Chapter I, 3

2 What does self-consciousness mean?

The answer is consciousness of one’s own self, as opposed to consciousness of other things, the latter being the faculty of knowledge. Before those other things appear in it, this faculty does indeed contain certain forms governing the manner of their appearance. These are therefore conditions of the possibility of their objective existence—that is, their existence as objects for us. Time, space and causality are familiar examples. Although these forms of knowledge lie within us, they do so only to enable us to become conscious of other things as such, and wholly in relation to those things. Thus, although these forms are within us, we must not regard them as belonging to self-consciousness, but rather as making consciousness of other things—that is, objective knowledge—possible.

Nor will I let the double meaning of the word used in the question—consciousness or conscience—tempt me to include within self-consciousness the human moral impulses known as conscience, or sometimes as practical reason, with the categorical imperatives Kant attributes to it. For one thing, these impulses arise only through experience and reflection, and hence through consciousness of other things. For another, no sharp and indisputable boundary has yet been drawn between what in them belongs originally and intrinsically to human nature and what moral and religious education adds. Besides, the Royal Society can hardly intend that, by bringing conscience into self-consciousness, the question should be shifted onto moral ground, merely to see Kant’s moral proof—or rather postulate—of freedom repeated: freedom inferred from the moral law of which we are conscious a priori, through the conclusion “You can, because you ought.”

What we have said makes it clear that by far the greatest part of our consciousness as a whole is not self-consciousness, but consciousness of other things, or the faculty of knowledge. With all its powers, this faculty is directed outward. It is the theater—and indeed, from a deeper standpoint of inquiry, the condition—of the real external world. It first apprehends that world in perception, then works what it has gained into concepts, as though chewing it over. Thinking consists in the endless combinations of these concepts accomplished with the aid of words. Only what remains after we subtract this by far greatest portion of our entire consciousness would therefore be self-consciousness. We can already see that its contents cannot be very rich. If the data we seek as proof of freedom of the will really do lie within it, we may consequently hope that they will not escape us. An inner sense∗) has also been proposed as the organ of self-consciousness, though this must be understood more figuratively than literally, since self-consciousness is immediate. Be that as it may, our next question is: what does self-consciousness contain? Or, how does a person become immediately conscious of his own self? The answer is: entirely as a being that wills. Anyone who observes his own self-consciousness will soon notice that its object is always his own willing. This, of course, must not be understood to include only decisive acts of will that immediately become deeds, or express resolutions together with the actions arising from them. Anyone who can hold fast to what is essential, even through differences of degree and kind, will have no hesitation in counting as manifestations of willing all desire, striving, wishing, wanting, yearning, hoping, loving, rejoicing, exulting and the like; no less than not-willing or resistance, and all abhorrence, flight, fear, anger, hatred, grief and suffering of pain—in short, all emotions and passions. These emotions and passions are only the movements of one’s own will, weaker or stronger, sometimes violent and stormy, sometimes gentle, as that will is checked or released, satisfied or unsatisfied. In their many forms, they all concern attaining or missing what is willed, and enduring or overcoming what is abhorred. They are therefore definite states of the same will that is active in resolutions and actions∗). Even what are called feelings of pleasure and displeasure belong here. Though present in a great variety of degrees and kinds, they can always be traced back to states of desire or aversion: to the will itself becoming conscious of itself as satisfied or unsatisfied, checked or released. Indeed, this extends to bodily sensations, pleasant or painful, and to the countless sensations lying between these two. The essence of all these states is that they enter self-consciousness immediately as something agreeable or contrary to the will. Strictly considered, one is even immediately conscious of one’s own body only as the outward-working organ of the will and the seat of receptivity to pleasant or painful sensations. Yet, as just said, these sensations themselves come down to wholly immediate states of the will, either agreeable or contrary to it. Whether or not we include these mere feelings of pleasure and displeasure, we find in any case that all those movements of the will—that changing willing and not-willing which, in its perpetual ebb and flow, forms the sole object of self-consciousness, or of the inner sense if we prefer—stand in a constant and universally acknowledged relation to what is perceived and known in the external world. As we have said, however, the latter no longer lies within immediate self-consciousness. As soon as we touch the external world, we have reached the boundary where self-consciousness meets the domain of consciousness of other things. Yet the objects perceived in that world are the material and occasion of all those movements and acts of the will. This will not be taken as begging the question. No one can deny that our willing always has external objects as its object: things toward which it is directed, around which it revolves, and which at least occasion it as motives. Otherwise, we should be left with a will wholly cut off from the external world and imprisoned in the dark interior of self-consciousness. Only the necessity with which those things in the external world determine the will’s acts remains problematic for us at present.

∗) It is already found in Cicero as “inner touch”: Acad. quaest., IV, 7. More clearly in Augustine, De lib. arb., II, 3 sqq. Then in Descartes, Princ. phil., IV, 190; and fully developed in Locke.

∗) It is very noteworthy that the Church Father Augustine already understood this perfectly, while so many modern thinkers, with their alleged “faculty of feeling,” fail to see it. In De civit. Dei, Lib. XIV, c. 6, he speaks of the affections of the mind, which he had divided in the preceding book into four categories—desire, fear, joy and sadness—and says: “Will is certainly present in them all; indeed, they are all nothing but acts of will. For what are desire and joy but the will’s agreement with the things we want? And what are fear and sadness but the will’s rejection of the things we do not want?”

We thus find self-consciousness very deeply, indeed exclusively, occupied with the will. Our object is now to see whether, in this its sole material, it encounters data from which the freedom of that very will would follow, in the sense explained above—the only clear and definite sense of the word. Toward this object we shall now steer directly, having so far approached it by tacking, yet already drawn perceptibly nearer.

