The Stream of Consciousness: XII. Consciousness and Self-Awareness

This philosophical paper examines the relationship between consciousness and self-awareness through the lens of William James's "The Principles of Psychology." It clarifies different senses of consciousness and explores James's concept of personal consciousness, particularly how the durational components of a stream of consciousness cohere without spatial location, given James's mind-body dualism. The author argues that continuities of content, especially bodily feelings intrinsic to each component, unify the stream. The diachronic unity of consciousness heavily relies on self-awareness. The paper also addresses inner awareness—immediate awareness of one's own mental occurrences—and questions whether remembering past experiences requires both inner awareness at the time of occurrence and self-awareness.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Consciousness and self-awareness—how are they mutually related? This contribution to the present series of articles begins to consider replies to this question from the Jamesian perspective of The Principles. First, several relevant senses of consciousness are made explicit. Then, I give attention to James's notion of personal consciousness: How do the basic durational components of a stream of consciousness “cohere” to form a stream, given that, on James's mind—body dualism, they do not have a spatial location? Continuities of content among the components of a single stream is supposed to be the unifying factor; James held bodily feelings are an intrinsic feature of every component of a stream. The diachronic unity of consciousness rests heavily on a kind of self-awareness. Also addressed here are inner awareness, or the immediate awareness that one can have of one's mental-occurrence instances, and whether remembering past experiences requires that one had not only inner awareness of them when they occurred, but self-awareness as well.