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D. Legrand: Transparently Oneself
1
Transparently Oneself
Dorothée Legrand
CEPERC, Département de Philosophie
Université de Provence
France
© Dorothée Legrand
legrand@up.univ-aix.fr
PSYCHE 11 (5), June 2005
KEYWORDS: Phenomenal experience, Internalism, Externalism, Transparency, Pre-
reflexivity, Self.
COMMENTARY ON: Metzinger, T. (2003) Being No One. The Self-Model Theory of
Subjectivity. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press xii + 699pp. ISBN: 0-262-13417-9.
ABSTRACT: Different points of Metzinger's position makes it a peculiar form of
representationalism: (1) his distinction between intentional and phenomenal content, in
relation to the internalism/externalism divide; (2) the notion of transparency defined at a
phenomenal and not epistemic level, together with (3) the felt inwardness of experience. The
distinction between reflexive and pre-reflexive phenomenal internality will allow me to
reconsider Metzinger's theory of the self and to propose an alternative conception that I will
describe both at an epistemic and a phenomenal level.
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Representationalism is a widespread but also controversial position. For example, what would
be the representational content of orgasm? Block (1995) answers that the phenomenal content
of orgasm is not representational. On the contrary, Tye claims that “All states that are
phenomenally conscious – all feelings and experiences – have intentional content” (1995,
p.93), orgasm included: “in this case, one undergoes sensory representations of certain
physical changes in the genital region” (1995, p.118). This opposition between Block and Tye
provides a clear example of how unclear our phenomenal experiences can be. Even though
orgasm is not an elusive feeling, both our phenomenal description and conceptual analysis
seem elusive enough to support opposite interpretations: representational vs. non-
representational.
Moreover, representationalism itself is far from being a uniform position. Consider for
example two philosophers. All things being equal, they share (let us assume) with many other
human beings quite common phenomenal experiences (if not when enjoying orgasm, at least
when seeing the red of a ripe tomato). Let us further imagine that, in the philosophy-of-mind
toolbox, these two particular philosophers have both chosen “representationalism”: they both
defend the view that all conscious states are representational. Similar phenomenal
experiences, similar conceptual kit, unsurprisingly, these two philosophers share some
descriptions of phenomenal experience. However, these similarities are only superficial. Call
these two philosophers TM and MT, for Thomas Metzinger and Michael Tye, respectively,
and you get deeply different positions, one being the mirror opposite of the other. Thus,
apparently similar ingredients (here representationalism) and a common recipe (the same
leading question: what makes a representation a phenomenal representation?) can lead to bake
not only different, but utterly opposite, i.e. incompatible philosophical positions. It thus seems
worth considering more closely this opposition.
Metzinger explicitly presents his theory of phenomenal experience and phenomenal
self as a representationalism:
Consciousness, the phenomenal self, and the first-person perspective are fascinating representational
phenomena… I will offer a representationalist and functionalist analysis of what a consciously
experienced first-person perspective is. (p.11)
But in fact, Metzinger's representationalism may seem so odd from a more classical
representationalist perspective that some may wonder if it is a representationalism at all.
Consider the following quote:
Like many other philosophers today, I assume that a representationalist analysis of conscious
experience is promising because phenomenal states are a special subset of intentional states (see
Dretske 1995; Lycan 1996; Tye 1995, 2000 for typical examples). (p.111)
This description of representationalism makes clear that Metzinger offers a peculiar
position, a non classical representationalism. Indeed, the classical representationalist equation
is the following: phenomenal qualities = phenomenal content = intentional content =
representational content. However, Metzinger does not equate phenomenal and intentional
contents: in his view, phenomenal states are only "a special subset of intentional states".
Importantly, this peculiarity is not enough in itself to disqualify Metzinger's position as a
representationalism. Indeed, if intentional content is representational content, as both classical
representationalists and Metzinger argue, then this special subset of intentional states that are
phenomenal states is representational as well.
Metzinger's distinction between intentional and phenomenal contents thus does not
threaten representationalism per se. However, it shapes Metzinger's position in a way that
may seem unacceptable from the perspective of classical representationalism. In this paper, I
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will defend directly neither classical representationalism nor Metzinger's "odd
representationalism". Indeed, to commit oneself to one or the other position presupposes to
better understand Metzinger's position itself, and what makes it "odd". This is the task I intend
to pursue in this paper, on the four following points.
My first part will underline that an important consequence of Metzinger's distinction
between intentional and phenomenal contents is that he steps over the classical
internalism/externalism divide. Indeed, he acknowledges a form of externalism for intentional
content, while he defends internalism for phenomenal content. This view is clearly not
possible for a classical representationalism which equates phenomenal and intentional
contents. Interestingly, some of Metzinger's own arguments can be exploited to support
externalism for phenomenal content, even though he argues explicitly against this view. This
consideration will considerably weaken Metzinger's distinction between phenomenal and
intentional content. However, Metzinger's position counts a number of other differences with
classical representationalism.
My second part will discuss a notion that Metzinger shares with classical
representationalists, but uses in a very peculiar way: transparency2. Metzingerian transparency
not only remains consistent with representationalism but also underlines two points that are
important to consider in a classical representationalist framework. First, transparency is a
phenomenal notion and not an epistemic one. As such, it is thus inadequate to conclude
anything at the epistemic level from phenomenal transparency, even though some
representationalists do so. Second, Metzinger's description of transparency is closer to our
phenomenal experience than classical representationalist description.
My third part will concern another aspect of phenomenal experience that Metzinger
underlines. Transparency is essential to phenomenal experience but not necessary. Rather,
phenomenal content can be described on a continuum between transparency and opacity.
Opaque phenomenal content can be described as phenomenally internal: this is the felt
inwardness of experience. But again, inwardness is a phenomenal notion and should not be
confused with internality at an epistemic level. The specification of metzingerian transparency
(part 2) will allow me to complete my discussion of internalism for phenomenal content at an
epistemic level (part 1) with a discussion of phenomenal internality (inwardness) at a
phenomenal level of description (part 3). In fact, even if externalism for phenomenal content
is correct at an epistemic level, it remains that at a phenomenal level, experience is felt as
internal (inwardness). Metzinger's view has the advantage of taking this aspect of phenomenal
experience into account. On this point, I will underline the distinction between two forms of
phenomenal internality, reflexive and pre-reflexive. The former is a form of opacity, while the
latter coincides with transparency. Metzinger considers briefly the relevance of this
difference, but he disregards its importance in the framework of a theory of the self.
