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Consciousness: revised and revived
THURSDAY, JUNE 10 -
JEUDI LE 10 JUIN
SYMPOSIUM CONSCIOUSNESS:
REVISED
LA CONSCIENCE Chairman
AND
REVIVED
REVALORISEE -
Pre’sident
ROBERT B. MACLEOD (Cornell) Discussion Sir FREDERIC C. BARTLETT (Cambridge), EDWIN G. BORING (Harvard), EGON BRUNSWIK (California), DANIEL LAGACHE (Paris), WOLFGANG METZGER (Miinster) Papers -
CONSCIOUSNESS
Communications
AND THE PHENOMENOLOGICAL TO PSYCHOLOGY
APPROACH
BY ALBERT WELLEK (Mainz)
The phenomenological method in psychology is descriptive and consequently aims at “Verstehen” (understanding of meaningful structures). It has various forms and different fields of application. There is: 1. phenomenology “from inside” or from the internal viewpoint, i.e., the description of direct experience and introspective phenomena; 2. phenomenology “from outside” or from the external viewpoint, derived from objects a> as objects of expression, which leads back to introspective analysis (see 1. above), b) as objects of appearance or apparent objects, i.e. of phenomena as such. Conforming to the possibility mentioned under (b), personality traits and the principles of the structure of characters the developmental aspects
CONSCIOUSNESS:
REVISED
AND
REVIVED
157
of psychoanalysis, etc. can be the subject matter for phenomenological analysis as well as colors, feeling, thinking, willing, imagination, the physiognomic qualities, or any other processes and states of consciousness. Without the application of the phenomenological method, all these facts can neither be sighted nor understood with regard to their specific qualities and meaningful connections. This means that a psychology without phenomenology is no psychology at all, nor is it any longer a satisfying science which can be developed to some sort of perfection. For example, it would be impossible to establish either characterology, psychoanalysis, or characterological diagnosis. These necessarily depend upon the phenomenological method, even where the technique has pretensions of exactitude in the usual sense of the word (see Rorschach, TAT). As a rule, we can find experimental verification ex post for the phenomenological demonstration. This is true also of characterology, even though the problem of experimental approach presents great difficulties in this field. For instance, the theoretical concept of the existence and the structure of a “character core” which various authors have reached through purely phenomenological means, can be experimentally verified in hypnosis by the occurrence of a “character barrier”. The invasion of the postulated “core” is regularly resisted either by a severance of the rapport or by a refusal to fulfill the post-hypnotic command. This is done every time in a different manner according to the peculiarity of the hypnotized person. Thus, experimental hypnosis becomes a means for character diagnosis. The behavioral fmdings (in hypnosis) will verify what had been found before in phenomenological demonstration. It is a methodological circle to say that one can consider character traits and personality structures as existent only if we have “measured” them by specific tests. The test does not tell me what it measures, but I tell the test what it measures. It is true that the phenomenological method is not exact in the same sense as the inorganic sciences; nevertheless it is objective inasmuch as it leads to intersubjective and essential results, when it is practised correctly. Both the “operationalist” and the phenomenologist are right, each according to his own method. Their concepts of knowledge cannot be entirely different, as has been recently argued. Not only can and should the phenomenologist satisfy the operationalist by providing him with experimental proof and statistical data, but the operationalist also must submit his results (e.g. of a “factor analysis”) to phenomenological control and interpretation. No system of psychology can be possible unless these two methods or aspects can be brought into agreement.
