The philosophical
and scientific study of consciousness is somewhat of a black sheep in
contemporary thought. The brain, for instance, is designated legitimate for
scientific study, presumably because it can be empirically dissected. The mind,
too, has been awarded its own philosophical pedestal – philosophy of mind
– partly in response to the scientific pretensions of psychology, and partly in
response to the need for a philosophical recycle bin wherein that ‘loose
collection of topics and issues that didn’t fall neatly into any one of the
traditional subdivisions of philosophy’may be chewed over (See C. Echelbarger,
(2002) Mind and Morals, Philosophy Now, Issue 36, June/July, p. 6).
Consciousness, by contrast, remains unqualified: its intangibility renders it
off-limits to science and the term philosophy of consciousness raises
too many philosophical eyebrows. Rejected by both science and philosophy, it
has been relegated to consciousness studies.

Now the study of
consciousness, as opposed to the mind, is relatively new: philosophy of mind
can be dated back to Ryle’s influential The Concept of Mind of 1947,
whereas consciousness studies take off only in 1974 with the publication of
Thomas Nagel’s famous article ‘What is it like to be a bat?’ Philosophers,
therefore, notorious as they are for their reluctance (fear?) to accept
anything new (and anything less than thirty years old is considered infantile),
might be excused for not endowing consciousness with the honorific philosophy
of.

Their reluctance,
however, does betray, at times, a more sinister angle. Consider, for instance,
the roundtable discussion, comprised of ‘those esteemed individuals deemed
important enough to be included in the Library of Living Philosophers,’
during the Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy in 1998.  (All citations regarding the roundtable
discussion are taken from The Philosophers’ Magazine’s special issue on
the World Congress (Issue
Five, Winter 1999, pp. 40-42)). Although the discussion was somewhat of an
overall disappointment, strictly concerning the matter at hand consciousness
was not even mentioned – except by Marjorie Grene, a philosopher who, like all
those of whom the Library has dedicated a volume, has risen to the
‘philosophical equivalent of sanctification.’ In what has been described as a
‘brief and witty intervention,’ Grene ‘added bite to the proceedings with some
spiky, provocative comments,’ which were neither contested nor endorsed by her
fellow living saints:

I do think it’s
wrong to be a Cartesian. What I sometimes say about Descartes is that the only
true statement he made was, ‘I was born 1596’ (sic). I hate to say
anything good about Heidegger. He was evil and we ought to forget him if we
can, but he was right in wanting to get rid of consciousness as a central
philosophical term. I’m just sick and tired of consciousness.

If Grene is to be
taken literally, philosophy is to revert to its medieval scholasticism, the
value of philosophical works is to be judged by the character of their authors,
and human beings, if they are to be an object of philosophical investigation,
are to be approached as consciousness-less beings, that is, as dead. If such is
the bite and, significantly, the silent reaction of the ‘great minds’ at the
end of the twentieth century, consciousness finds lined up against it the
greatest intellectual (conscious?) powers in contemporary philosophy and so
will most likely remain worthy of studies, as opposed to philosophy, for
a long time to come.

Interestingly, consciousness studies
is very much like philosophy. It has a well-developed complex jargon, the level
of argument is extremely scholarly, each new book proposes new insights founded
upon a critique of previous works, and most authors in this area are philosophers.
In fact, the only reason why it has failed to win the honorific philosophy
of may lie due to its seeming over-reliance on thought experiments, some of
which have acquired cult status: Chinese rooms, Chinese nations, Zombies, Giant
Lookup Tables, Abused scientists, Deviants and Demons. Philosophy is, of
course, strewn with thought experiments and even the face of science was
changed forever through Einstein’s pure thought experiments. The difference in
consciousness studies, however, is that intuitive conceivability is held up as
the condition to accept any particular conclusion. Such conceptual possibility,
justified on the basis of what seems conceivable to our present position on
thought’s evolutionary path, is hardly a reliable measure for accepting any
apparent novel insights – as the history of scientific thought shows.

Enter The Nature of Consciousness,
a book filled with scholarly argument, well-developed — but also well-defined
— complex jargon, excellent critique of all the previous important works of
the field (thought experiments included) and written by a philosophy lecturer.
This book is required reading not only for those wanting to get to grips with
what is going on in consciousness studies, but for those who are dissatisfied
with the current accounts which, as Rowlands points out, tend to base
themselves on an objectualist thesis. In treating and successfully demolishing
the current approach to consciousness as object, Rowlands simultaneously
resurrects the consciousness-as-activity thesis which was buried with the last
of the great Husserlian-inspired French phenomenologists, Jean-Paul Sartre. In
arguing for the fissured, hybrid nature of consciousness, moreover, as well as
in concluding his book with an argument about human freedom based directly on
such a nature, Rowlands is more Sartrean than perhaps he recognises or cares to
mention. Any Sartrean affiliation, however, is not so important, and neither is
Rowlands’ somewhat superficial treatment of Sartre. What is important is that
his style and arguments are much tighter and stronger than those of either
Sartre or Husserl. Due to this, Rowland’s book demands attention from the
reader and there are enough frequent pauses, interspersed between the detailed
analyses, to allow for recuperation and the maintenance of the overall picture.

There is only one weakness – and
this it shares with all books in consciousness studies. Consider that, of all
phenomena in the world, consciousness is the only one that may be said to
enable knowledge: it is the only epistemological phenomenon. Yet, no one in
this field has yet to treat it as such – including Rowlands. In contrast to his
predecessors, however, Rowlands’ take on consciousness at least opens the door
to such a treatment. Moreover, it is a take that attracts phenomenology, not
least the one school of thought which defined twentieth century philosophy.
Coupling this with Rowlands’ skilful avoidance of the trap of intuited
conceivability, one can justifiably conclude that he may have single-handedly
transformed consciousness studies into philosophy of consciousness.

© 2002 Ion Georgiou

Ion Georgiou is Visiting Professor at the
Universidade Estadual do Sudoeste da Bahia, Brazil, and Senior Lecturer at
Kingston University, England, having also taught and undertaken research at the
London School of Economics. His main interests are Ludwig von Bertalanffy’s
General System Theory, Phenomenology, in particular the philosophies of Husserl
and Sartre, Management Methods and Problem Structuring Methods. Fluent in five
languages, he has consulted on commercial and academically-linked public
projects across Europe and Brazil and has taught at universities in Russia and
Spain.

Categories: Philosophical