguish between

" intersubjective " and " interpersonal. "

 

If, as claimed, subjectivity (i.e. experienced interiority) is the

essential, key characteristic of consciousness, then it is present

throughout the entire spectrum of consciousness, from raw sentience to

mystical unity. And if, following Buber, Mead, Jacques, and Habermas,

we take relations as ontologically primary, then subjectivity is

always embedded within a matrix or context of mutually co-creating

intersubjectivities. Thus, even at the level of raw sentience, (be it

an embryo, a worm, bacterium, atom, or electron), intersubjective

interiority (what-it-feels-like to be that entity) is ontologically

fundamental; similarly all the way up, through consciousness-as-awake

to unitive consciousness. Thus, if Cinterpersonal is present

throughout, it no longer serves as a useful distinction--or indeed, a

valid stage--in the evolutionary progression. It is not a stage; it is

a condition of all stages. So, our mnemonic, minus Cinterpersonal,

would now read: " SAPRU(D). " However, this model is incomplete: It does

not account for interpersonal dialogic consciousness.

 

But now let's revisit the " pre/trans " distinction from the perspective

of the evolution of " individual self. " Historically, the notion of the

" individual " as an autonomous self that could separate from the

collective or community is itself an evolutionary phenomenon. Prior to

the time of Alexander the Great, from Homer down to Aristotle, the

" individual " was identified with the group or city-state (Tarnas,

1991; Onians, 1994). At this stage consciousness was pre-personal

(Wilber's " pre-egoic " ), pre-individualized self. Thus, although

intersubjectivity was present, its character was still " pre. "

Consciousness as " knowing with " was group consciousness, where members

of the group had little or no sense of individual self-identity. Their

identity was with the tribe or group (Jaynes, 1976; Crook, 1980; de

Quincey, 1995).

But following the great unification of the Hellenistic world during

and after Alexander's time, the uniformity of the empire made it

possible and practicable for individual members to leave their

city-state, for example to travel from Athens to Alexandria. The way

was opened up for a detachable, individual self that could move around

the empire. Result: the birth of the individual. Only then could

consciousness evolve to the stage of personal consciousness (de

Quincey, 1995).

 

I now want to propose a similar model (or extension of this same

model) for the emergence of trans-personal intersubjective

consciousness. Just as it was almost impossible for the average

citizen prior to Alexander's empire to experience individual

self-identity (pre-personal)--they just didn't notice the personal

quality of consciousness embedded in the group--it has been almost

impossible for the average individual in contemporary society to

experience intersubjectivity at the level of transpersonal

consciousness. Until now (and perhaps even still), we have been too

embedded in our personal consciousness, in our Cartesian-Enlightenment

individualism, to notice that the deeper reality or grounding of our

consciousness is the intersubjective matrix of interdependent

relationships.

 

I'm proposing that a crucial aspect of the oft-announced " new

paradigm " --a worldview of nonlocal interdependence--may be the

emergence of transpersonal awareness of our deep intersubjective

nature. Elements or facets of this emerging worldview would include,

for example, the discovery of nonlocality in quantum physics (Albert,

1992); accumulating documentation of evidence for nonlocal psi

phenomena (Schlitz & Braud, 1997); increased globalization of

economies (Korten, 1995); awareness of ecological interdependence

(Roszak, 1992); and, perhaps, even the globalization and

interconnectedness of communications technologies such as satellite

TV, telephones, and the Internet (Elgin, 1993; Russell, 1995). It is

becoming less and less easy to deny our deep interconnectedness. We

might also include in this list a growing awareness of the central

doctrine of co-dependent arising in Buddhism, as it continues to

spread into modernist, Western societies and worldviews (Macy, 1991).

 

I am proposing, therefore, that interpersonal consciousness evolves

out of a prior personal consciousness. As a transpersonal mode of

consciousness, it involves not only awareness of the prior personal

and of the emergent interpersonal but also of the ontological

grounding (or context) of all consciousness which is intersubjective.

So now we have: " 'I'-SAPRIU(D) " :

 

o Intersubjective (primordial condition and foundation for

consciousness shared between all intersubjects--what many traditions

refer to as " spirit " );

 

o Sentience (primitive capacity for feeling and self-motion in any

individual organism);

 

o Awake/awareness (higher form of sentience where organism can be

either conscious or unconscious, awake or asleep);

 

o Personal (individualized awareness with a sense of self-identity);

 

o Reflective (capacity for self to be " aware that I am aware " --gateway

to altered states of consciousness: " aware that I am aware that I am

aware . . . " ):

 

o Interpersonal (gateway to transpersonal consciousness, involving

awareness not only of personal identity, but also of deep

intersubjective foundation of all consciousness);

 

o Unitive (integrates all prior forms of consciousness into

experienced unity);

 

o Dissociative (pathological failure to integrate prior forms of

consciousness).