158
CONSCIOUSNESS: REVISED AND REVIVED
CONSCIOUSNESS,
BEHAVIOR
AND
PERSONALITY
BY JOSEPH NUTTIN
(Louvain)
Psychologists who work in the fields of cognition and perception still frequently consider the perceived world as an internal “representation” of a real external world. This “representation” theory is strongly rooted in psychology, but it originates in a philosophical speculation which raises the question of a “reality” underlying the objects of cognition. From the viewpoint of the psychological study of behavior, the perceived world is by no means a representation inside of man (or inside consciousness) of some object whose real existence lies outside of him. The perceived world is the real world itself and perception consists of direct contact with the environment. For this reason the notion of consciousness, as it has been developed within the framework of introspective psychology, is in need of revision. Consciousness does not refer primarily to an internal world made up of representations; it consists of a direct awareness and of an immediate presence of the world itself. Consciousness therefore signifies before all else “exposure to the real world” and not “confinement in an internal world of representation”. Consciousness establishes man as a being who lives and behaves in the world, thus consciousness is an essential aspect of behavior. As to the concept of personality, nothing is less in conformity with reality than to conceive of personality as a pure internal structure of traits, aptitudes, etc. Personality signihes a specific modality of existence and of activity which is characterized by the fact of involvement in a situation or in the world. The fundamental structure is therefore a unity, an “egoworld”, and not an internal organization of an ego. If, as Lewin says, it is true that the personality governing behavior is a part of the psychological field, it must not be forgotten that the psychological field itself, more basically, enters into the make-up of personality. Motivation also must be looked at in relation to the fact that man lives in a meaningful world. To realize himself in this world, and to be integrated therein appears to be the fundamental aim of his motivation. The science of behavior and of personality therefore can not make an abstraction out of the concept of consciousness, in the sense of exposure to the world. The introduction of the notion of consciousness solves no concrete scientific problem regarding behavior, but it is necessary to appeal to the concept in order to formulate and to come to grips with the problems of behavior and of personality in a realistic fashion.
159
CONSCIOUSNESS: REVISED AND REVIVED
CONSCIOUSNESS, THE INTERACTION
PERCEPTUAL WORLD, WITH OTHERS
AND
BY FRITZ HEIDER
(Kansas)
The problem of consciousness gains a special significance if we consider the relations and interactions between people. If two persons interact, one person can perceive the other one perceiving or intending to do something, his emotions may refer to and interact with the other person’s emotions. They both are open to the other’s openness to themselves. We do not react in the same way to persons and things; persons and things do not play the same role in our perceptual world. This difference is not produced simply by the fact that other persons have consciousness. It can only be understood if we relate it to the fact that entities endowed with consciousness do not function in the same way as things function. Persons and things play a different role in the causal structure of the environment. For instance, persons show equi-finality or distal invariance in their actions, a person can attain his ends in spite of variation in the means. In other words, a person shows cognition and purpose. Cognition and purpose has been considered with the cognizing and behaving organism as reference point. Here we have to consider cognition and purpose with the recipient of purposeful behavior as reference point. What does it mean to a person when his satisfactions and frustrations form the goals of another person? Such considerations show that the way in which we naively experience other persons in our life space represents more or less adequately the specific way of functioning of other persons. The idea of personal causality or of personal responsibility, is justified by the pattern of events which purposive behavior implies. We do not react in the same way when we are threatened by another person or when we are threatened by something that does not act purposefully, and we do not experience the threat in the same way. Similarly, being perceived by another person, or being an object of his cognition has its specific meaning for us because of the functions of perception, that is, the effects perception has on the behavior and attitudes of the other person. Thus all interactions between people have to be understood in terms of the fact that they are mutually “open” to each other, and at the same time open toward the same environment.
160 CONSCIOUSNESS
CONSCIOUSNESS:
AND
REVISED
AND
THE UNCONSCIOUS THE HUMAN BEING
REVIVED
IN A MODEL
OF
BY
SILVAN S.
