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Mirror of the World: Subjects, Consciousness, and Self-‐Consciousness. By CHRISTOPHER
While issues of selfhood, self-‐representation, and first person thought have been a recurrent
theme in Christopher Peacocke’s writings throughout his career, The Mirror of the World
represents his first book-‐length treatment of the subject. It is a very welcome addition to the
literature, displaying Peacocke’s characteristic clarity and depth of thought and making a
The basic theoretical framework for the book remains that outlined in his 2008 Truly
Understood (Oxford University Press). The first person concept I, like every other concept , is
individuated by its fundamental reference rule, where a fundamental reference rule states
the condition that fixes an object as the concept’s referent. Grasp of the first person concept
(again, like very other concept) is fixed by the subject’s tacit knowledge of the fundamental
reference rule. There are two respects, however, in which the first person concept is
distinctive within this general framework. First, Peacocke emphasizes the explanatory
priority of the metaphysics of the self and the metaphysics of consciousness over the theory
of concepts – in explicit opposition to the typical order of explanation in discussions of self-‐
consciousness.
Second,
he
stresses
that
conceptual
self-‐reference
is
grounded
in
more
primitive,
nonconceptual
forms
of
self-‐reference,
and
he
gives
an
overarching
account
of
the
first person that applies to both its conceptual and nonconceptual forms.
In this review I will focus primarily on the relation between the conceptual and
nonconceptual first person, but let me begin by noting some big picture aspects of
Peacocke’s overall view that will help orient prospective readers of this book. First, from a
metaphysical point of view Peacocke emphasizes that consciousness and conscious subjects
are “coeval”. For a state or event to be conscious is for there to be something it is like for the
subject of that state to be in it – and, correlatively, what makes something a conscious
subject is that it is capable of being in conscious states. The metaphysical position enables
him to dispense with “no ownership” or reductionist views of the self. Second, there is
nothing in Peacocke’s account of selves or self-‐consciousness that he thinks requires
embodiment, and so he sets himself against theorists such as Evans who hold that self-‐
conscious subjects are essentially embodied. Third, and also a point of difference from
Evans, Peacocke favors a minimalist account of what it is to master the first person concept,
one that makes such mastery independent of any de se forms of acquaintance with the self.
The discussion of nonconceptual self-‐consciousness in The Mirror of the World represents a
significant extension of Peacocke’s longstanding interest in the notion of nonconceptual
content. He acknowledges that self-‐representation is widespread in perception, memories,
and action-‐awareness, both in sophisticated concept-‐using subjects and in non-‐human
animals and prelinguistic infants. All of these representations involve a nonconceptual
representation
of
the
self
that
Peacocke
baptizes
i.
So,
when
I
see
that
I
am
approaching
a
tree,
for
example,
what
I
see
is
that
i
am
approaching*
a
tree*
(where
the
stars
indicate
rationalize applying the concepts approach and tree). As a concept-‐user I might, but need
not, form the corresponding judgment I am approaching a tree. Peacocke maintains, though,
that a non-‐human animal might have a perception with exactly the same nonconceptual
content, even in the complete absence of conceptual abilities. This would be what he terms
Peacocke gives an account of how nonconceptual first person contents are integrated with
each other in terms of what he terms self-‐files, exploiting the concept of an object-‐file that
originated in the cognitive science of perception. An object-‐file is a postulated subpersonal
mechanism that stores and updates mental representations that apply to the same thing. A
self-‐file is the file that each subject has for subject-‐referring representations (or rather – for
the subpersonal precursors of those representations). Unlike ordinary object files self-‐files
do not require any kind of indexing or tracking of an object over time, since none of the
representations in the self-‐file depend upon any process of identification (because they are
What makes I and i both first personal representations is that contents involving them are
intrinsically subject-‐referring, where a mental event is intrinsically self-‐referring just if its
content refers to its subject as a function of the type of content it involves. So, perceiving
myself
in
a
mirror
is
not
intrinsically
subject-‐referring
because
perceptual
states
need
not
be
about
me.
