Abstract
From 1990 on, the London psychologist Max Velmans developed a novel approach to (phenomenal) consciousness according to which an experience of an object is phenomenologically identical to an object as experienced. On the face of it I agree; but unlike Velmans I argue that the latter should be understood as comparable, not to a Kantian, but rather to a noematic ‘phenomenon’ in the Husserlian sense. Consequently, I replace Velmans’s reflexive model with a complementaristic approach in a strict sense which leaves no room for either monistic or dualistic views (including Velmans’s ontological monism and his dual-aspect interpretation of complementarity) and hence requires us to radically reinterpret the concept of psychophysical causation.
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Notes
Velmans is well aware of this; for he quotes the following passage from Searle, 1992, 122 (sic!): ‘[C]onsciousness consists in the appearances themselves. Where appearance is concerned we cannot make the appearance−reality distinction because the appearance is the reality’ (Velmans, 2000, 131) and adds in a footnote (137 n. 21): ‘In this quotation Searle neatly summarises the underlying thrust of the argument I develop above.’
In fact, there are a number of passages that clearly bear witness to this: ‘an object as experienced’ is ‘one and the same as an experience of an object’ (134); ‘physical objects as perceived are not quite distinct from our percepts of those objects’ (139); ‘experiences of objects and objects as perceived are phenomenologically identical’ (140, 165/6).
See also Velmans, 2000, 111, where the claim that ‘there isn’t a phenomenal cat “in the mind” in addition to the cat one sees out in the world’ is embedded in a context which is clearly indicated to be formulated ‘in terms of phenomenology.’
I think that Figure 8.2 (Velmans, 2000, 174), in which an electric-light bulb is taking the role of the object, is virtually the same as Figure 6.3 (ibid.: 110), where a cat is featuring as the object. The only difference worth noting seems to me to be the hyphenated form ‘as-perceived’ (and possibly the use of capital letters in the word ‘CAT’) in the latter; but I take it that this is nothing but a typographical relic of Velmans, 1990, 82, 92−94.
On the face of it, this sentence seems to suffer from an ambiguity. If taken all by itself, the parenthesis would mean to say that E’s perceptual representation of the stimulus is the cause of S’s perceptual processing, which, however, is certainly not the reading intended by Velmans. Rather, we have to understand the whole of the sentence as saying that the light that E can see is his own perceptual representation of the stimulus that causes S’s perceptual processing. Even read like this, however, the sentence is bound to afflict us qualms; see below.
‘To avoid ambiguity, I reserve the term “a physical phenomenon” for physical events as experienced (or physical events as observed), and use the term “events as described by physics” (or other sciences) to refer to the more abstract representations of the same events given within physics (or other sciences)’: Velmans, 2000, 136 n. 17.
Edwards (1967), Vol. 5, p. 74, entry ‘relation.’
For clearly seeing my point, the reader should bear in mind that in Velmans (2000), 110, Figure 6.3, the (drawing of the) cat is characterised twice over as being ‘a CAT as-perceived by S’ (above the cat-picture) and ‘a CAT as perceived by an external observer’ (beneath it). Similarly, in Figure 8.2 (ibid.: 174) the (drawing of the) electric-light bulb is characterised twice over as being ‘A light as perceived by S’ (above the bulb-picture) and ‘A light as perceived by an external observer (E)’ (beneath it). – I take it that the typographical differences – two capitalisations and (only) one hyphenation in Figure 6.3 – may be neglected; at least, Velmans gives us no hint at a possible import, which otherwise he would certainly owe to the reader. Most probably, the capitalised ‘CAT’ as well as the hyphenated ‘as-perceived’ are but relics of the readings he preferred in his first pertinent publication; see Velmans (1990), esp. 82 f., 92−94 and Figures 2−4.
He insists that being ‘representational’ or ‘intentional’ is a necessary, though not a sufficient, condition for being a conscious experience (Velmans, 2000, esp. 99 n. 20, 99 f. n. 23, 244, 258, and Ch. 7); unlike many others, he takes it that even pains and similar bodily feelings are intentional conscious experiences (98 n. 16; 2002: 12 fn. 9).
The world described by physics is but another, more thorough and systematic, representation of the underlying ‘thing itself’ – a representation systematically aiming at overcoming the ‘species-specific’ constraints of the world as represented by us humans in everyday life (Velmans, 2000, Ch. 7). ‘The world described by current physics is just another representation [of the thing or world itself] that is likely to be superseded by some future physics’ (Velmans, personal communication).