My fourth part will thus further exploit the previous considerations in relation to
Metzinger's “central ontological claim”: “no such things as selves exist in the world" (p.1).
Again, the distinction between the epistemic and the phenomenal levels is highly relevant to
discuss this position. First, at an epistemic level, I will highlight that Metzinger's own
arguments are more consistent with a revision rather than with the elimination of the notion of
self. Second, at the phenomenal level, I will underline that Metzinger's description of the self
as a phenomenal content disregards the specificity of pre-reflexive self-consciousness.
Importantly, this conception of the self and self-consciousness departs from Metzinger's take-
home message that "Nobody ever was or had a self" (p.1) but, as he forcefully requires, it
avoids "the error of phenomenal reification"3, since it never confuses the self with a mere
mental object.
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1. Phenomenal experience in(s) and out(s): the epistemic level of description.
Metzinger makes a crucial distinction between intentional and phenomenal content. While
classical representationalism uses only one name, intentional content, whether the represented
object exists or not, Metzinger uses two. More specifically, in his terminology, the content is
intentional when it depends on the existence of the represented object, while it is phenomenal
when it does not depend on the existence of the represented object. Consider your experience
when holding a book in your hands:
The intentional content of the relevant states in your head depends on the fact of this book actually
existing, and of the relevant state being a reliable instrument for gaining knowledge in general. …The
phenomenal content of your currently active book representation is what stays the same, no matter if the
book exists or not (p.173).
Following this distinction, Metzinger defends externalism for intentional content and
internalism for phenomenal content. This position surely sounds odd to representationalist's
ears. To clarify it, let me first make a terminological point. Externalist and internalist
representationalisms can be defined as follows:
Externalist representationalism is the thesis that microphysical duplicates can differ with respect to the
relevant representational contents of some of their internal states. On this view, differently situated
duplicates or duplicates with different histories can differ phenomenally. Internalist representationalism
denies this. According to the internalist, microphysical duplicates must be alike with respect to the
appropriate representational contents of their internal states (Tye 2003, p.167) 4.
In Metzinger's terminology, physical internality means that the instruments of
representation are internal in a spatial sense, being within the brain. In addition, functional
internality means that "the content of mental representations is the content of internal states
because the causal properties making it available for conscious experience are only realized
by a single person and by physical properties, which are mostly internally exemplified,
realized within the body of this person" (p.15, cf. also p.267). To summarize5, in Metzinger's
view, a phenomenal representation is a physically internal representation that "rests on a
transient change in the functional properties of the system" (p.21), thereby being a
functionally internal event:
Phenomenal representation is that variant of intentional representation in which the content properties
(i.e. is the phenomenal content properties) of mental states are completely determined by the spatially
internal and synchronous properties of the respective organism, because they supervene on a critical
subset of these states. If all properties of my central nervous system are fixed, the content of my
subjective states are fixed as well (p.112).
However, this description is insufficient to pin down Metzinger's view in its
specificity. Indeed, he also acknowledges some form of externalism in that mental
representations "utilize resources that are physically external for their concrete realization":
"the actual 'vehicle' of representation, does not necessarily have its boundaries at our skin"
(p.21). This externalism is not merely physical, but also functional: "a system may
functionally expand well across its physical boundaries, for example, by transiently
establishing sensorimotor loops" (p.274, my emphasis). This externalism, however, does not
concern phenomenal states but only intentional states. The latter can be better described as
involving "active externalism" (Clark and Chalmers 1998):
The domain of those properties determining the intentional content of mental states, seems to "pulsate"
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across the physical boundaries of the system, seems to pulsate into extradermal reality. Describing the
intentional content generated by real life, situated, embodied agents may simply make it necessary to
analyze another space of possible states, for example, the space of causal interactions generated by
sensorimotor loops or the behavioural space of the system in general (p.112).
I wish to make two points on the basis of these considerations. The first is that it now
appears clearly that Metzinger's internalism is not a "pure" internalism since he acknowledges
physical and functional externalism at least for intentional content. The second point concerns
phenomenal content: internalism for phenomenal content is threatens in different respects.
Let me first make again a terminological point. What I call here "internalism for phenomenal
content" is physical and functional internalism for phenomenal experience. It concerns the
epistemic level of description of phenomenal experience, and whether or not it is fully
reducible to internal brain states. It is not what Metzinger describes as phenomenal internality,
that is, the felt inwardness of phenomenal experience. Metzinger argues in favour of both
internalism for phenomenal content and phenomenal internality. I will discuss first his
internalism for phenomenal content and come back to his description of inwardness later on
(part 3).
According to Metzinger, phenomenal content is internal in that it is "solely determined
by internal properties of the nervous system" (p.173). From an epistemological perspective,
representation "always is a simulation": "at no point in time [phenomenal states] establish a
direct and immediate contact with the world around us" (p.59). Moreover, from a
phenomenological perspective, "this fact is systematically suppressed" (p.59). As a
consequence, "a brain in a vat could possess states subjectively representing object colors as
immediately and directly given" (p.170).
This position is highly controversial6. Interestingly, Metzinger himself gives us some clue to
better understand what, in his own framework, would be a difference between oneself and
one's brain in a vat: representations are not identical with simulation and this questions his
internalist account of phenomenal content. Let us consider the following quote:
If [the] representational carrier is a good and reliable functioning instrument for generating knowledge
about the external world, then, by its very transparency, it permits you to directly, as it were, look
"through it" right onto the book. … If your current perception, unnoticed by you, actually is a
hallucination, then, as it were, you, as a system as a whole, are no longer looking "through" the sate in
your head onto the world, but only at the representational vehicle itself – without this fact itself being
globally available to you. (p.173).
This quote describes at a phenomenal level the absence of distinction between
perception and hallucination: their difference remains "unnoticed by you". On the other hand,
it also underlines an important functional difference between representation and simulation. In
(veridical) representation, the representational carrier hides itself and reveals the world
outside. In hallucination, the situation is different. You do not look anymore through but to
the representational vehicle. In other terms, representational content and vehicle are different
in representation while they are not in simulation. In fact, Metzinger seems close to make this
point in the following way:
Phenomenal representations are those for which we are not able to discover the difference between
representational content and representation carrier on the level of subjective experience itself (p.174).
