How Primitive is Self-Consciousness?: Autonomous Nonconceptual content and Immunity to Error Through Misidentification

H O W PR IM ITIV E IS SELF-C O N SC IO U SN ESS? : A U TO N O M O U S N O N C O N C EPTU A L C O N TEN T A N D IM M U N ITY TO ER R O R TH R O U G H M ISID EN TIFIC A TIO N R oblin R . M eeks (rm eeks@ gc.cuny.edu) D epartm ent of Philosophy, The G raduate School and U niversity Center, The City U niversity of N ew Y ork, 365 Fifth A venue N ew Y ork, N Y 10016-4309 U SA A bstract Traditionally, investigations into the nature of self- consciousness have focused on the peculiarities of the first-person pronoun. But can w e extend the notion to non-language-using creatures as w ell, including pre- linguistic infants? Jose Luis Berm udez has recently argued that creatures possessing no conceptual abilities w hatsoever nevertheless possess states that can be considered prim itive form s of self-consciousness. I discuss one such form Berm udez gives— that of som atic proprioception— and show that it fails to satisfy the conditions he adopts for states funded by that type of perception to be representational as w ell as to be im m une to error through m isidentification. This conclusion forces a choice betw een abandoning either im m unity to error through m isidentification or a sharp conceptual/ nonconceptual distinction w ith regard to representational states. Introduction M ost traditional accounts of self-consciousness have focused exclusively on the peculiarities of the first- person pronoun. To be self-conscious from this perspective is to possess the ability to m ake judgm ents em ploying a first-person concept, judgm ents canonically expressed w ith ‘I’. But do creatures lacking linguistic abilities thereby lack self-consciousness? A fter all, w hen hungry, even lobsters are self-possessed enough to avoid eating them selves. A nd w hat of pre- linguistic infants? If they are eventually to com e to entertain thoughts involving a first-person concept, how does self-consciousness for them arise out of their w ordless beginnings? V enturing aw ay from such traditional accounts requires that w e should be clear concerning w hat w e m ean w hen w e speak of a creature as self-conscious. In general, to be self-conscious, a creature m ust possess states w ith first-person content. W e need to restrict our search further, how ever, for first-person content com es in (at least) tw o flavors. Consider the follow ing exam ples: (1) I am the w inner of the N ew Y ork Lottery. (2) RM is the w inner of the N ew Y ork Lottery. Intuitively it seem s that (2) does not entail (1), for I can rationally believe that (2) is true w hile denying the truth of (1)— I could lack a further belief that I am identical w ith RM . In (1), I am thinking of m yself nonaccidentally, perfectly aw are to w hom I am ascribing the property of lottery-w inner, even if I have m isread the num bers on m y ticket and am actually no w ealthier than before. In contrast, (2) leaves open the possibility that I am thinking of m yself only accidentally, ascribing a property to som eone unbeknow nst to m e w ho in fact turns out to be m yself. N aturally, for m e the above cases w ill further differ radically in the am ount of joy expressed at their tokening. But the crucial distinction betw een the tw o illustrates the cardinal feature of self-consciousness: For a creature to be self-conscious it m ust be capable of possessing states that, like (1), have nonaccidental first- person content. Can creatures lacking any conceptual resources w hatsoever possess states that capture the distinction betw een (1) and (2), or at least approxim ate the nonaccidental nature of (1)? Jose Luis Berm udez has offered an affirm ative answ er to this question, arguing at length in The Paradox of Self-Consciousness that certain form s of autonom ous nonconceptual content— states w ith w hich a creature represents the w orld as being such-and-such a w ay despite possessing no conceptual resources w hatsoever— can be considered form s of genuine self-consciousness. 1 W e have good initial reason to agree w ith Berm udez: Extending the range of types or form s of content that can correctly be characterized as genuinely first-personal gives us a hope of dispelling the m ystery of how the richer, Berm udez is m otivated to look for nonconceptual content that is genuinely first-personal to escape what he calls the paradox of self-consciousness. This paradox is roughly that analyzing self-conscious thought solely in term s of a subject's m astering the first-person pronoun w ill rely upon the notion of him thinking of he him self as the author of the thought. Spelling out the “he him self” condition requires reference to the first-person pronoun, and w e thus fall prey to circularity. W hether one finds Berm udez's paradox com pelling, it is an interesting question in its ow n right as to w hether creatures lacking conceptual resources should be thought of as self- conscious and if so on w hat grounds.