TOMKINS
(Princeton)
The dubious status of the concept of consciousness is a derivative of a theory of causality-a theory which assumes that the relationship between events is either determinate or capricious. When the ideological barricade has been so raised, no scientist will waver. Strict allegiance must be exacted by any concept which has but two values. Instead of asking the question determinate or indeterminate, of the relationship between any two events, one may ask the question possible or impossible? It then appears that ‘a’ followed by ‘b’ may be impossible, or at least never observed, or that ‘a’ may be followed by ‘b’ if ‘a’ has been preceded by ‘c’, but not otherwise. The two ends of this longish continuum would be that nothing is possible and everything is possible. We will call one pole complete redundancy-nothing can be changed. The other pole we will call pure randomness-everything can be changed in any way. This is our own definition of a random series. Causal relations can thus be ordered to a continuum of complexity. By complexity we mean the number of independently variable states within a system. The more homogeneous the system, the more redundant-the more heterogeneous, the greater the degrees of freedom in the system. Consciousness, we propose, is a type of duplication in nature. One part of space duplicates itself in another part of space. A living system seems to provide the necessary but not sufficient conditions for the phenomenon. A living system, whether conscious or not, is also capable of duplication. A part of the system is capable of duplicating not only itself, but also the whole of which it is a part in such a way that an infinite progress is possible. When we change the direction of the time arrow we are confronted with paradox. The relationship between the germ cells and the rest of the body is similar to that between the body as a whole and the environment, when there is consciousness. Duplicability is a necessary condition for any increment in transformability or complexity in any system, formal or empirical. In a formal system such as arithmetic there is an implicit assumption of duplicability that there are as many ones for example, as the mathematician may ever need. In other formal systems, such as games, the number of elements of each kind, say pawns in chess, is stated to be some specific number. With every increase in number of duplicates a game becomes more complex. Similarly organic compounds
CONSCIOUSNESS:
REVISED
AND
REVIVED
161
outnumber all other chemical compounds in the ratio of about ten to one. The existence of this large number of organic compounds is due tb the unique capacity of carbon atoms to unite with themselves to form rings of more or less complexity. The role of consciousness is the enabling of a more informed mobility. In this respect it is similar to the achievement of a constant internal temperature. It is not the only way in which the organism might have been informed. How to clot a bleeding finger is knowledge which we may or may not inherit genetically. It is conceivable that nature might have known herself well enough to build into mobile organisms, knowledge and competence to deal effectively with future contingencies. Although we believe that consciousness is one of the most important capacities of the human being, it needs to be assigned a place and function within a more general model of the human being. We believe the human being can be best understood as an intercommunication system for the reception, transmission, translation and transformation of messages, conscious and unconscious. Who says what to whom must be specified as well as what may not be said. In such a venture the analysis of language transformations assumes a critical importance. Man owes his superiority not to his possession of language. He owes his possession of language to the superiority of his nervous system.
JEUDI LE 10 JUIN
SYMPOSIUM CONSCIOUSNESS:
REVISED
LA CONSCIENCE Chairman
AND
REVIVED
REVALORISEE -
Pre’sident
ROBERT B. MACLEOD (Cornell) Discussion Sir FREDERIC C. BARTLETT (Cambridge), EDWIN G. BORING (Harvard), EGON BRUNSWIK (California), DANIEL LAGACHE (Paris), WOLFGANG METZGER (Miinster) Papers -
CONSCIOUSNESS
Communications
AND THE PHENOMENOLOGICAL TO PSYCHOLOGY
APPROACH
BY ALBERT WELLEK (Mainz)
The phenomenological method in psychology is descriptive and consequently aims at “Verstehen” (understanding of meaningful structures). It has various forms and different fields of application. There is: 1. phenomenology “from inside” or from the internal viewpoint, i.e., the description of direct experience and introspective phenomena; 2. phenomenology “from outside” or from the external viewpoint, derived from objects a> as objects of expression, which leads back to introspective analysis (see 1. above), b) as objects of appearance or apparent objects, i.e. of phenomena as such. Conforming to the possibility mentioned under (b), personality traits and the principles of the structure of characters the developmental aspects
CONSCIOUSNESS:
REVISED
AND
REVIVED
157