In
contrast,
receiving
visual
proprioceptive
feedback
on
my
direction
of
movement is intrinsically subject-‐referring because that feedback can only be about me.
Conceptual contents involving I are intrinsically subject-‐referring because the reference rule
governing I is simply that a token occurrence of I in an act of thinking refers to the agent of
that act.
The fundamental reference rule for the nonconceptual first person i is directly analogous to
the reference rule for the concept I – viz. whenever i occurs in a mental event or state it
refers to the subject of that state or event. This parallelism at the level of reference explains
the rationality of certain types of (conceptual) first person judgments – namely, those that
involve taking nonconceptual first person contents at face value. If I am in a nonconceptual
state with the content I am f, where f is the nonconceptual analog of the conceptual F, then it
is rational for me to judge I am F because the correctness of the conceptual judgment
follows from the references rules for i and I and the fact that the subject who represents
himself as f is also the subject who judges himself to be F. In other words, the transition
from nonconceptual content to conceptual content is truth-‐preserving as a function of the
type of contents involved and, for Peacocke, that provides a sufficient explanation of the
While welcoming Peacocke’s commitment to the nonconceptual first person I do have
questions about the details of the account just sketched out – in particular about the
putative reference rule for the nonconceptual first person i. As Peacocke emphasizes, the
paradigm
examples
of
nonconceptual
first
person
concepts
are
perceptual
–
as
when
I
see
myself
approaching
a
tree
or
hear
someone
coming
closer
to
my
left.
It
is
very
unclear
to
me,
however, how perceptual content can have components that refer, in the way that linguistic
expressions or mental concepts do. When I see myself approaching a tree what I see is the
aiming point of the tree (of course), together with visual kinesthetic information about my
trajectory derived from optic flow and other sources. My body may feature in the
perception, or may not – depending on lighting, perspective, and so forth. But my body is
certainly not a referring expression and nor is there anything else in the content of
Theorists who, like Peacocke, see the content of perception as nonconceptual typically think
of it as analog rather than digital. Certainly the machinery of scenario content that Peacocke
developed in A Study of Concepts (1992) fits that description. But surely a minimal
requirement for perceptual content to have a component that refers is that it be digital,
rather than analog. In A Study of Concepts Peacocke postulated a level of content that he
termed protopropositional, but without giving much elucidation. I would imagine that the
nonconceptual first person i is located at the protopropositional level. But an important
challenge in developing Peacocke’s position is to flesh this account out, so that we know
exactly how the self is represented and referred to in perception and other nonconceptual
first person states. Peacocke seems to assume that (in this area) representation involves
The discussion up to now has focused on relatively simple instances of self-‐consciousness
associated
with
mental
and
physical
self-‐ascriptions.
One
of
the
most
interesting
features
of
the
book
is
Peacocke’s
discussion
in
Chapters
VIII
through
X
of
the
three
richer
forms
of
self-‐
and interpersonal self-‐consciousness. Perspectival self-‐consciousness is the ability to take a
third person perspective on oneself. Reflective self-‐ consciousness is de se awareness of
being in a de se state (and hence allows subjects to state and assess their reasons for being
in particular states). Interpersonal self-‐consciousness is my de se awareness that another
person is representing me as a self-‐representing subject (a subject of de se states). Peacocke
has many interesting things to say about these types of self-‐consciousness and their
interrelations. Many theorists (myself included) have thought that self-‐consciousness and
consciousness can be enjoyed without a conception of other minds (because third person
perspectives on oneself can be completely non-‐psychological). In fact, Peacocke also argues
because I can attribute psychological concepts to you without taking a third person
perspective on myself. Peacocke also suggests that reflective self-‐consciousness may also
Sadl;y there is no room for further discussion, or for comments on Peacocke’s interesting
engagement with Descartes, Kant, and Sartre, among other figures. As should be clear, this is
a very rich and rewarding book – required reading for anyone interested in the metaphysics