2 What does self-consciousness mean?

The answer is: consciousness of one’s own self, as opposed to consciousness of other things. This latter is our ability to know other things. Even before those other things appear in it, this ability contains certain forms governing how they appear. These are therefore conditions that make their objective existence possible—that is, their existence as objects for us. As is well known, these forms include time, space, and causality. Although these forms of knowledge lie within us, they do so only to let us become conscious of other things as such, and they relate entirely to those things. So even though these forms lie within us, we must not regard them as belonging to self-consciousness. Rather, they make consciousness of other things—that is, objective knowledge—possible.

Nor will I let the two meanings—consciousness and conscience—of the word used in the question lead me to include moral impulses in self-consciousness. These human impulses are known as conscience, or sometimes practical reason, with the categorical imperatives Kant attributes to it. I exclude them partly because they arise only through experience and reflection, and thus through consciousness of other things. I also exclude them because no sharp and indisputable boundary has yet been drawn between what originally belongs to human nature itself in these impulses and what moral and religious education adds. Besides, the Royal Society can hardly intend to include conscience in self-consciousness in order to shift the question onto moral ground. That would merely repeat Kant’s moral proof—or rather, postulate—of freedom from the moral law of which we are conscious independently of experience, through the inference “You can, because you ought.”

What I have said shows that by far the greater part of our consciousness as a whole is not self-consciousness. It is consciousness of other things, or our ability to know other things. This ability directs all its powers outward. It is the stage on which the real external world appears (indeed, from a deeper standpoint of inquiry, the condition of that world). It first grasps that world through perception. It then works what it has gained in this way into concepts, as though chewing it over again. Thinking consists in combining these concepts endlessly with the help of words.—So self-consciousness would be only what remains after we subtract this by far greatest part of our consciousness as a whole. We can already see that its contents cannot be very rich. So if it really does contain the data we are looking for to prove freedom of the will, we may hope not to miss them. An inner sense∗) has also been proposed as the organ of self-consciousness. But this should be understood more figuratively than literally, since self-consciousness is immediate. However that may be, our next question is: what does self-consciousness contain? Or: how does a human being become immediately conscious of his own self? The answer is: entirely as a being that wills. Anyone who observes his own self-consciousness will soon notice that its object is always his own willing. Of course, this does not mean only definite acts of will that immediately become deeds, or explicit decisions together with the actions that follow from them. Anyone who can recognize what is essential despite differences in degree and kind will also readily count all desiring, striving, wishing, wanting, longing, hoping, loving, rejoicing, celebrating, and the like as expressions of willing. The same goes for not willing or resisting: all loathing, fleeing, fearing, anger, hatred, grieving, and suffering pain—in short, all emotions and passions. These emotions and passions are simply weaker or stronger movements of one’s own will, sometimes violent and stormy, sometimes quiet. This will may be held back or set loose, satisfied or unsatisfied. In all their varied forms, these movements concern getting or failing to get what we will, and enduring or overcoming what we loathe. They are therefore definite states of the same will that is active in decisions and actions∗). Even what we call feelings of pleasure and displeasure belong here. They come in a great variety of degrees and kinds, but they can always be traced back to states of desire or loathing. That is, they can be traced back to the will itself becoming conscious of itself as satisfied or unsatisfied, held back or set loose. This extends even to pleasant or painful bodily sensations and the countless sensations between those two extremes. The essential feature of all these states is that they enter self-consciousness immediately as something that agrees with the will or goes against it. Indeed, on close examination, we are immediately conscious even of our own body only as the organ through which the will acts outwardly and as the seat of our sensitivity to pleasant or painful sensations. But as I have just said, these sensations themselves come down to entirely immediate states of the will that either agree with it or go against it. Whether or not we include these mere feelings of pleasure or displeasure, we find in any case that all these movements of the will relate throughout to what we perceive and know in the external world. This relationship is acknowledged on all sides. This changing willing and not willing, with its constant ebb and flow, is the sole object of self-consciousness—or, if one prefers, of the inner sense. But as I have said, what we perceive and know in the external world no longer lies within immediate self-consciousness. As soon as we touch on the external world, we therefore reach the boundary where self-consciousness meets consciousness of other things. The objects perceived in that world are the material and the occasion for all these movements and acts of the will. This must not be taken as begging the question. No one can deny that our willing always has external objects that it aims at and revolves around, and that these objects, as motives, at least give rise to it. Otherwise we would be left with a will completely cut off from the external world and locked inside the dark interior of self-consciousness. For now, the only thing still in question is the necessity with which those things in the external world determine acts of will.

∗) It is already found in Cicero as “inner touch”: Acad. quaest., IV, 7. More clearly in Augustine, De lib. arb., II, 3 sqq. Then in Descartes: Princ. phil., IV, 190; and fully developed in Locke.

∗) It is very noteworthy that the Church Father Augustine already understood this perfectly, while so many modern thinkers with their supposed “faculty of feeling” fail to see it. In De civit. Dei, Lib. XIV, c. 6, he speaks of the emotions of the mind, which in the preceding book he has placed under four categories: desire, fear, joy, and sadness. He says: “For the will is present in them all; indeed, they are all nothing other than acts of will. For what are desire and joy but the will agreeing with the things we want? And what are fear and sadness but the will disagreeing with the things we do not want?”

So we find self-consciousness very much occupied with the will—in fact, exclusively so. Our concern is whether, in this its sole subject matter, it finds data that establish the freedom of that very will in the sense explained above, the only clear and definite sense of the word. We will now head straight toward this question. Up to this point we have approached it only by tacking back and forth, but we have already come noticeably closer.