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Section III
2. William James on
the Most Mysterious Thing in the World
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William James, the early 20th century
American philosopher and psychologist, has been one of the most influential
figures in promoting western approaches to the study of consciousness and
mind. This was evident in the frequency with which James was cited,
during the 1970's and 1980's, when the topic of consciousness re-emerged
in psychology.
James’ early Principles of Psychology
(1890) began with this definition of psychology: “Psychology is the
Science of Mental Life, both its phenomena and their conditions.”
(p.1) In the 1892, abridged version of the Principles, this
definition is changed to: “... the description and explanation of states
of consciousness as such.” (p.15) Psychology was, according
to James, most essentially concerned with the mental life and consciousness.
Although James modified his views of the nature of consciousness and mind
throughout his career, a number of his early descriptions of consciousness
are widely
quoted in contemporary psychology:
"By states of consciousness are meant such things as
sensations, desires, emotions, cognitions, reasonings, decisions, volitions,
and the like." (p.1) "The first and foremost concrete fact
which every one will affirm to belong to his inner experience is the fact
that consciousness of some sort goes on. ‘States of mind’ succeed each
other in him. ... we must simply say that thought goes on." (p.167)
Consciousness is identified, in a general way, with the stream
of psychological processes which go on within the mind. Hence, it
is equated with the flow of sensations, desires, emotions and cognition,
the “stream of subjective life,” or with the “stream of thought.”
James even suggested the site which he thought was the most likely
basis of these states of mind, or consciousness: “The immediate condition
of a state of consciousness is an activity of some sort in the cerebral
hemispheres.” (1892, p. 18) |
In more modern consciousness
studies, Strange (1978), in The Stream of Consciousness, notes:
James contributes the basic definition of consciousness
to the mainstream of American, functional, cognitive psychology–consciousness
is thought, which includes all the mental activities, such as feeling,
imagining, reasoning, knowing, perceiving, conceiving, remembering, and
all the rest. Consciousness, according to him, is not a substance,
nor a place, nor any thing, except a stream of thought that results from
pure experiencing. (p.15)
Strange’s comments identify two definitive elements in the
modern approach to the study of consciousness. Firstly, it is equated
generally with the stream of thought, minding activity, or of subjective
life. Experimental approaches to consciousness are then based upon
subjects’ reports of the contents of their inner experiences. Hence,
researchers sample different thoughts and daydreams over time, and describe
this as a study of the “stream of consciousness.”
The equation of consciousness with
thinking, or cognition, has become quite prominent within the minds of
many psychologists. Ey (1978) proclaimed:
It is common knowledge (psychologists have all noted–and
it is not an original discovery to repeat it) that to be conscious is to
know one’s experience, and that all experience insofar as it is ‘known’
by the subject is discursive. ... Consciousness lies in the verbalization
of the phenomena which unfold in consciousness. ... to be conscious is
to be capable of grasping one’s knowledge in the categories of verbal communication.
... Language is thus a structural quality of consciousness. (p.16)
Certainly not all psychologists have taken language to be
a structural quality of consciousness, but nonetheless this is a definitive
feature of cognitive theories. |
Secondly, as Strange notes, consciousness
is defined as “a stream of thought that results from pure experiencing.”
Thus, consciousness has two defining features: a pure experiencing or awareness
component which exists in relation to the particular contents of experience
(the thoughts, feelings, sensations and the like.) Whereas experimental
approaches to consciousness focus on the contents of consciousness, philosophical
approaches often refer to this abstract, subjective side. Significantly,
most psychologists simply equate consciousness with thinking and cognitive
processes, and ignore the trickier issues raised by the pure experiencing
element. Thus, it is standard fare, in experimental consciousness
studies and cognitive psychology, for researchers to focus on studying
the normal conscious flow by sampling thoughts, or analyzing different
functions of the mind. In doing so, they assume that the stream of
consciousness is basically equivalent to the stream of thought and subjective
life, occurring within the brain. The scientific approach emphasizes
the object side of consciousness and politely ignores its subjective aspect.
Scientists do not regard consciousness as being anything substantive in
itself, apart from the contents of the mind.