However, my point is importantly different. In this sentence, Metzinger describes
phenomenal states at the phenomenal level while I consider specifically simulation as a subset
of phenomenal states and consider them at an epistemic level of description. The common
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point between representation and simulation would be that the representational vehicle is not
phenomenally experienced as such. But while you "look" at the world in the case of a
representation, you "look" at the representation itself in the case of a simulation. This
difference between representation and simulation is also stated by Metzinger as follows:
Phenomenal experience during the waking state is an online hallucination. This hallucination is online
because the autonomous activity of the system is permanently being modulated by the information flow
from the sensory organs; it is an hallucination because it depicts a possible reality as an actual reality.
Phenomenal experience during the dream state, however, is just a complex offline hallucination (p.51).
Again, Metzinger focuses on similarities between offline7 and online hallucinations,
i.e. both are hallucinations: "both forms of phenomenal content are generated by precisely the
same mechanism" (p. 484). But as we just seen, this claim disregards at least one difference:
the representational carrier represents itself in the case of a simulation while it represents
something else than itself (the world) in the case of a representation. Despite Metzinger's
explicit claims to the contrary, there is thus no doubt that, within his own account, there is a
difference between representation and simulation at a functional level. Thus representational
phenomenal experiences are not adequately described as simulational, and this moves us one
step away from internalism.
Now, Metzinger could still argue that this functional difference between representation
and simulation would only be relevant for intentional content and not for phenomenal content.
But is it right to assume that representing the world and representing the representational
vehicle leads to the same phenomenal experience? Metzinger thinks it is.
Another view, however, is suggested by his own report of the Ganzfeld effect (pp.100-4): It
has been shown (Hochberg et al, 1951) that "a complete disappearance of color vision can
actually be obtained by a homogeneous visual stimulation, that is, by a Ganzfeld stimulation"
(p.101). Metzinger draws three philosophical lessons from this case, which can be read as
giving some support to the difference between veridical and illusory phenomenal experience.
More relevant for the point at stake here is the following remark:
…it is interesting to note how a single blink can restore the conscious sensation of color and brightness
for a fraction of a second… The conscious phenomenology of color desaturing differs for different
stimuli and classes of phenomenal presentata. … If we want a phenomenologically plausible theory of
conscious experience, all these data will eventually have to function as conceptual constraints (p.104).
Ganzfeld stimulation shows how easy it is to disrupt our normal phenomenal
experience by disrupting our intentional relation to the world. In other terms, it shows how far
we get from our normal phenomenal experience if we artificially cut brain "internal activities"
from normal body and world constraints: a little single blink or transient stimulation introduce
dramatic differences at the phenomenal level.
The point is thus here simply the following. Metzinger presents data (Ganzfeld
stimulation) suggesting that the absence of intentional content leads to a dramatic
modification of phenomenal content. Thus, even if Metzinger were right to differentiate
intentional and phenomenal content, it would remain that phenomenal content depends on
intentional content. Second, Metzinger acknowledges a form of externalism for intentional
content. On the basis of these two premises (1) dependence of phenomenal content on
intentional content and (2) externalism for intentional content, Metzinger should acknowledge
a form of externalism for phenomenal experience, at least indirectly8.
Accordingly, even if Metzinger were right in claiming that there are some perspectives
under which all phenomenal content is hallucinatory content (p.250), and that there are some
forms9 of phenomenal experiences that could be experienced by a brain in a vat (namely
simulation and hallucination where the representational content is nothing over and above the
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representational instrument), it would remain that normal non-hallucinatory phenomenal
experience cannot be adequately described in an internalist context. Pace Metzinger,
phenomenal content is not "solely determined by internal properties of the nervous system"
(p.173). Even if we agree that a brain in a vat would be able to enjoy phenomenal experience,
it would remain that it would not enjoy the same type of phenomenal content as a brain in a
body in the world10. Body and world do not only provide, through sensory information, some
modulation of internal activities that could as well function in autonomy11. Rather, the crucial
point here is that purely internal activities are fundamentally different from embodied and
embedded internal activities. Embodiment and embeddedness are not secondary and
accessory. They condition, determine, shape what is described here as internal activity.
"Internal" thus becomes only a spatial description of "brain" activities. But this description is
far too reductive in that it artificially considers only part of what such activities are. A firing
neuron may be localized within the brain, but what interests Metzinger as most philosophers
of mind, is not where this piece of furniture of the mind is, but what it does and how.
Metzinger and representationalists argue that what is relevant to a theory of consciousness is
that neurons somehow allow to represent the world. But how much of a representation of the
world would a brain get if isolated in a vat, cut off from the body and from active interaction
with the outside world? Ganzfeld's answer is: "none". In Metzinger's own terms: "The idea is
that ordinary phenomenal experience continuously emerges from an interplay between "top-
down" and "bottom-up" processes" (p.246).
I guess an internalist would still wish to reply that a blink or transient stimulation are
not relevant in themselves, but only in so far as they lead to different brain internal activities.
This point is obvious. Flutter your eyelashes as often as you wish, if for some reason this has
no consequence at the level of brain activation, then you cannot expect these blinks to
modulate neither intentional content nor phenomenal experience. But to acknowledge that
brain activity is necessary, and even to acknowledge that brain activity plays the leading role,
does not allow one to reduce phenomenal experience to internal activities. Isolate brain from
body, and you will obviously get no phenomenal experience in the body. As well, it is
obvious that if we were able to reproduce within a brain-in-a-vat exactly all the conditions and
consequences of embodiment and embeddedness of a real brain, we would get the conditions
and consequences of phenomenal experience, even though a virtual one. The plausibility of
such a possibility is of course (empirically) questionable, but in any case it would rely on real
embodiment and embeddeness being copied and reproduced. In other terms, we would just
have another form of embodiment and embeddedness.
To conclude, Metzinger's distinction between intentional and phenomenal contents
makes him step over the classical internalism/externalism divide. However, as we just saw,
the fact that phenomenal content crucially depends on intentional content implies that
externalism for intentional content leads to externalism for phenomenal content. If we follow
this discussion, Metzinger's distinction between intentional and phenomenal content appears
as purely terminological. Indeed, consider again how he describes the respective specificity of
intentional and phenomenal contents:
The intentional content of the relevant states in your head depends on the fact of this book actually
existing, and of the relevant state being a reliable instrument for gaining knowledge in general. …The
phenomenal content of your currently active book representation is what stays the same, no matter if the
book exists or not (p.173).
As we just saw, the phenomenal content does depend on the intentional content, and
thus, on the fact of the represented object actually existing7. This consideration thus empties
Metzinger's point, and makes his position sound less odd to representationalist's ears.
