engleski

Brentano on Self-Consciousness

Franz Brentano distinguishes inner observation of one's own mental states, or introspection, from the peripheral awareness of one's own mental states, or inner consciousness. He claims that introspection is impossible, while inner consciousness is a basic feature of human experience, and the foundation of scientific psychology. He argues that the phenomenology of experience supports the claim that subjects are incidentally aware of their own mental states, by those very mental states, while being focused on non-mental objects. The mental states, therefore, represent themselves. Furthermore, such a model of self-consciousness is the only one capable of explaining the infallibility of self-consciousness, which Brentano holds evident. Finally, it is the only model, according to Brentano, that can avoid the postulation of unconscious mental states. In this paper, I analyze Brentano's arguments and find them insufficient. I also bring forth some independent problems for his theory.

Brentano ; inner observation ; inner consciousness ; attention ; phenomenology ; regress problem ; self-representation ; unconscious mental states

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