Some mental states are conscious, and some are unconscious. A mental state is conscious if its subject is aware of its transpiring. But what is the structure of the inner awareness that so defines consciousness per se -the property of a mental state that consists in its being conscious?
When I am aware of my passing experience, in consciousness, I am ipso facto aware of myself as subject of that experience. What is the structure of that self-consciousness?
Here I propose a theory of these two forms of awareness.
1. Traditional troubles
Descartes was onto something, l I am not indubitably certain, in consciousness, that I exist and that I am thinking such-and-such. But for so long as I am conscious, consciously thinking such-and-such, I am aware that I am so thinking. And that awareness -of my experience and so of myself-defines consciousness.
Yet modern philosophy was soon beset with puzzles about the self, self-awareness, and inner awareness of experience.
Looking into himself, Hume said he could find no self but only a stream of 'perceptions'. Husserl followed suit, but later said he'd found the pure egoafter he learned not to be misled by 'corrupt" metaphysics. Sartre concluded the ego appears only when one looks for it, and then only out of the corner of the eye, at the 'horizon', when one is not looking at it. Woody Alien surmised that one must feign indifference and then run quickly to the other end of the room in hopes of catching a glimpse of oneself. Some philosophers even suggested a paradox in self-awareness, or in the very notion of ego: one cannot grasp oneself qua subject or ego, because grasping oneself makes one an object, not a subject, of one's awareness. 2