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Now, one may wish to push externalism one step further and argue not only for
physical and functional externality of phenomenal experience, but also for phenomenal
externality of phenomenal experience. Again, let me make a terminological point here.
Internalism and externalism know two levels of description, epistemological and phenomenal.
At the epistemological level of description, the question is whether phenomenal experience
can be adequately described as physically and functionally internal, i.e. whether or not it relies
solely on internal brain processes. This is the question we just tackled in this first part. At the
phenomenal level of description, the question now concerns the felt appearance of our
phenomenal experience: is phenomenal experience better described as phenomenally internal,
i.e. as involving some felt inwardness? Or is phenomenal experience better described as
phenomenally external, according to which we are not aware of our experience as such but
only of the world outside?
Again, Metzinger's position on this question is at odd with classical
representationalism. This opposition can be better understood thanks to some clarification of
Metzinger's use of the notion of transparency. I thus now turn to this point (part 2) and will
then consider phenomenal internalism on this basis (part 3).
2. Phenomenal transparency: the revealing-hidden window.
Experience is interestingly like a window, you don’t look at it, but through it. Most famously:
“When we try to introspect the sensation of blue, all we can see is the blue: the other element
is as if it were diaphanous” (Moore 1903, p.25). Metzinger argues that "transparency certainly
is one of the (if not the) most important constraints if we want to achieve a theoretical
understanding of what phenomenal experience really is” (p.163). Interestingly, even if we
restrict ourselves to representationalist conceptions of phenomenal experiences, this can be
understood in two contrastive ways.
First, it can be argued that transparency reveals the representational nature of
phenomenal experience. The argument simply goes as follows:
Shift your gaze inward and try to become aware of your experience itself, inside you, apart from its
objects. Try to focus your attention on some intrinsic feature of the experience that distinguishes it from
other experiences, something other than what it is an experience of. The task seems impossible (Tye,
1995, p.30).
Generalizing, introspection of your perceptual experiences seems to reveal only aspects of what you
experience, further aspects of the scenes, as represented. Why? The answer, I suggest, is that your
perceptual experiences have no introspectible features over and above those implicated in their
intentional contents. So the phenomenal character of such experiences … is identical with, or contained
within, their intentional contents (Tye 1995, p.136; reported in BNO, p.165, note 14).
In other terms, look as hard as you can at your experience, and all you will get is
representational content. No non-representational properties of phenomenal states are
introspectively accessible and this suggests that phenomenal experience "really is" a
representation.
Metzinger, however, exploits phenomenal transparency in a very different manner.
While Tye exploits transparency as revealing what is behind the window (i.e. what one's
experience is an experience of), Metzinger considers transparency as hiding the window itself:
Transparency is a form of darkness. With regard to the phenomenology of visual experience
transparency means that we are not able to see something, because it is transparent. We don’t see the
window but only the bird flying by. Phenomenal transparency in general, however, means that
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something particular is not accessible to subjective experience, namely, the representational character of
the contents of conscious experience (p.169).
In other terms, looking at your experience, you will normally not "see" its
representational character. Phenomenal experience "really is" a representation, but this fact is
not itself accessible through introspection.
Despite their use of the same metaphor of the window, TM's and MT's descriptions of
transparency are utterly opposite: either transparency reveals at a phenomenal level the
representational nature of experience or it hides it, but it certainly can't be both.
A way to weaken the tension between Tye's and Metzinger's uses of the notion of
transparency may be to consider more closely what, in phenomenal experience, is said to be
hidden and what is said to be revealed. Following Tye, the transparency of phenomenal
experience reveals its representational nature, because it reveals only its representational
content. In Metzinger's framework, "phenomenal transparency in general… means that
something particular is not accessible to subjective experience, namely, the representational
character of the contents of conscious experience” (p.169). More specifically, "the
instruments of representation themselves cannot be represented as such anymore" (p.169).
Thus, phenomenal experience would be like a revealing-hidden window: it reveals
representational content and hides instruments of representation. But this is not enough to
reconcile TM' and MT's views of transparency, for at least two reasons12.
First, Metzinger insists on the fact that transparency "is not an epistemological notion,
but a phenomenological concept" (p.166). As such, it describes the felt appearance of our
phenomenal experience. That transparency is a phenomenological concept implies that
unconscious representations are neither transparent nor opaque: only phenomenal
representations can be considered on the continuum between transparency and opacity.
Importantly for the point at stake here, phenomenal transparency does not allow one to
characterise phenomenal experience at an epistemic level: phenomenal experience is
experienced as transparent but this does not allow one to conclude that this phenomenal
appearance is veridical, and reveals that the real nature of experience is to be representational.
This restriction concerns in general any argument relying on introspection. The latter concerns
only (and partially) the felt appearance of phenomenal experience, and is compatible with
different conceptions of the real nature of experience. The classical representationalist
argument relying on the transparency of experience "reifies" a phenomenal report (experience
introspectively gives nothing else but representational content) to draw a conclusion at an
epistemic level (experiences is nothing else but representational content). Throughout his
book, Metzinger forcefully argues against this "typical phenomenal fallacy".
Second, at the phenomenal level itself, classical representationalism provides a
description of transparency that is not accurate. Specifically, when Metzinger uses the notion
of transparency, he points to the fact that "we do not experience the reality surrounding us as
the content of a representational process… We simply experience it as the world in which we
live our lives" (p.169). This is what Metzinger calls "immediacy":
What is inaccessible to conscious experience is the simple fact of this experience taking place in a
medium. There, transparency of phenomenal content leads to a further characteristic of conscious
experience, namely, the subjective impression of immediacy (pp.169-70).
Thus, an important fact about our phenomenal experience is that "transparency creates
the illusion of naïve realism: the inability to recognize a self-generated representation as a
representation" (p.292). Thereby, even if, as Tye would argue, we were only aware of the
representational content of our phenomenal experience, it would remain that we are not aware
of this content as representational. One could argue that experiencing a content under a given
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aspect is, by definition, experiencing a content as representational. But the point here is that
the representational format remains phenomenally hidden.
To summarize, Metzingerian transparency seems promising in the framework of a
theory of phenomenal experience since it provides an accurate description at the phenomenal
level13 and clearly differentiate it from the epistemic level of description. This position is at
odd with classical representationalism, but remains anyway consistent with a
representationalist account of phenomenal experience. Indeed, Metzinger's position has the
advantage of linking his phenomenologically reliable (or rather introspectively reliable)
description of transparency to an explanation of how transparency shapes our phenomenal
experience. Not only, at a phenomenal level, transparency does not reveal introspectively
representational contents as representational, but also, at an epistemological level, it explains
why the representational nature of our phenomenal experience remains introspectively hidden.
