How do we become self-conscious?
A STUDY OF ROYCE’S REVOLUTIONARY VIEWS
‘It has been customary in psychology to conceive of man as first forming together his notion of himself as this person, then of the external world, and lastly of other persons as existent beside himself. I regard this whole view as subject to the most important changes.’ (Royce) Which changes does Royce have in mind? Are they justified?
In his paper The External World and Social Consciousness, Royce is dedicated to presenting some ideas concerning the extent to which our notion of the world depends upon others. Not content with expounding the large and obvious dependence of each individual on society – in that, as he claims, “only to the very smallest degree are any of us able to verify, in our own persons, the existence and the nature of the Reality in which we all believe” (Royce, 1894) –, Royce develops a more radical argument that leads him to reconsider the traditional way of viewing man “as first forming together his notion of himself as this person, then of the external world, and lastly of other persons as existent beside himself” (Royce, 1894).
From his analysis, Royce is convinced that “each one of us believed in the existence of other minds before he became conscious of his own mind as such” (Royce, 1894). It is this, I believe, his major conclusion. How this conclusion demands revisiting our customary way of understanding man is straightforward.
In this essay, I will attempt to expound what Royce’s notion of self-consciousness is and how, which is his main point, we ‘grow’ self-conscious through interactions with other conscious beings.
For the first part of the essay, we shall consider what Royce understands as the notion of externality of beasts and babies1, and we shall see how it differs from that of grown-ups(2), who see the external world as “apt material for social communication” (Royce, 1894). For the second part, we shall explore how – guided by Royce’s example of a human child and imitation – we become socially conscious; in this analysis, a contradiction will arise to challenge Royce’s ideas. Thirdly, the jump from social consciousness to self-consciousness will be dealt with. For the last part, a consideration of Edith Stein’s thoughts on empathy will reveal great similitude between both and, most importantly, how we ought to overcome Royce’s difficulties.
Externality
Upon hearing that Royce claimed that we are first conscious of others and then of the external world, one might be surprised and quickly answer that it is simply impossible, for being conscious of other minds already implies some notion of externality. It is plain. Now, when one reads Royce, a new dimension is unveiled and a more careful definition of that ‘notion of externality’ is required. In what follows, Royce’s notions of externality will be considered.
No one would deny that beasts or babies are conscious of some external world existing beyond them. Antelopes run away from lions. Ants work for their colony. Babies cry until they get some milk. Of course, it is impossible to get into their minds and see the world as they see it, and a full analysis of the phenomenology of animals falls out of the scope of this essay(3); however, it seems reasonable to affirm that they see other physical objects and they interact with them, maybe revealing some self-awareness. In this line of thought, Sokolowski emphasises that “almost any experience we have [...] is accompanied by some self-awareness” (Sokolowski, 2008). Royce calls this a primitive notion of externality. Whether this notion is more or less complex – compare, for instance, the life of an amoeba with that of other gregarious mammals – is not relevant since they are fundamentally primitive.
But Royce is not interested in this stage of consciousness. He admits that “In the absolute order of nature, das Ich(4) is, indeed, in advance, since were not man from the start implicitly self- conscious, he would never become explicitly such.” (Royce, 1894). Royce’s concerns are about our current stage of self-consciousness. He stresses “that the idea of a real external world, such as the infant [...] must not in the least be confounded with the idea that you and I, ever since we learned to converse freely with our fellows, have possessed of the meaning of externality” (Royce, 1894).
Let us now turn to the notion of externality we possess, the mature notion. The differential factor, according to Royce, is that “our external world exists for other minds besides our own private mind” (Royce, 1894).
This statement leads Royce to redefine what is meant as external for a mind at this stage. It is not only, now, that physical bodies exist, and that I can interact in some way or another with them, but, further, it implies that what I call ‘external’ is also seen by others and, thus, it must be communicable to others. Only those things that we can all see and talk about are external. Communication has become the differentiating factor between externality and internality, what Royce calls the a priori principle to determine nature. It must be noted that communication means social communication and, thus, to talk about or to become conscious of the external world we must first be conscious of other minds! To put it in his own words,
“The assertion that what you and I mean by Nature is, as a finite reality, something whose very conception we have actually derived from our social relations with one another” (Royce, 1895)
Hopefully, this claim no longer sounds as shocking as it did at the beginning. Later in his paper, Royce will delve into a study of what kind of things we ought to call external (space, motion, etc). This will take him to conclude that “the outer world, as such, is essentially the determinate world” (Royce, 1894) since determinateness is a conditio sine qua non for communication. His further study of externality, as so contrasted with internality, will be determinant in Royce’s later philosophical inclination towards idealism – as seen in his later publication of Self- consciousness, Social consciousness, and Nature –, but we shall not delve further into this aspect for the time being.