 

According to this view, intersubjectivity is not, strictly speaking, a

variety, or a state or level of consciousness like the other seven. It

is the context or condition for all varieties of consciousness, and

permeates the entire evolutionary spectrum. As consciousness evolves,

it eventually becomes aware of this context.

 

Csentience and Cawake are pre-personal, Cpersonal and Creflexive are

personal, with Cinterpersonal evolving out of Cpersonal, emerging as

the first stage in transpersonal consciousness. The integration of all

stages from Csentience to Cinterpersonal is unitive consciousness.

( " D, " as before, represents the potential for dissociation at any

stage, the pathological shadow side of intersubjective consciousness

that prevents unitive consciousness.)

 

Conclusion

Methodological Implications of a Second-Person Perspective

 

How does one access the second person perspective? In other words, how

to tell the difference between relating to " you " and relating to an

" object " --or how to persuade someone else of the difference? This is

tricky. If someone doesn't " feel it, " then no amount of ostensive

argument is going to win that person over. I can point all I like, but

if the referent I'm pointing at just isn't available for that person,

then it will seem to be an " empty set " to them. I've tried to point to

the most obvious distinction that I take to be a likely element in

just about everyone's experiential set: namely the experience of love,

of being in love. I can't really believe that any reader of this paper

has never felt the difference I'm pointing at between an intimate

(love-relationship) and a non-intimate one (say, a next-door neighbor,

or the local shopkeeper). That's the kind of difference I'm pointing

at when I speak of " engaged presence. "

 

The difference, however, is not absolute; it is graded on a continuum.

It is possible to have a second-person experience with the neighbor or

shopkeeper. What matters is our willingness and ability to acknowledge

and be open to the presence of the other as a locus of experience that

can reciprocate that acknowledgment. We can interact with the

shopkeeper (and, indeed, with a lover) mechanically and habitually

without experiencing them as a reciprocating center of experience

(many of us do this more than we'd care to admit)--or we can interact

intersubjectively. The experiential difference is dramatic.

Unfortunately, I can no more give a prescription for how to do this

than I can for how to fall in love. But I trust that the ability is

innate.

 

This does not mean, however, that there is no methodology we can use

to facilitate second-person inquiry--we just cannot guarantee the

methodology will work in every case, every time. The procedure I have

found to be most conducive to this kind of intersubjective experience

is the form of dialogue developed by David Bohm (1985; 1986). Numerous

tapes, books, and articles are available, as well as practicum courses

and meetings, where any interested inquirer can learn and practice

this method of dialogue (Gerard & Teurfs, 1994). A description of the

parameters of Bohmian dialogue would be out of place in this article.

I think it is sufficient to let readers know a " recipe " is available;

they must " bake the cake " for themselves. Fewer things are as dry and

as uninspiring as a step-by-step procedure for how to attain a

particular experience. If you want to experience the joys of sex--go

do it. Similarly, if you are interested in researching

intersubjectivity, follow the procedure for yourself. Any interested

reader can take the necessary steps to learn the methodology.

 

From Mechanism to Meaning

 

How might the philosophical approach to second-person perspective

discussed here translate into a science of consciousness--resulting in

a body of empirical data and testable hypotheses? Methodologically,

how might it differ from first- or third-person perspectives? As we

have seen, the most obvious difference is that the intersubjective

approach would involve two or more people committedly engaged in the

presence of the other(s)-an epistemology of presence (Ha'iri Yazdi,

1992). It is the difference between an " I-it " relationship

(third-person) and " I-me " relationship (first-person) and " I-you "

(second-person). In this last case, consciousness is experienced truly

as " intersubjective " and transpersonal, that is, transcending the

individual Cartesian subject. Loosely, we might say it occurs

" somewhere between and enveloping " the participants (recognizing, of

course, the use of the spatial " somewhere " and " enveloping " are just

metaphors).

 

The point is that consciousness " shows up " as a co-creativity between

or among the participants. The implications range from, in philosophy,

prompting us to reconsider our basic ontology--from discrete physical

substances to a more process-oriented relational ontology of

interpenetrating experiences (as in Whitehead, 1979), to, in

philosophy and science, providing a different way to approach the

problem of other minds, or even possibly elucidating the mystery of

parapsychological phenomena.

 

As an epistemology of " presence, " second-person intersubjectivity,

opens the way to a deep exploration of relationship--an approach that

could take science beyond epistemology of objects, beyond

methodologies of objectivity, measurement and quantification, beyond a

preoccupation with mechanisms. As in first-person methodologies, the

emphasis in second-person science would be on engagement rather than

measurement, meaning rather than mechanism. Explanations in terms of

mechanism are inappropriate for consciousness and mental phenomena

because mechanisms involve exchanges of energy. They can provide

explanations only of objective, physical things and processes. Where

consciousness is involved, where subjective, interior experience is

concerned, connections occur through shared meaning, not physical

mechanisms. Thus, instead of third-person explanations in terms of

physical causes and effects, consciousness invites us to look for

understanding or insight in terms of intersubjective, shared

participation in the meanings of things and their relationships--and

in the meaning of the world as a whole.