In this respect, transparency even seems to be a "magical" concept. Whatever your conception
of the nature of experience, you can hide it behind phenomenal transparency, and thereby get
an introspectively plausible description of phenomenal experience. For example, even if you
agree with Block that orgasm does not feel representational, you can reach the conclusion that
it is nonetheless representational. In fact, Metzinger predicts that orgasm, like any other
phenomenal experience, does not appear introspectively as representational. The “but-this-is-
not-how-it-feels-like” objection has no relevance here, since transparency always saves
appearances.
The other side of the coin has to be considered as well. As I just said, Metzingerian
transparency is a magical notion, but as such it is compatible with different conceptions of the
nature of experience: defining transparency as a hiding property says nothing on what it hides.
In other terms, Metzingerian transparency is compatible with representationalism but it can
also be exploited in a non-representationalist conception of phenomenal experience. I will not
pursue this line of inquiry here. Let me rather remain at a phenomenal level of description and
consider more closely the question concerning phenomenal internality/externality that I let
open above: is phenomenal experience better described as phenomenally internal, i.e. as
involving some felt inwardness? Or is phenomenal experience better described as
phenomenally external, according to which we are not aware of our experience as such but
only of the world outside?
3. Phenomenal experience in(s) and out(s): the phenomenal level of description.
An important aspect to consider for a fine-grained description of phenomenal experience and,
as it will become clear in a moment (part 4), for an accurate theory of the self, is that
"phenomenal transparency is not a necessary condition for conscious experience in general:
Phenomenally opaque states do exist" (p.163). What will interest me here is that opacity
brings with it what Metzinger names "phenomenal internality":
Phenomenal internality is the consciously experienced quality of "inwardness" accompanying bodily
sensations, like a pleasant feeling of warmth, emotional states, like pleasure and sympathy; and
cognitive contents, like a thought about Descartes's philosophical argument for dualism. All these forms
of mental content are subjectively experienced as inner events (p.267).
Conversely, Tye argues not only in favour of epistemological externalism4 but also in
favour of phenomenal externalism:
In turning one's mind inward to attend to the experience, one seems to end up scrutinizing external
features or properties (Tye 1995, p.136).
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Accordingly, Tye denounces as an illusion the impression that introspection allows us
to experience our experience: "We are not aware of our experiences via introspection at all"
(Tye 2003, p.22). We can only experience our experience indirectly, as a form of displaced
perception:
… you are now aware that there is a sheet of glass in the room by being aware of qualities apparently
possessed by nonglass surfaces before you. Visual experiences are like such sheets of glass. …
Introspection … is significantly like displaced perception or secondary seeing-that …I am not aware or
conscious of the experience itself. I am aware of something other than the experience - the surfaces
apparently outside and their apparent qualities (Tye 2003, pp.23-4).
If we try to focus on our experiences, we "see" right through them to the world outside (Tye 2003, p.24,
my emphasis)14.
At first glance, this position may seem to join Metzinger's description of phenomenal
experience on two points: immediacy: "a certain information appears in the conscious mind in
a seemingly instantaneous and unmediated way" (p.92); and naïve realism: "We do not
experience the reality surrounding us as the content of a representational process. …We
simply experience it as the world in which we live our lives" (p.169). But again, Metzinger
exploits these notions in a very different way. Tye exploits immediacy as revealing what
experience really is (according to his view): a representation of the world outside whose
content we rightfully experience as in the world outside. On the contrary, Metzinger considers
immediacy as a phenomenal illusion, hiding what experience really is: a phenomenally
transparent representation whose content we illusorily experience as in the world outside. As
already underlined above:
From an epistemological perspective, we see that our phenomenal states at no point in time establish a
direct and immediate contact with the world for us… However, on the level of phenomenal
representation …, this fact is systematically suppressed (p.59).
In Metzinger's view, then, due to transparency, we are caught up in the illusion that we
reach the world outside, while, in reality, the only thing we get is representational content15.
Unsurprisingly, thus, TM and MT disagreement about transparency ricochets off their
understanding of others aspects of phenomenal experience, here, immediacy. And again, it's
got to be either one or the other: is the immediacy of our experience illusory or veridical?
Answering this question implies that we get a more fine-grained description of our
phenomenal experience itself: is phenomenal experience better captured as phenomenally
internal or external?
A first point to underline is that both transparency and inwardness have been described
as crucial for an accurate account of phenomenal experience, but these two aspects may seem
to contradict each other. Inwardness implies that experience is experienced. But this
contradicts Tye's understanding of transparency as the impossibility to access introspectively
one's experience as such (Kind 2003). It is coherent, however, with a metzingerian
transparency, since the latter is supposed to hide the representational nature of experience, by
hiding the representation instruments, without necessarily hiding the experience as such at a
phenomenal level: the experience can be experienced even if its representational format
remains phenomenally hidden. If inwardness describes accurately our phenomenal
experience, Metzinger's understanding of transparency thus seems more promising.
Apart from feeding our virtual debate between TM and MT, the consideration of the
tension between transparency and inwardness raises an issue that is considered as crucial for
any consideration of the self and self-consciousness. It concerns the distinction between two
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types of consciousness and self-consciousness. On the one hand, the transparency/opacity
continuum is an aspect of reflexive consciousness, i.e. consciousness where one's gaze is
turned inward. On this continuum, inwardness is a form of opacity of phenomenal experience.
On the other hand, another form of inwardness can be described as an aspect of pre-reflexive
self-consciousness. The following quotes make this distinction particularly clear:
What makes [mental representations] transparent is the attentional unavailability of earlier processing
for introspection16 (p.165, my emphasis).
Particularly from a phenomenological perspective, internality is a highly salient, global feature of the
contents of conscious self-awareness. These contents are continuously accompanied by the phenomenal
quality of internality in a "pre-reflexive" manner, that is, permanently and independently of all
cognitive operations (p.15, my emphasis).
Thus, to reconcile transparency and inwardness is in fact quite easy: transparency
means that experience is not itself an object of phenomenal experience, but the experience is
nonetheless experienced as phenomenally internal at a pre-reflexive level. Transparency does
not mean invisibility.
