The Stream of Consciousness: XXIX. Does Consciousness Exist? (Second Part)

Abstract

I continue to address W. James's intentions in his article of 1904 titled “Does ‘Consciousness’ Exist?” (DCE), and to raise critical questions concerning the direction his theory takes after The Principles of Psychology. Here, as in the preceding article of this series, I closely examine his article for what it tells us concerning his new conception of the stream of consciousness. James holds it to be constituted of “pure experiences,” which are neither mental nor physical but may be taken to be either mental or physical. An essential feature of this new conception is one's having a direct acquaintance with one's experiences. James considers consciousness, in this basic sense, to be a crucial part of how one knows anything one does know. Knowledge of the sun, for example, has a basis in direct acquaintance with certain experiences; that is, one takes some of one's experiences to be a certain physical object, the sun itself, because of their occurrence in a context consisting of certain other experiences that, too, are objects of inner awareness.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

James

, The Principles of Psychology, Vol. 1, Holt, New York, 1950. (Originally published in 1890.)

James

, Does “Consciousness” Exist? Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific Methods, 1, pp. 477–491, 1904.

James

, Does “Consciousness” Exist?, in Essays in Radical Empiricism, W. James, Longmans, Green and Company, New York, pp. 1–38, 1912. (Originally published in 1904.)

Hebb

D. O.

, What Psychology Is About, American Psychologist, 29, pp. 71–79, 1974.

Natsoulas

, The Stream of Consciousness: XXVIII. Does Consciousness Exist? (First Part), Imagination, Cognition and Personality, 23, pp. 121–141, 2003–2004.

James

, A World of Pure Experience, in Essays in Radical Empiricism, W. James, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, pp. 21–44, 1976. (Originally published in 1904.)

James

, The Place of Affectional Facts in a World of Pure Experience, in Essays in Radical Empiricism, W. James, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, pp. 69–77, 1976. (Originally published in 1905.)

James

, How Two Minds Can Know One Thing, in Essays in Radical Empiricism, W. James, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, pp. 61–67, 1976. (Originally published in 1904.)

James

, The Experience of Activity, in Essays in Radical Empiricism, W. James, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, pp. 79–95, 1976. (Originally published in 1905.)

10.

Ryle

, The Concept of Mind, Hutchinson, London, 1949.

11.

Natsoulas

, On the Intrinsic Nature of States of Consciousness: Further Considerations in the Light of James's Conception, Consciousness and Emotion, 1, pp. 141–168, 2000.