I offered to try to explain to Andrew in writing what I thought MM meant in her descriptions of consciousness in ch. 25 and 26, and what follows is that explanation. I am putting it on the discussion board in case others are interested. I am putting it as a separate topic rather than a comment on Steve S's notes as it focusses almost entirely on what consciousness is described as in those chapters, so does not touch on a lot of the surrounding arguments about what it is not. All comments welcome.
Consciousness in ch.25 and 26 of The Essential Mary Midgley
1. She starts with a question: “The central worry is: ‘How can we rationally speak of our inner experience at all? How can we regard our inner world – the world of our everyday experience – as somehow forming part of the larger, public world which is now described in terms that seem to leave no room for it? On what map can both these areas be shown and intelligibly related?’” [p. 330]
2. She goes on to answer that question by describing how it is not properly expressed. (a) Our inner world does not form part of the public world. (b) Both these areas cannot be shown onthe same map: “...not to relate two things which appear on the same conceptual map. It’s about how to relate two maps that answer questions arising from different angles [=(b)]. Consciousness is not just one object, nor one state or function of objects, among others in this world [=(a)][p.332]
3. She goes on to offer a definition: “ ...It is the condition of a subject, someone for whom all these objects are objects. “[p. 332]. She offers two more similar definitions on p.332: “It is the scene of all phenomena, the place where appearances appear. It is the viewpoint from which all objects are seen as objects.” She is moving quite quickly here, and I think it is worth trying to grasp what she is saying without worrying for the moment about all she is leaving out- you can trust her to come back to that, anyway. So she is describing consciousness as our immediate experience, a highly subjective viewpoint – ‘the condition of a subject’ – ‘phenomena’ – ‘appearances’. As far as it goes, this is literally correct: the ‘appearances’ of things can only appear in an individual consciousness. And this is the viewpoint of each of us, individually and differently from each other, since for all of us ‘all those objects are objects’.
4. “The questions it [consciousness] raises are therefore primarily about the nature of a person as a whole, a person who is both subject and object.” [p. 332] To me, this thought needs more development than it gets in the text we have. I haven’t looked to see if the original text has been cut. It develops the idea of the highly subjective viewpoint. I understand it to refer to the thought that the consciousness of each of us is at the same time a self at the centre of its own experience and also only one among many consciousnesses: a subject to itself, but an object to others, including God if one so chose .
5. “...and [we have to] start to think of it [consciousness] rather as a whole point of view, equal in size and importance to the objective point of view as a whole.” [p.334] This is emphasising the point that consciousness is not just another object in the world, it is an all-encompassing viewpoint of huge value. How can a point of view be described as ‘objective’? Well, she is using a short-hand expression here which is explained, I think, on p.344.
6. “Virtually all our thought integrates material taken from the two angles [inside and outside, subjective and objective]. As Thomas Nagel points out in an excellent discussion of these two viewpoints, we never normally take either position on its own. Instead, we constantly move to and fro between them, combining material from both: ‘To acquire a more objective understanding of some aspect of life or the world, we step back from our initial view of it and form a new conception which has that view and its relation to the world as its object...The process can be repeated, yielding a still more objective conception...The distinction between more subjective and more objective views is really a matter of degree...’[ quoted from Thomas Nagel ‘The View from Nowhere’] “[p.344] So, (a) the description of consciousness as ‘the place where appearances appear’ is accurate as far as it goes, but other things can appear there, too, such as thoughts, understanding; and consciousness can strive to widen its own viewpoint; (b) the’ objective point of view’ referred to in section 5 above is shorthand expression for a viewpoint which is not as subjective as some viewpoints – all viewpoints are ultimately subjective, but some have been refined and refined by seeking to incorporate the experience of others along with one’s own, by criticising one’s own experience...
Richard Myers 5/12/13
-- Edited by admin on Thursday 5th of December 2013 01:42:55 PM
The font for the notes above has mainly come out bold. It was meant to be unbold text for quotes from MM, unbold italic for my comments and bold text for the quotation from Thomas Nagel near the end. Anyway, all italics are my comments.
I figured you wouldn't mind if I fixed up your post for you. The problem was your use of square brackets. In parsing the post, the browser read it as a bold tag. I simply put it inside round brackets.