We see here that even if one agrees with Metzinger that phenomenal experience is
immediate and naïvely realist, and with Tye that we look through our experience to the world,
it remains that it is not phenomenally correct to reduce phenomenal experience to its content
described as "the world outside". This consideration casts doubt on phenomenal externalism
and thus deprives externalist representationalism from one of its argument. In addition, it has
important consequences on the conception of the self and self-consciousness. I thus now turn
to a description and discussion of Metzinger's conception of the self.
4. Transparently oneself.
According to Meztinger, the self is nothing else than the phenomenal content of a transparent
self-representation. You are "no one" thus means that "what in philosophy of mind is called
the "phenomenal self" and what in scientific or folk-psychological contexts frequently is
simply referred to as "the self" is the content of a phenomenally transparent self-model" (p.
331):
Whenever we speak about "the subject" or "the self" (committing the "error of phenomenological
reification"), we are talking about the content of the phenomenal self. This is the content of an ongoing
self representational process (p.268).
In the remaining of this paper, I will discuss Metzinger's description of the self on the
four following points: (1) I agree with the Self-Model Theory of Subjectivity (SMT) that the
self is not a substance; (2) I agree with SMT that self-consciousness is deceptive in that it
does not identify the self as it really is. The self is not the intentional object we (may)
phenomenally experience when we turn our look inward; (3) I disagree with SMT and argue
that the self cannot be reduced to a phenomenal illusion; (4) I disagree with SMT and argue
that the self is not only the content of a transparent self-representation.
(1) First, to claim that the self does not exist presupposes a definition of the self. Metzinger's
rejected definition of the self is "a special variant of the phenomenological fallacy3 related to
self-consciousness: describing the contents of phenomenal self-representation as literal
properties of an internal and nonphysical object – namely, the subject" (p.271). Metzinger
intends to both reject and explain the source of the "deeply entrenched" Cartesian intuition
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according to which the "experience of being a subject and a rational individual can never be
naturalized or reductively explained" (p.2). He also wants to demystify the "classical
philosophical ideal of self-knowledge" (p.623, cf. also p.337). But is the Cartesian intuition
still "deeply entrenched" and is self-knowledge still the "classical philosophical ideal"? If not,
as a constantly increasing body of research argues, Metzinger's fight would turned out to be as
relevant as tilting at windmills.
But of course, this is not the focus of the Self-Model Theory of Subjectivity (SMT).
SMT makes other specific claims on the self that are far from trivial, so far in fact, that they
are also highly controversial. Metzinger claims (2) that the self is not equivalent to what is
given in self-consciousness: the content of phenomenal experience is illusory: we took it to be
the self, ourselves, while it is merely the content of self-representational processes. As such,
this claim supports different interpretations.
A first interpretation is the one favoured by SMT: there is less to the self than what is
given in self-consciousness. As transparency hides the representational nature of phenomenal
experience, self-consciousness gives the self as existing while it is not17.
The second interpretation of the claim that self-consciousness is deceptive is that there is
more to the self than what is given in self-consciousness. In turn, this interpretation can be
split in two claims, since "there is more" at two levels, which correspond respectively to my
points (3) and (4) above. Let us begin with the discussion of point (3): the self cannot be
reduced to a phenomenal illusion. First, consider again Metzinger's claim:
No such things as selves exist in the world; all that exists are conscious systems operating under
transparent self-models (p.397).
I take the two parts of this sentence to be in tension with each other: to claim that there
exist conscious systems operating under transparent self-models means that there exist selves,
and that this notion has to be redefined rather than eliminated. In other words, Metzinger
should be a revisionist about the self rather than an eliminativist. Indeed, if the notion of self
is not fossilized into a Cartesian straitjacket, there is no reason to refuse a redefinition of the
self. Quite the contrary, there are reasons to pursue actively such a redefinition of a concept
formerly defined in a misleading way.
In fact, it's got to be either one or the other of the two following positions. First
possibility, we choose to legitimize (at least minimally) what Metzinger calls "analytic
scholasticism" which consists in a "dangerous tendency toward arrogant armchair theorizing,
at the same time ignoring first-person phenomenological as well as third-person empirical
constraints in the formation of one's basic conceptual tools" (p.3). In such a case, the self is
what analytic scholasticism claims it to be, but either it exists or not. In any case, the
reference remains predefined by analytic scholasticism. Second possibility, we radically
change strategy and perspective, and integrate first- and third-person constraints from the very
beginning of our consideration of the self and self-consciousness. In this latter case, we soon
realize that the notion of self remains highly relevant from both a first- and a third-person
perspective.
First, from a first-person perspective, the term "self" corresponds to our
phenomenology: this is how we experience ourselves. Metzinger obviously agrees with this
uncontroversial point and with the fact that a consistent theory of the self must account for
this phenomenal experience of selfhood18. In a folk-psychological perspective, the self is
"what one is": how one experiences oneself from a phenomenal perspective, and what/who
one takes oneself to be, from an epistemic perspective. Metzinger argues that "what one is" is
nothing over and above a "conscious system operating under transparent self-models". On this
basis, Metzinger chooses to eliminate the self and redefine "what one is" as a particular
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system. But the reverse strategy seems more constructive: eliminate neither "what one is" nor
"the self" but redefine it as a particular system.
Second, from a third-person perspective, I have briefly stated above that to claim that
there exist conscious systems operating under transparent self-models means that there exist
selves. In other terms, the self is notably the conscious system operating under transparent
self-models. The self is not only such a system, but at least at a given level, it is this system
itself, by contrast with being "caused" or "generated" by such a system. This calls for further
explanations: Why would it be legitimate to use the term "self" rather than the term "system"?
Notably because the notion of self is much more specific than the notion of system. Indeed,
not any system is a self. The self is a special subset of systems. The term "self" allows one to
refer to some specific properties that make some systems "selves". The crucial question thus
becomes: what are these specific properties? Here is not the place to develop the answer to
this question in any details, but let me give some clues about how it might be developed. It
can be shown (Legrand 2004) that a single definition of the self can meet the constraints
imposed by different philosophical perspectives and remain coherent in a naturalistic
framework. Specifically, following such a basic definition, the self is a dynamic system
constituted by a network of production of its own interacting components, in constant relation
with the non-self. Such a self-constitution implies a network of processes producing
components that continuously regenerate the very network from which they issue19. This
definition of the self is not circular since it does not presuppose a self as a conductor of its
own constitution. This position is not dualist either, since it does not conceive the self and its
properties as detached from each other, as if selfhood could emerge from a presupposed self.
