The Stream of Consciousness: XXVI. Awareness as Commentary (Second Part)

Abstract

This article, published in two parts, is propaedeutic to a consideration next of Weiskrantz's conception of consciousness from a perspective bequeathed to us by James more than a century ago. Weiskrantz has argued in support of a general account of awareness that resembles the “Intellectualist” notion of mind against which James strongly objected. Weiskrantz mainly addressed the question of where in the brain the stream of consciousness “flows,” but he also maintained at some length that all awarenesses, even those experiences that are involved in having pain, are matters of commentary. Contrary to how it may seem, every state of consciousness is in fact a certain kind of behavioral response—covert, overt, or incipient—that brings something or other under a heading. Although Weiskrantz explicitly rejected all eliminative strategies vis-à-vis awareness, he formulated his own concept of awareness in terms of the operations that allow him to judge whether a subject is aware of something in particular, and he claimed that awareness always consists either of the delivery of a report or an occurrent brain-state of readiness to issue a report.