of psychoanalysis, etc. can be the subject matter for phenomenological analysis as well as colors, feeling, thinking, willing, imagination, the physiognomic qualities, or any other processes and states of consciousness. Without the application of the phenomenological method, all these facts can neither be sighted nor understood with regard to their specific qualities and meaningful connections. This means that a psychology without phenomenology is no psychology at all, nor is it any longer a satisfying science which can be developed to some sort of perfection. For example, it would be impossible to establish either characterology, psychoanalysis, or characterological diagnosis. These necessarily depend upon the phenomenological method, even where the technique has pretensions of exactitude in the usual sense of the word (see Rorschach, TAT). As a rule, we can find experimental verification ex post for the phenomenological demonstration. This is true also of characterology, even though the problem of experimental approach presents great difficulties in this field. For instance, the theoretical concept of the existence and the structure of a “character core” which various authors have reached through purely phenomenological means, can be experimentally verified in hypnosis by the occurrence of a “character barrier”. The invasion of the postulated “core” is regularly resisted either by a severance of the rapport or by a refusal to fulfill the post-hypnotic command. This is done every time in a different manner according to the peculiarity of the hypnotized person. Thus, experimental hypnosis becomes a means for character diagnosis. The behavioral fmdings (in hypnosis) will verify what had been found before in phenomenological demonstration. It is a methodological circle to say that one can consider character traits and personality structures as existent only if we have “measured” them by specific tests. The test does not tell me what it measures, but I tell the test what it measures. It is true that the phenomenological method is not exact in the same sense as the inorganic sciences; nevertheless it is objective inasmuch as it leads to intersubjective and essential results, when it is practised correctly. Both the “operationalist” and the phenomenologist are right, each according to his own method. Their concepts of knowledge cannot be entirely different, as has been recently argued. Not only can and should the phenomenologist satisfy the operationalist by providing him with experimental proof and statistical data, but the operationalist also must submit his results (e.g. of a “factor analysis”) to phenomenological control and interpretation. No system of psychology can be possible unless these two methods or aspects can be brought into agreement.
158
CONSCIOUSNESS: REVISED AND REVIVED
CONSCIOUSNESS,
BEHAVIOR
AND
PERSONALITY
BY JOSEPH NUTTIN
(Louvain)
Psychologists who work in the fields of cognition and perception still frequently consider the perceived world as an internal “representation” of a real external world. This “representation” theory is strongly rooted in psychology, but it originates in a philosophical speculation which raises the question of a “reality” underlying the objects of cognition. From the viewpoint of the psychological study of behavior, the perceived world is by no means a representation inside of man (or inside consciousness) of some object whose real existence lies outside of him. The perceived world is the real world itself and perception consists of direct contact with the environment. For this reason the notion of consciousness, as it has been developed within the framework of introspective psychology, is in need of revision. Consciousness does not refer primarily to an internal world made up of representations; it consists of a direct awareness and of an immediate presence of the world itself. Consciousness therefore signifies before all else “exposure to the real world” and not “confinement in an internal world of representation”. Consciousness establishes man as a being who lives and behaves in the world, thus consciousness is an essential aspect of behavior. As to the concept of personality, nothing is less in conformity with reality than to conceive of personality as a pure internal structure of traits, aptitudes, etc. Personality signihes a specific modality of existence and of activity which is characterized by the fact of involvement in a situation or in the world. The fundamental structure is therefore a unity, an “egoworld”, and not an internal organization of an ego. If, as Lewin says, it is true that the personality governing behavior is a part of the psychological field, it must not be forgotten that the psychological field itself, more basically, enters into the make-up of personality. Motivation also must be looked at in relation to the fact that man lives in a meaningful world. To realize himself in this world, and to be integrated therein appears to be the fundamental aim of his motivation. The science of behavior and of personality therefore can not make an abstraction out of the concept of consciousness, in the sense of exposure to the world. The introduction of the notion of consciousness solves no concrete scientific problem regarding behavior, but it is necessary to appeal to the concept in order to formulate and to come to grips with the problems of behavior and of personality in a realistic fashion.