This self-constitution can thus be said to be "selfless" if the conception of the self is restricted
to a substantial view, but it remains that this self-constitution constitutes a self as a non-
elementary unity in dynamical interrelation with the non-self. I see no non-doctrinal reasons
to refuse to call this particular self-constitutive network a self. On the contrary, there are
reasons to use this term: this core definition of the self allows one to understand "what I am"
at four articulated levels: the basically biological level, the sensori-motor integration, the
cognitive encounter with the world, and the more elaborated reflexive abilities20.
Following the definition just sketched, the self is a particular kind of system, and the
conscious system operating under transparent self-models is (potentially) only one of these
systems. Moreover, it is also important to understand that the view presented here does not
reduce the self to systems described in a third-person perspective. This leads me to my point
(4): the self is not only the content of a transparent self-representation.
To better understand what this means, we need to come back to the distinction
between reflexive consciousness of the self and pre-reflexive self-consciousness. In the sense
I use these terms here, "reflexive consciousness of the self" means that the self is taken as the
object of consciousness. By contrast, "pre-reflexive self-consciousness" means that the self is
not taken as the object of consciousness. At this level, the self is the subject of consciousness,
experienced as the subjectivity of consciousness. The following example may help to clarify
this distinction: admittedly, there is a phenomenal difference between seeing an object as
being blurry and blurrily seeing a nonblurry object. In the first case, one has a consciousness
of a blurry object as blurry; in the second case, one has a non-observational consciousness of
blurriness that accompanies the consciousness of a nonblurry object. Whether or not one
wishes to accommodate this distinction in purely intentional terms (as representationalists do),
it remains that at a phenomenal level, "blurriness" is an object of one's experience in the first
case, while it is not in the second case21.
These considerations allow one to better understand in what sense the self is not the
object given by introspective consciousness of the self. Metzinger concludes from this that the
self does not exist as such, but is merely a phenomenal (representational, simulational,
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illusory) content of a transparent self-representation. Quite the contrary, I conclude here that
the self is not adequately described as a content. The self is not what is given by
consciousness of the self, but the pre-reflexive subjective structure of phenomenal experience.
Again, transparency is not invisibility. The self is transparent in the sense that one looks
through oneself to the world. But this does not mean that the self is invisible. As above, the
metaphor of the window is quite accurate here: Let us ask armchair philosophers (because
only they can ignore this housewifely evidence) to do a little experiment. Look at a landscape
through a real window. Then open the window and look again. Don't you see any difference?
An ideal window, imagined in the clear mind of an armchair philosopher may be so
transparent that it is invisible. On the contrary, a real window, in the real world, is transparent
but not invisible. The self as well: it shapes one's consciousness at a pre-reflexive level,
whatever its object (the self-as-object or an object of the 'outside' world). The self can thus be
compared to a real hidden-revealing window in several respects: it is not invisible but
transparent in that it reveals the world by hiding itself. An important difference is worth
mentioning: while you can open the window to look directly at the landscape, you can only
experience the world through yourself. In other terms, pre-reflexive self-consciousness is
fundamental, in the sense that it is the foundation of any other form of consciousness.
Interestingly, Metzinger himself notes this point:
There seems to be a primitive and pre-reflexive form of phenomenal self-consciousness underlying all
higher-order and conceptually mediated forms of self-consciousness (p.158).
In fact, a number of philosophies which disagree with each other on many other
fundamental points, and which notably disagree on the nature of the self and self-
consciousness, nevertheless agree on the distinction between reflexive consciousness of the
self and pre-reflexive self-consciousness22. To take only one example from analytic
philosophy of mind, consider the following quotes from Perry (1998)
Agent-relative knowledge is knowledge from the perspective of a particular agent. For example, "There
is an apple" or "that is a toaster (p.83).
In this case, our knowledge concerns ourselves but need not involve an explicit representation of
ourselves (p.87).
…agent-relative knowledge … is self-knowledge, in that it embodies knowledge of the relations things
stand in to the agent; the thoughts are true because of facts about the agent (p.87).
The notion of agent-relative knowledge expresses in another way and another context
(the context of essential indexicality) what I describe here as the consciousness of an apple or
a toaster which involves pre-reflexive self-consciousness23.
From a classical representationalist perspective, the distinction between reflexive and
pre-reflexive consciousness may sound even odder than Metzinger's distinction between
intentional and phenomenal content. Indeed, it is incompatible with the classical
representationalist equation: phenomenal qualities = phenomenal content = intentional content
= representational content, since it implies that phenomenal qualities are not reducible to
phenomenal content. However, I do not take the view I present here as being an argument
against representationalism. Indeed, phenomenal qualities could still be explainable in terms
of representation since, as I describe it here, pre-reflexive consciousness is always linked to
consciousness of content under a given aspect.
On the other hand, how does this view of self-consciousness as irreducible to the
content of consciousness of the self cohere with Metzinger's Self-Model Theory of
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Subjectivity? Obviously, it departs from his definition of the self as the content of self-
representation. More interesting in the present framework is the following view:
Full-blown conscious experience is more than the existence of a conscious self, and it is much more
than the mere presence of the world. It results from the dynamic interplay between this self and the
world, in a lived, embodied present (p.417).
This claim is fully compatible with the view defended here which could even be
summarized by a paraphrase of this quote as follows: "Full-blown conscious experience
notably involves the existence of a conscious self, and the presence of the world.
Consciousness of objects of the world, reflexive consciousness of the self, as well as pre-
reflexive self-consciousness result from the dynamic interplay between this self and the
world, in a lived, embodied present".
However, such a de-contextualized similarity should not lead us to iron out major
differences. "Full-blown conscious experience" as described by Metzinger is generated by
what he calls the PMIR: the Phenomenal Model of the Intentionality Relation. He gives some
examples of this class of phenomenal states (p.411), and interestingly all these examples
begin by "I am someone …" (e.g. "I am someone, who is currently visually attending to the
color of the book in my hands"). Such a description, if considered specifically, implies taking
oneself as an object of attention. On the contrary, and as underlined by Perry, agent-relative
knowledge "can be expressed by a simple sentence containing a demonstrative for a place or
object, and without any term referring to the speaker" (Perry 1998, p.83). The experience
expressed by "this book is greenish" does not involve the self as its object, but only the
greenish book as seen from "here". It is nonetheless a certain form of self-consciousness,
specifically, a self-relative consciousness.
