In his book, Mind: Your Consciousness is What and Where, Ted Honderich presents an illuminating discussion on consciousness while examining the five leading ideas about consciousness (Ch. 3) and other particular theories of consciousness (Ch. 7). He argues for the thesis that he calls Actualism – the theory or analysis of consciousness in terms of subjective physicalities, different in the cases of consciousness in perception, cognitive consciousness and affective consciousness, and an adequate initial clarification of ordinary consciousness as actual consciousness (Ch. 8 – 11). This book demonstrates unblemished analytical skill, strong sympathies towards empiricism (what he calls first-person empiricism) and a “concentration on the logic of ordinary intelligence” (p. 35).  

The present review of this book is written from a keen reader’s perspective and aimed at a general reader with no previous acquaintance with the debate on consciousness. This short write up will make few remarks on the stylistic framework and will mainly focus on Honderich’s line of thought to justify Actualism.

The first interesting fact about this book is the way it is written. It is not, in the strict sense (i.e. in the sense of being a Socratic dialogue) a dialogue, but nevertheless assumes the form of a quasi-dialogue – a dialogue where the author asks the reader to agree or disagree whenever he makes a claim about any of his position. It becomes more interesting when one disagrees with the author’s claim because it leads the reader to get ready for an inquiry not only into the main subject of the book, consciousness, but also into other issues related to consciousness.

This book has twelve chapters, in which the first is a disguised introduction, that invites the reader to consider the seriousness of the problem of consciousness and its possible relationship with different disciplines. The introduction, in the name of ‘Actualism Anticipated’ provides a detailed map of the book and shows that all the disagreement over the concept of consciousness is because the “theorists are just not talking the same thing” (p. 14-15). He demands “an adequate initial clarification” (p. 15) on consciousness and argues that we can come to the initial clarification from a kind of empiricism (p. 19) or what he calls a database (Ch. 4) and an analysis of five leading ideas of consciousness (Qualia, Something it’s Like to Be Something, Traditional Subjectivity, Aboutness, and Phenomenality).

The basic assumption he makes is that “we have a hold on our own consciousness” (p. 19, 56 &173). This assumption, and his understanding of the three parts of consciousness (perceptive, cognitive and affective) leads him to ask four main questions (Ch. 2). These are – what are these three parts of consciousness, what are their different natures? (p. 28) what do the three parts have in common? Or, in general, what is consciousness? (p. 28). Further, with these four questions, he asks a further significant question – where is consciousness? The author divides the problem into three categories: general, particular and subordinate. We can put the question of consciousness in the general category, questions on the parts of consciousness in the particular, and the question of “where” in the subordinate category.

In order to answer the questions mentioned above, he takes help from the database which is nothing but the mixed-data from our experiences, ontic and epistemic in nature, and can be a “starting point for perfectly literal theory or analysis of ordinary consciousness” (p. 58). In order to find the criterion for a robust theory of consciousness, he looks into the available theories of consciousness. He argues that “what is actual and what is for that to be actual are the two main questions, and a good theory of ordinary consciousness will have to satisfy the criteria of answering those questions” (60-61). He further claims that most of the theories fail because they focus on a) “not making consciousness a reality” (66), b) “making your consciousness not a cause, not causal in any clear sense” (66). So, unless and until any theory of consciousness fulfills these two criteria, it will not provide a robust understanding of consciousness.

In order to take consciousness as real, the author feels the need for an inquiry to understand “physicality suited to our inquiry, an ordinary and general” (85) because he considers being real as being physical. He comes up with sixteen properties for this purpose (Ch. 7).

Further, from the figurative database and the encapsulation of ordinary consciousness as something being actual, Honderich argues that the nature of perceptual consciousness is different from the nature of cognitive and affective taken together. In order to explain consciousness in general, he divides the inquiry into four further chapters; two taking perceptual consciousness in terms of actual and two taking cognitive and affective together in terms of its actuality. He argues that “what is actual with all perceptual consciousness is a subjective physical world” (p. 99). So, when you and I are perceiving the laptop screen or say, a piece of paper, perceptual consciousness is not about the screen or paper but, in short, is only the screen or paper.

A further question he deals with is – what is being actual in relation to perceptual consciousness? The author argues that in order to answer the question, we need to determine the characteristics of something being actual. He further shows “the characteristics of subjective physical worlds are physical ones and then subjective ones” (p. 110). He concludes that “to be perceptually conscious is for something in a way to be” (p. 112).

Furthermore, the author turns with the same question towards cognitive and affective consciousness (Ch. 10). The natural answer which he thinks would satisfy us is representations or aboutness. These representations are linguistic representations. He takes a great deal of help from relationism or computerism, Fodor’s LOT (language of thought), and evolutionary causalism (together they are known as lingualism) to explain representations. He concludes that “what is actual is not itself just a thing or object, as in the case of perceptual consciousness, but is a thing about another thing” (p. 138).

The next question he deals with is – what is for representation to be actual in relation to cognitive and affective consciousness? Similar to the characteristics of perceptual consciousness, it also has physical and subjective properties. In Honderich’s aphorism, “to be cognitively or affectively conscious is for a kind of thing, representations, in a way to be” (p. 152). It means that the representations being actual was their being subjectively physical.

In the concluding chapter, he demonstrates the full summary of his theory of Actualism in the form of a table of categories which explains all the sixteen characteristics of subjective physicality. Actualism is both an externalism and an internalism which answers the question of the nature of the ordinary consciousness. It is a physicalism about consciousness but completely different from scientific physicalism. Honderich’s book is not just about his thesis, he gives the readers many theoretical exercises and interesting puzzles to ponder over, and now it is upto the readers to decide whether and how the exercises help in understanding the author’s position better.

As far as my understanding goes, Honderich’s book encompasses the broad discussion on the nature of consciousness and provides a solid ground to take the discussion of consciousness into another level. It does not only provide the philosophers or students of philosophy a new perspective but also opens up the doors for scientists to take the issue of consciousness into consideration. His claim that everyone has a hold on one’s own consciousness, which makes his position more interesting as it forces every reader to inquire about his own hold.

To summarize, this book is a valuable contribution to the field of consciousness in general and sub-fields of consciousness in particular, and it deserves a careful study. This book is remarkable in involving its audience within its argument, or as the author himself says “you are not supposed to be just a free rider on this train” (p. 78).

© 2018 Prashant Kumar

Prashant Kumar, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, Delhi, India