159
CONSCIOUSNESS: REVISED AND REVIVED
CONSCIOUSNESS, THE INTERACTION
PERCEPTUAL WORLD, WITH OTHERS
AND
BY FRITZ HEIDER
(Kansas)
The problem of consciousness gains a special significance if we consider the relations and interactions between people. If two persons interact, one person can perceive the other one perceiving or intending to do something, his emotions may refer to and interact with the other person’s emotions. They both are open to the other’s openness to themselves. We do not react in the same way to persons and things; persons and things do not play the same role in our perceptual world. This difference is not produced simply by the fact that other persons have consciousness. It can only be understood if we relate it to the fact that entities endowed with consciousness do not function in the same way as things function. Persons and things play a different role in the causal structure of the environment. For instance, persons show equi-finality or distal invariance in their actions, a person can attain his ends in spite of variation in the means. In other words, a person shows cognition and purpose. Cognition and purpose has been considered with the cognizing and behaving organism as reference point. Here we have to consider cognition and purpose with the recipient of purposeful behavior as reference point. What does it mean to a person when his satisfactions and frustrations form the goals of another person? Such considerations show that the way in which we naively experience other persons in our life space represents more or less adequately the specific way of functioning of other persons. The idea of personal causality or of personal responsibility, is justified by the pattern of events which purposive behavior implies. We do not react in the same way when we are threatened by another person or when we are threatened by something that does not act purposefully, and we do not experience the threat in the same way. Similarly, being perceived by another person, or being an object of his cognition has its specific meaning for us because of the functions of perception, that is, the effects perception has on the behavior and attitudes of the other person. Thus all interactions between people have to be understood in terms of the fact that they are mutually “open” to each other, and at the same time open toward the same environment.
160 CONSCIOUSNESS
CONSCIOUSNESS:
AND
REVISED
AND
THE UNCONSCIOUS THE HUMAN BEING
REVIVED
IN A MODEL
OF
BY
SILVAN S.
TOMKINS
(Princeton)
The dubious status of the concept of consciousness is a derivative of a theory of causality-a theory which assumes that the relationship between events is either determinate or capricious. When the ideological barricade has been so raised, no scientist will waver. Strict allegiance must be exacted by any concept which has but two values. Instead of asking the question determinate or indeterminate, of the relationship between any two events, one may ask the question possible or impossible? It then appears that ‘a’ followed by ‘b’ may be impossible, or at least never observed, or that ‘a’ may be followed by ‘b’ if ‘a’ has been preceded by ‘c’, but not otherwise. The two ends of this longish continuum would be that nothing is possible and everything is possible. We will call one pole complete redundancy-nothing can be changed. The other pole we will call pure randomness-everything can be changed in any way. This is our own definition of a random series. Causal relations can thus be ordered to a continuum of complexity. By complexity we mean the number of independently variable states within a system. The more homogeneous the system, the more redundant-the more heterogeneous, the greater the degrees of freedom in the system. Consciousness, we propose, is a type of duplication in nature. One part of space duplicates itself in another part of space. A living system seems to provide the necessary but not sufficient conditions for the phenomenon. A living system, whether conscious or not, is also capable of duplication. A part of the system is capable of duplicating not only itself, but also the whole of which it is a part in such a way that an infinite progress is possible. When we change the direction of the time arrow we are confronted with paradox. The relationship between the germ cells and the rest of the body is similar to that between the body as a whole and the environment, when there is consciousness. Duplicability is a necessary condition for any increment in transformability or complexity in any system, formal or empirical. In a formal system such as arithmetic there is an implicit assumption of duplicability that there are as many ones for example, as the mathematician may ever need. In other formal systems, such as games, the number of elements of each kind, say pawns in chess, is stated to be some specific number. With every increase in number of duplicates a game becomes more complex. Similarly organic compounds
CONSCIOUSNESS:
REVISED
AND
REVIVED
161
outnumber all other chemical compounds in the ratio of about ten to one. The existence of this large number of organic compounds is due tb the unique capacity of carbon atoms to unite with themselves to form rings of more or less complexity. The role of consciousness is the enabling of a more informed mobility. In this respect it is similar to the achievement of a constant internal temperature. It is not the only way in which the organism might have been informed. How to clot a bleeding finger is knowledge which we may or may not inherit genetically. It is conceivable that nature might have known herself well enough to build into mobile organisms, knowledge and competence to deal effectively with future contingencies. Although we believe that consciousness is one of the most important capacities of the human being, it needs to be assigned a place and function within a more general model of the human being. We believe the human being can be best understood as an intercommunication system for the reception, transmission, translation and transformation of messages, conscious and unconscious. Who says what to whom must be specified as well as what may not be said. In such a venture the analysis of language transformations assumes a critical importance. Man owes his superiority not to his possession of language. He owes his possession of language to the superiority of his nervous system.