We have seen so far, the two different stages of consciousness, referred to the external world. The primitive conscious mind of babies or beasts and the mature conscious mind of adults(5). This latter stage is for Royce the stage of humans, for this reason, babies evolve from the primitive to the mature, and this is, thus, the kind of consciousness that he is interested in. This distinction – I shall say again, at the risk of being too obvious or sounding repetitive – is key in our study of Royce. It allows us to comprehend what Royce means when saying that consciousness of the external world is posterior to consciousness of other minds. Moreover, such distinction will later render a fundamental middle point in becoming self-conscious.
But how then do we become conscious of other minds? And, thus, how does “a man becomes self-conscious only in the most intimate connection with the growth of his social consciousness” (Royce, 1895)? These two questions will be our topic of discussion for the next section.
How do we become conscious of other minds?
According to Royce, to be conscious of other minds is to “stand in social relations” (Royce, 1894). By this, he means that “I believe in other human experience than mine in so far as I notice other people's expressive acts, and then gradually interpret them through social conformity”(6). (Royce, 1895). This I believe, is Royce’s most controversial and fatal statement. It is his idealism that binds him to such a statement and, as we will later see, unless we accept some degree of realism, like Stein does with empathy, we will not escape the following objections.
Firstly, we ought to better define what is meant by an ‘expressive act’. Royce himself only says that it has no meaning on its own, but “just in so far as I am able to imitate these deeds of his by bodily acts of my own” (Royce, 1895). Hence, an expressive act in itself, devoid of meaning, is nothing but a mere body movement. It should make no difference to see my mum (though I may not know yet who or what she is) raising her arm or smiling at me, since her smile carries no meaning. It is only through my imitation of those body movements, Royce claims, that I find some meaning for those movements. If I smile, I find myself cheered up. Or if I cry, I find myself suddenly saddened. Hence, it follows, as Royce realises, that:
“... this inner meaning which the act gets when I repeat it, becomes for me the objective meaning of the act as my fellow performs it; and thus the meaning of the imitated act, [...] gets conceived as the real meaning, the inner experience of my fellow, [...]” (Royce, 1895).
I will ask the reader to excuse me for including a rather long quotation, but I believe it is most relevant to our discussion, for it is a refutation of Royce’s thesis.
In an attempt to clarify what is here at stake, I may ask the reader to imagine the following scenario, similar to the one suggested by Royce in his 1894 paper(7). Imagine a baby, in the early stages of his life. He perceives the external world and, we may say, is, to some extent, self- aware, according to what we considered in the first part of the present essay. Now, among some physical objects out there, there are some to which he finds instinctively attracted, an “instinctive disposition of the being destined to social life” (Royce, 1894). These, we now know, are other minds, other fellows. And he is compelled, instinctively too, to imitate them. In imitating those beings – in fact, in imitating the ‘expressive acts’ of those beings –, the baby discovers or finds some inner meaning in them; a meaning that was not present, neither explicitly nor implicitly, in the acts themselves. This new meaning that only I experience becomes the ‘objective’ meaning of those acts and, thus, the meaning of the acts I was imitating. Hence, I know that the physical outer body I was inclined to imitate holds some inner meaning. And, therefore, it is a conscious body, a fellow. This last step is straightforward though it implies that to be a conscious being means to have some inner meaning or will or as we may define it.
I hope this mental exercise is sufficient to show how Royce disregards a crucial point in his theory of imitation: that, if the inner meaning of the acts I see in another body is sufficient to make me conscious that it is, in fact, another conscious mind, then, the inner meaning I first experience in myself during my imitation must also be sufficient to make me self-conscious. In other words, what makes us socially conscious should have, first, made us self-conscious. Royce’s theory of imitation is rendered, then, as a refutation of his claims.(8)
It must be noted that Royce does not explicitly refer to bodily movements as the only content of our perception. However, his account of ‘expressive acts’ can only be understood as bodily movements in the sense that Mill understands them, this is: devoid of meaning. Thus, I believe, Royce is making a similar inference by analogy to the one Mill does. This implies either that I am first self-conscious and then socially conscious, as we have just seen, or that I am already socially conscious. Neither alternative meets Royce’s demands. As I have already noted, it is Royce’s idealism that binds him to such claims and only by taking a more realist approach, that of Stein, for instance, can we attain some satisfactory conclusions.