 

In conclusion: We could say that standard third-person inquiry leads

to a science of external bodies, first-person inquiry to an interior

science of the mind, while second-person engagement leads to a

communal science of the heart. Whereas the ultimate ideal of objective

knowledge is control, and the ultimate ideal of subjective knowledge

is peace, the ultimate ideal of intersubjective knowledge is

relationship--and, dare I say it, love.

 

Notes

 

1. Socrates' method of engaged questioning, which by-passed the normal

rational, cognitive faculties, was directed at the soul or essence of

the other person-a process that often left the other person with a

feeling of great discomfort, and sometimes of transformation. Socrates

was a master at penetrating behind perceptual and emotional surfaces

to the deeper, core " presence " of the other person. To be in dialogue

with Socrates was to find your precious opinions and certainties based

on appearances dismantled and shattered-to discover some deeper truth

about yourself. See, for example, the famous encounter between

Socrates and the slave boy in the Meno, where by a process of engaged

questioning, Socrates draws out of the uneducated slave a

" recollection " of knowledge of geometry that the boy didn't know he knew.

 

2. This distinction between philosophical and psychological meanings

of consciousness is not to imply that psychologists do not concern

themselves with philosophical issues of consciousness, nor that

philosophers do not concern themselves with psychological issues.

Clearly, there is much overlap between disciplines. Some philosophers

do investigate mental acts and contents, not to mention issues of

perception and sensation, and some psychologists are interested in the

ontological status of consciousness. Nevertheless, the distinction

remains useful because, for the most part, psychologists concern

themselves with consciousness as a state of awareness contrasted with

the unconscious, while philosophers (particularly philosophers of

mind), for the most part, concern themselves with consciousness as a

state of being contrasted with non-consciousness. The essential point

is that the distinction " consciousness vs. unconscious " is

psychological (the " unconscious " is a psychological/psychoanalytical

concept), and the distinction " consciousness vs. nonconsciousness " is

ontological, and, therefore, philosophical ( " nonconsciousness, " the

complete absence of any mental activity whatsoever, is an

ontological/philosophical issue). A more accurate, though less

elegant, way to address this distinction would be to compare

" psychological/epistemological " meanings of consciousness with

" philosophical/ontological " meanings of consciousness.

 

3. Wilber's treatment of intersubjectivity, however--echoing the

sociolinguistics of theorists such as Humbolt, Mead, and

Habermas--tends to restrict it to the weakest form

(intersubjectivity-1) that relies on the exchange of linguistic tokens

(physical signals), and does not emphasize the nonphysical experience

of shared presence that is central to actual intersubjective communion

(intersubjectivity 2a and 2b).

 

4. Joseph Prabhu, professor of philosophy and religion at California

State University drew my attention to the " dialogue philosophers, "

particularly Rozenzweig and Rosenstock-Huessy, and to the relevance of

Dewey's and Taylor's discussions of the social context for self.

 

5. In the Journal of Consciousness Studies, 3(4), 1996, two authors

Piet Hut, an astrophysicist, and Roger Shepard, a psychologist,

included second-person perspective as a possible angle on the

" explanatory gap " between brain and mind. In " Turning the hard problem

upside down and sideways. " They addressed, a second-person point of

view in a couple of paragraphs, but did not develop this line of

inquiry. Nonetheless, their paper does demonstrate that the idea of

second-person study of consciousness is already " in the air. " They

noted, " The fact that we can and do interact with others is an aspect

of conscious experience that is at least as important as the

possibility that we humans have of reflecting on our own experience. "

 

6. We have many examples of " expanding or changing social

consciousness " -e.g. in feminism, new age movements, ethnic diversity,

ecological awareness. But these are not the most interesting cases

facing a science of consciousness. These kinds of changes have

happened throughout human history. What has never happened (at least

not in modern, Western society) is the development of a true science

of consciousness that can explore the world of mind with the same

degree of rigor we have so far used to explore the world of matter.

 

 

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Whorf, B. L. (1956), Language, thought, and reality. New York: John

Wiley & Sons.

Wilber, K. (1995), Sex, ecology, spirituality: The spirit of

evolution. Boston: Shambhala.

 

Christian de Quincey, Ph. D., teaches philosophy of consciousness at

John F. Kennedy University, and is managing editor of IONS Review. He

is author of Radical Nature: Rediscovering the Soul of Matter

(Invisible Cities Press, 2002), and co-author, with Willis Harman, of

The Scientific Exploration of Consciousness: Toward an Adequate

Epistemology.

 

 

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