Elsewhere, William James describes the dualistic
nature of the self:
Whatever I may be thinking of, I am always at the same
time more or less aware of myself, of my personal existence. At the
same time it is I who am aware; so that the total self of me, being as
it were duplex, partly known and partly knower, partly object and partly
subject, must have two aspects discriminated in it ... the Me and ... the
I. (1892, p.189)
For practical purposes, psychologists do not explore the
“I” aspect of self–the pure experiencing component–but focus on the “me”
aspect. Thus, consciousness is equated with the general stream of
inner thoughts, images, feelings and all the rest. By assuming this
tactic, the empiricist skirts around a host of extremely tricky and perplexing
issues. |
Later in his life, William James, after
years of investigating consciousness and the possibility of survival after
death, came to regard consciousness as being most elusive. Nevertheless,
he concluded that it was not substantive. Natsoulas (1978) explains:
In time, consciousness came to be a theoretical nonentity.
Nonentity was James’s (1904) word in “Does Consciousness Exist?”
where he inveighed ... against the existence of consciousness qua substance
or entity. James considered consciousness the most mysterious thing
in the world. But he was sure it was no actual thing, that it was
a non-entity. Those psychologists who would cling to a substantive consciousness
were said to be clinging “to a mere echo, the faint rumor left behind by
the disappearing ‘soul’ upon the air of philosophy.” (James, 1904, p.477)
... Rather, James considered consciousness to be a “function,” specifically
the function of knowing. (p.906)
Once again, the idea of a substantive consciousness is linked
to the idea of a soul–some immaterial thing connected to the material body/brain–and
both such possibilities are discounted.
In the American Psychologist
(1978), Natsoulas noted that, at this time in the history of science,
psychologists need to readdress the issues of consciousness:
What consciousness is (if it is not some thing), that
deceptively simple question, which James addressed, needs to be addressed
once again, but carefully and in a way that does not close off, by fiat,
a good portion of the potential subject matter. ... We should not quickly
decide, for example, that consciousness is no more or less than James’s
function of knowing and proceed to study merely that. At this point
in the history of scientific understanding, an effort at comprehensiveness
surely seems called for. ... ( However, I) ... predict that psychology
will not define consciousness as a substance or as an entity again.
Note that this prediction refers to the scientific discipline and not to
individual scientists. ... Scientific knowledge has not yet rendered consciousness
as a distinct entity unthinkable. (p.907)
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The nature of that “most mysterious thing
in the world” remains a profound enigma within modern science. Science
has not disproved the possibility that consciousness might be substantive.
Likewise, it has not produced any evidence which would deny the existence
of an immaterial mind, spirit or soul. Instead, psychologists ignore
these tricky issues of consciousness and simply equate it with thinking,
reasoning, and all the other mental processes. Unfortunately, scientists
who regard these issues as having been resolved ignore the fact that they
have been determined by fiat and methodological considerations, rather
than on the basis of scientific evidence.
Despite this willful ignorance and
oversimplification, many psychologists are aware, on some level and to
some degree, that the question of consciousness remains an extraordinary
mystery and a fundamental enigma within the discipline. This is evident
when one realizes how often psychologists cite the following quotation
from William James in the more contemporary literature on consciousness
and “altered states:”
... our normal waking consciousness, rational consciousness
as we call it, is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about
it, parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms
of consciousness entirely different. ... No account of the universe in
its totality can be final which leaves these other forms of consciousness
quite disregarded. How to regard them is the question–for they are
so discontinuous with ordinary consciousness. ... At any rate, they
forbid a premature closing of our accounts with reality. (1958, p.298)
Although the reductionist may be content
to simply explain these altered states of consciousness as being the result
of altered neurological or biological processes, James remained intrigued
by glimpses into other experiential states and possibilities. Further,
many modern psychologists acknowledge James’ contention about the existence
of these states of consciousness and perhaps even share his fascination
with them. However, they seem also to share James’ inconsistent and
inexplicable conclusion that, despite the admitted mysterious nature of
these states, consciousness is not substantial and there is no need to
reconsider the issues of the soul. |
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