The sciousness hypothesis .1.

Journal/Book: J Mind Behav. 1996; 17: PO Box 522, Village Station, New York, NY 10014. Inst Mind Behavior Inc. 45-65.

Abstract: The Sciousness Hypothesis holds that how we know our mental-occurrence instances does not include our having immediate awareness of them. Rather, we take notice of our behaviors or bodily reactions and infer mental-occurrence instances that would explain them. In The Principles, James left it an open question whether the Sciousness Hypothesis is true, and proceeded in accordance with the conviction that one's stream of consciousness consists only of basic durational components of which one has (or could have had) immediate awareness. Nevertheless, James seems to have been tempted by the Sciousness Hypothesis. And he adopted an account of inner awareness that is popular among present-day psychologists of consciousness, to the effect that awareness of a mental-occurrence instance never takes place from within its phenomenological structure, always from a certain distance, by means of a distinct mental-occurrence instance. This means that the immediacy of inner awareness can only be a temporal and causal immediacy, not the kind we seem to have, whereby we consciously participate in the occurrence of a mental state. The present article, which is published in two separate though continuous parts, clarifies and elaborates the Sciousness Hypothesis, and critically discusses it and the kind of account of inner awareness that seems closest to it.

Note: Article T Natsoulas, Univ Calif Davis, Dept Psychol, Davis, CA 95616 USA

Keyword(s): CONSCIOUSNESS

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