Cf. Velmans (2000): 134: The ‘reflexive model accepts that, for many explanatory purposes, it is useful to distinguish the observer and the observation from the observed object itself. For example, in cases of exteroception of the kind shown in Figure 6.3, the object itself is the source of the stimuli that initiate visual processing. These stimuli interact with the perceptual and cognitive systems of the observer to produce the observation, an object as seen. Barring hallucinations, this perceived object (a phenomenal cat in 3-D space) represents something that actually exists beyond the body surface. But it does not represent it fully, as it is in itself.’ I must confess that I have a problem with this passage. In the first sentence, Velmans seems to me to be (partly) speaking of the (not actual, but) conceptual difference between (an observational form of) perception and the object (as) perceived; but then he switches to the ‘object itself’ which is emitting stimuli that interact with a given subject’s perceptual and cognitive device, thus producing an ‘object as seen,’ that is, an observation. The joint which makes this inadvertent switching possible is, of course, the mixed up wording ‘observed object itself.’ For its part, this way of speaking seems to me to be supported by a loose, ‘naïve realistic’ way of expressing oneself which, in everyday life, Velmans (2000, 256 f.) is prepared to tolerate.
When speaking of the Kantian ‘things-in-themselves’ (or ‘noumena’), one is always at a loss for using the plural or rather the singular form; for the Kantian ‘categories,’ among them the categories of ‘quantity,’ are as little applicable to things-in-themselves, or the thing-in-itself, as are the ‘forms’ of sensory experience, i.e., space and time. In Velmans’s theory, there is no problem with this. When he is characterising what he calls his ‘reflexive monism’ by claiming that ‘there is one universe (the thing itself) with relatively differentiated parts in the form of conscious beings like ourselves’ (Velmans, 2000, 233; cf. 229), he is doubtless using the term interchangeably with the terms ‘the world itself’ and ‘implicit reality,’ which admit of no plural forms (ibid.: 162 f.). On the other hand, when stating that observed phenomena ‘result from an interaction of an observer with an observed (a thing itself)’ (ibid.: 162), he is plainly using the term as standing for something properly countable.
See, for instance, Velmans (2000): 111, 133, 164; 1990: 83.
The categories of cause and effect are as little applicable to things-in-themselves as are the categories of quantity and the rest of the Kantian categories.
Hoche (1973a). This variant of Edmund Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology is ‘purely noematic’ in that it gives up the seemingly natural idea of a thoroughgoing ‘parallelism’ between ‘noetic phenomena’ (or ‘noetic multiplicities’) and ‘noematic phenomena’ (or ‘noematic multiplicities’) in favour of the latter. Such a parallelism between a stream of ‘noetic’ experiences (or ‘cogitationes’) taken to be going on ‘in the mind,’ that is, on a kind of Rylean ‘inner stage,’ and ‘noematic’ objects as experienced (or ‘cogitata qua cogitata’) has been supported by Husserl at least between 1907 and 1929. Only in his very last work, the Krisis (Husserl, 1934−1937), I am not able to spot any longer a vestige of his former ‘noetic-noematic parallelism.’ As far as I can see, it is true that Husserl nowhere expressly retracts this ‘parallelism’; but none the less I came by the strong impression that in his Krisis he takes all multiplicities of conscious experiences to be as much of a noematic character as the corresponding unities; see Hoche (1973a), esp. 27 f. and §§ 8–9.
Such noematic ‘phenomena,’ or ‘objects in their capacity of being perceived’ by me at a certain moment in time, may be well compared to a bunch, or bundle, of rays or straight lines intersecting each other in one and the same point, which, for its part, would then correspond to the noematic ‘object itself’ – or, I take it, to what Velmans (2000, 163) calls the ‘reference fixer.’
Kant uses the German term ‘Erscheinungen’ in two quite different ways (an empirical and a transcendental one): first, for the various modes in which one and the same empirical object can be given to me, that is, for ‘perceptions’ (‘Wahrnehmungen’) or ‘appearances’ (‘Apparenzen’) in the specific sense of subjective or private ‘sensations’ (‘Empfindungen’) in so far as they have been already unified by means of the categories of quantity and quality; and, second, for the intersubjective or objective ‘phenomena’ (‘Phänomene’) brought about by an application, to those ‘perceptions,’ of the categories of relation. Whereas Kant’s phenomena are opposed by him to things-in-themselves in the transcendental sense, that is, to noumena, Kant’s subjective or private perceptions are opposed by him to things-in-themselves in the empirical sense, that is, to the intersubjective objects all of us have in common, which are nothing but the phenomena just mentioned before. This interpretation has been convincingly argued in detail by Prauss (1971, esp. § 1); for a summary, see Hoche (1973b), 96 f.
Velmans (2000), 256 with n. 23 on p. 262 (Velmans’s italics); cf. ibid.: 257.