Apart from this example, the crucial difference between the view presented here and
Metzinger's SMT appears sharply when we unpack the contraction PMIR: Phenomenal Model
of Intentionality Relation. In the view I present here, the self (as system) is not purely
phenomenal and it (as subject) is not reducible to the intentional content of consciousness.
This position thus hardly fits with Metzinger's model but, interestingly, it nonetheless meets
his requirement against the so-called "phenomenological fallacy" since it does not reify the
self as an internal object refractory to any kind of naturalization. Paradoxically, thus, I define
here a self at two complementary levels (as system and as subject), but in Metzinger's
particular sense, this self could be said to be "no one". At least, this paradox brings with it a
simple lesson that leads me to avoid concluding this paper by reducing its content to a shining
take-home message: I hope the present discussion has at least shown how such a marketing
process can do a disservice to the real scope of a position by hiding its subtleties rather than
revealing its strength.
Acknowledgment:
I am grateful to Tim Bayne and Pierre Livet for pointing to me numerous points that were
unclear in an earlier version.
Endnotes:
1. All page numbers without any further specification refer to Metzinger (2003) Being No
One.
2. For another reading of the notion of transparency, see Livet's commentary of BNO, in
Psyche, this symposium.
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3. The "phenomenological fallacy" or "error of phenomenological reification" is defined as an
"unnoticed transition from a mental process to an individual, from an innocent sequence of
events to an indivisible mental object" (pp.22-3)
4. Note that Tye describes his position as follows: "the externalism of my position is
qualified, since I doubt very much whether it is possible for creatures as sophisticated in their
psychology and behaviour as human beings to be phenomenally different and yet nonetheless
also be molecular duplicates. If there were phenomenal differences in such creatures, it seems
to me that those differences would show up in narrow functional differences and those
differences would be incompatible with molecular identity. … Still, I am inclined to think that
with very simple creatures without the capacity to introspect and limited in their behavioural
responses, there could be molecular duplicates who differed phenomenally. And for this
reason, I am an externalist" (2003, pp.174-5). For a discussion of microphysical duplicates in
the framework of Metzinger's self-model theory, see Imma's commentary of BNO, in Psyche,
this symposium.
5. Metzinger also defines phenomenal internalism, an issue to which I return later.
6. For a discussion of Metzinger's view on the brain-in-vat's subjective experience, see
Gallagher's commentary of BNO, in Psyche, this symposium.
7. An example of "offline hallucination" is dream state (p.51). Consider also p.52 "In our
present context, a fruitful way of looking at the human brain, therefore, is as a system which,
even in the ordinary waking states, constantly hallucinates at the world, as a system that
constantly lets its internal autonomous simulational dynamics collide with the ongoing flow
of sensory input, vigorously dreaming at the world and there by generating the content of
phenomenal experience". On the use and role of dream and lucid dream in the self-model
theory, see Hobson's commentary of BNO in Psyche, this symposium.
8. It could still be argued that intentional content could be simulated, but this point would
disregard the fact that, again, Metzinger himself agrees on some form of externalism for
intentional content.
9. Note that even such a weakened version of internalism depends at least "genetically" on the
body and world (see below). Note also that Metzinger defends a much stronger version of
internalism. E.g. "A brain in a vat…could at any time generate the full-blown phenomenal
content of a conscious self-representatum" (p.272).
10. In fact, Gantzfeld stimulation suggests that a brain-in-a-vat would not even enjoy the same
hallucination as a brain-in-a-body-in-the-world. However, it remains possible that some other
type of hallucination does not depend on intentional content.
11. This is Metzinger's option: "An overall picture emerges of the conscious model of reality
essentially being an internal construct, which is only perturbed by external events forcing it to
settle into ever-new stable states" (p.142).
12. An additional reason is that Metzinger clearly distinguishes his view from the classical
vehicle-content distinction. The latter, he says, "contains subtle residues of Cartesian dualism
in that it always tempts us to reify the vehicle and the content, by conceiving of them as
distinct, independent entities" (p.166). "Any philosophical theory of mind treating vehicle and
content as anything more than two strongly interrelated aspects of one and the same
phenomenon simply deprives itself of much of its explanatory power, if not of its realism and
epistemological rationality" (p.4).
13. Note that this claim concerns here only transparency. It does not imply that Metzinger's
position is consistent with phenomenology on other issues. This question is addressed in
Zahavi's commentary of BNO in Psyche, this symposium. For a discussion of Metzinger's
way to fix the explanatory data, see Weisberg's commentary of BNO, in Psyche, this
symposium.
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D. Legrand: Transparently Oneself
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14. Note that there is no incoherence between this quote and the description of Tye's view of
transparency as revealing the representational content of phenomenal experience. As noted
above, what is phenomenologically transparent in Tye's view is the experience itself,
introspection revealing only representational content. This content can be analysed as
representational, though it is experienced as "the world outside".
15. Note that there is no incoherence here with the description of Metzinger's view of
transparency as hiding the representational instruments of phenomenal experience. As noted
above, what is phenomenologically transparent in Metzinger's view is the "medium" in which
the experience takes place. Epistemically, we thus get only representational content, but
phenomenologically, we do not experience it as such.
16. Metzinger defines four forms of introspection. Here this term refers to "introspection1"
which leads to represent "certain aspects of an internal system state, the intentional content of
which is constituted by a part of the world depicted as external"; and to "introspection 3"
which implies to "direct attention toward certain aspects of an internal system state, the
intentional content of which is being constituted by a part of the world depicted as internal"
(p36).
17. Note that following his own principles, Metzinger could have defended the idea that
transparency hides the representational nature of the self, the only reality of the self being
representational. And indeed, much of his arguments argue in this sense. But this contrasts
sharply with his take-home message: No such things as selves exist in the world.
18. More on the phenomenal experience of the self below.
19. Note that following such a definition, the self is not necessarily conscious. I turn to the
self as a conscious subject of phenomenal experience below.
20. For a different account of the self as a particular kind of system, see. Ghin's commentary
of BNO, in Psyche, this symposium.
21. Admittedly, the blurriness of one's experience of a non-blurry object can become an object
of consciousness in case one attend to it (directly or by displaced perception), but this is not
the case I am considering here.
22. They obviously interpret and exploit it in their own philosophical framework.
23. See also Wittgenstein's distinction between I-as-object and I-as-subject (1958) and
Shoemaker's description of identification-free self-consciousness (1968, 1996). For an
account of the self in the perspective of phenomenology that coheres with the view presented
here, see Zahavi's commentary of BNO in Psyche, this symposium.
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