Don't Say "Consciousness": Toward a Uniform Vocabulary of Subjectivity
Sociology and anthropology, Dec 1, 2016
The language we use to talk about consciousness, experience, mind, subjectivity and the like is a... more The language we use to talk about consciousness, experience, mind, subjectivity and the like is ambiguous. Different people use common terms in different ways without realizing it, and thereby foster confusion. In this paper a terminology is proposed for speaking of subjectivity. An operational definition is given of the term “subjectivity,” and from that standpoint usages of the terms “experience,” “consciousness” and “awareness” are proposed. The approach is both phenomenological in the tradition of Husserl, examining that which is given directly from a first-person point of view while holding in abeyance interpretive theories, and analytic in the British tradition, attempting to clarify terminology used to discuss what is found in such phenomenological investigation. After proposing definitions of salient terms, suggestions are given for reframing confusing language. To make the speaker’s meaning clear it is recommended to avoid the term “consciousness” altogether.
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Papers by Bill Meacham
Moral systems vary among societies, but each society takes its morality to apply to all people universally. Hence, nobody wants to compromise. The solution to this problem lies in a different way of evaluating actions. We do not have to evaluate our actions in terms of moral rightness and wrongness; we can instead evaluate them in terms of the benefits or harms of their consequences. Moral rightness is socially constructed. The effects of our actions are not. Instead of trying to discern the dictates of rigid morality, we can focus on how to benefit ourselves and others.
Phenomenology is biasless reflective examination of experience, in this case experience of the self. Thus, the model of the self presented is a model of the self as experienced by itself. To do phenomenology, each person must examine his or her own experience. Thus, this essay is devoted to outlining the results of my own examination of my experience of myself. By reporting these results in a language publicly available to all, I make it possible for others to compare the findings of their own reflective examination of themselves with my results, thereby making possible consensual validation or disconfirmation of assertions regarding the nature of the self.
The investigation proceeds from the transcendental Self (what Husserl calls the transcendental Ego) taken as that-which-is-conscious to the empirical self, that synthetic unity of diverse elements available as objects of consciousness which each of us is, to the transcendental Self taken as agent, as that-which-acts. The transcendental Self is inherently incapable of becoming an object of consciousness, for it is that which is itself conscious. Strictly speaking we should not use a noun phrase, but should rather speak of experiencing and acting as functions of the self to which no particular experiencable objects or types of objects correspond.
The empirical self is the self as available in experience to conscious examination; it is that complex of affairs of which I am or can become conscious which has or can rationally acquire the sense “me” or “mine.” It is composed of thinking and thoughts, perceptions, bodily sensations, emotions, moods, the self-concept, and deliberate and habitual action viewed from the point of view of that person whose action it is.
Though composed of many elements, the self is a unity in that it is located in a single place, is embodied, and its elements are functionally related to each other and to the whole in a teleological drive toward survival, health and happiness.
The self is intrinsically related to its world, to other selves, and to itself. By virtue of its relation to itself, the self is free to choose courses of action and to perform them. It is free to determine for itself ethical maxims by which to guide its actions fruitfully. Determination of such ethical maxims is, however, beyond the scope of this paper.