Ibid.: 189. – Furthermore, I am prepared to go far beyond what Kantians and also Velmans are willing to concede: I am convinced that the transcendental concept of a Kantian ‘thing in itself,’ as a mere relic of the traditional position Kant undertook to overcome, ought to be totally dismissed. For as far as I can see, it makes no sense to conceive of an object as it is alleged to be ‘in itself,’ to wit, deprived of its potential relation to a cognizing subject. Rather, I think it reasonable to subscribe to Husserl’s suggestion that an ontology which may rightly claim not to content itself with mere abstractions – a ‘fully concrete ontology,’ as he sometimes says – has to take into account each and every feature that is essential to objects we can speak about; and certainly an essential and basic feature of objects we have a right to speak about is that we are able to know about them, or that they are epistemologically accessible to us. If so, we have to accept, with say, Husserl (1913, tr. 1931, §§ 138, 142), an unexceptional and thoroughgoing correlation between basic types of objects and basic types of gaining knowledge of objects, or between ontological and epistemological categories (cf. Hoche, 1987, 4.4–4.5). From this it follows that it would be a contradiction in terms to speak of objects as they are, or might be, ‘in themselves,’ that is, irrespective of our possibly having any knowledge of them. This view is even familiar to some experts in contemporary physics: Quantum mechanics ‘has compelled us, not just to ignore the things as they might be in themselves, but to wholly ban them from our thinking; the mere supposition that there is a reality in itself leads to contradictions’ (translated from Drieschner, 1981, 131).
I think that this, and nothing else, is the point of using ‘substance words’ (such as ‘(x is a) cat’) and other kinds of ‘disposition words’ (such as ‘(x is) hard’) over and above ‘action words’ (such as ‘to meow,’ ‘to look at,’ or ‘to scratch’) and other kinds of ‘occurrence words’ (such as ‘to fall down’); see Hoche (1973a), § 30.
As compared with a thing itself, a thing as being experienced need not only be enriched with, as it were, ‘indicative’ features, such as being seen or otherwise perceived by me at a given moment under specified circumstances; for in addition to such features it normally contains a wealth of ‘evaluative’ and ‘imperative’ (or ‘gerundive’) features, such as being, in my eyes, attractive or repulsive, to be avoided, or to be handled with caution. See Hoche (1973a), Part II, esp. § 32.
This logical analysis of identity statements can be justified by a method quite independent of Russell’s theory, to wit, by means of what I call ‘(pragmatico-semantical) combination tests’; in any case, however, this analysis depends on the possibility to show that ‘(semantical) presupposition’ is a subcase of what I call ‘semantical implication,’ which in fact I think it is; see Hoche (1995b).
We cannot but use, in such cases, the plural forms ‘are’ and the like; this is due to the fact that the historically grown natural languages neglect the distinction between numerical and categorial differences as much as we do in everyday life and for the most part also in science and philosophy.
Using this sequence of words without inverted commas would amount to committing a contradictio in adiecto; think of trying to identify and name ‘each and every’ real number within a certain interval.
Cf. Hoche (1973a): 30−32.
It should be noted that there are degrees of abstractness. If compared with the frequently performed conceptual abstractions of different specific and generic orders, material objects present themselves as concrete things; if compared with the noematic phenomena in which they subjectively appear, however, they present themselves as abstractions. But as we are rarely aware of these phenomena, the latter comparison is practically never made, and this explains why at first sight we find it repugnant to regard material things as abstractions.
At least in the sense of Popper’s (1972, chs. 2−4) ‘world 1,’ i.e., of objective reality.
I am aware that seemingly cogent objections against this view have been raised; but I have never been able to convince myself that they are really justified. As I do not doubt, of course, that there are causal relations between someone’s overt behaviour and occurrences in their central nervous system, I think it principally possible to define the consciousness of others also neurophysiologically; but this is still a research project of which only the first beginnings have been carried out.
See esp. Velmans (2000), 135 n. 2, 185 f., 189, 247−250, 254, 261 n. 19, 277 f., 281 n. 5.
See also Velmans (2000), 67, 204, where he quotes from George Miller.
For a discussion of the pros and cons of ‘dual-aspect’ conceptions, see Hoche (1990), 11.8.
Hume (1748): headings of sects. IV and V; but note that his ‘Sceptical Solution’ does not reach its summit before sect. VII, Part 2.
I have tried and developed this sketch at considerably more length in Hoche (1995a).
Cf. Hume (1748), 78: ‘customary connexion in the thought or imagination’; 78, fn.: ‘customary connexion between the ideas.’ Note that here Hume is rightly speaking of a ‘connexion’ and not of a mere ‘conjunction.’
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Hoche, HU. Reflexive monism versus complementarism: An analysis and criticism of the conceptual groundwork of Max Velmans’s reflexive model of consciousness. Phenom Cogn Sci 6, 389–409 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-006-9045-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-006-9045-8