How do we become self-conscious?
For now, let us put aside these difficulties and, following Royce’s thoughts, accept that we have become socially conscious in the way expounded in his papers. This, as we shall see, will bring insightful ideas. Becoming socially conscious has a twofold consequence, though one is prior to the other. First, it enables us to achieve a mature notion of externality, as communicable and determinate, as has been argued for above. Secondly, as we will now see, it is the first step towards becoming fully self-conscious.
Royce claims that “I am I, on the whole, and in every definite aspect of my self-consciousness, in so far as I appeal to my fellow to recognize me” (Royce, 1894). It follows from the realisation of the existence of other minds in the external world that these such minds may observe and interact with me in a similar way in which I observe and interact with them. I become part of the external world; I am no longer an observer, but observed. This, I consider, still holds despite Royce’s previous erring. MacIntyre writes of Stein denoting the I as “a subject who is aware of herself as an object of awareness of other subjects” (MacIntyre, 2006). Also, Sokolowski reassures us of this position when he talks about the declarative use of the I and argues that “we ought to make a move in public” (Sokolowski, 2008). This new conclusion invites Royce to substitute the cartesian maxim of Cogito, ergo sum as the genesis of self-consciousness(9) for his notorious sentence:
“'You are, you, my master, my warrior comrade, my chief, my fascinating fellow, my mother, my nurse, my big brother, - you think, I can learn to think after you, and so, even as you are, it must be that I am.” (Royce, 1894)
From my interaction with other minds and from a shared externality, Royce claims, I find myself being treated and interacted with as if I were a conscious mind. It must be, then, that I am indeed a conscious mind.
Stein to the rescue!
Hoping to solve Royce’s contradiction, we shall, for the final part of the essay, take a realist stance, inspired by Edith Stein. In her doctoral thesis, On the Problem of Empathy, she engages in a study of empathy, which she conceives as the source of knowledge of other mind’s thoughts and feelings.
Such approach allows us to directly tackle and solve Royce’s issue with ‘expressive acts’. Drawing from Husserl’s views that “Each expression not merely says something, but says it ‘of ’ something: it not only has a meaning but refers to certain objects” (Husserl, 2001), Stein will deny that all that is perceived is what Mill denotes as ‘bodily movement’ or Royce calls ‘expressive acts’. Empathy, she claims allows us to engage directly with the other. “I not only know what is expressed in facial expressions and gestures, but also what is hidden behind them” (Stein, 1964). This is a very realist standpoint that many will not be willing to take, MacIntyre advises (MacIntyre, 2006); nonetheless, it is the only coherent way, it seems to me, of retaining some of Royce’s interesting ideas.
Proof of the need to embrace Stein’s account of empathy is that, as we considered above, there is, indeed, a difference in the smile of our mum or in her raising her left arm. Even if we may regard them as physically similar, psychologically they are not. A smile makes a difference. I see joy in her smile; from a smile, I grasp joy empathically, Stein would say. I do not need to smile myself to know that you are happy! Hence, when Royce claims that “If I want to know what the poets mean when they sing of love, I must myself become a lover” (Royce, 1895) he is only half right. I do need to become a lover to experience, by myself, love. But I do not need to become a lover to know what poets mean by it, “Knowledge reaches its object but does not "have" it” (Stein, 1964).
Stein’s distinction between primordial and non-primordial experience, between empathy and knowledge of foreign feeling (Stein, 1964) and the different dimensions of being self- conscious, though of greatest interest, shall not hold us any longer, since a profound analysis of them falls out of the scope of this essay; I invite the reader, though, to pursue further reading (see Works cited).
We ought to say, though, that while Stein’s views are, to a large extent, similar to and compatible with some of Royce’s conclusions – as she notes, “Thus empathy as the basis of intersubjective experience becomes the condition of possible knowledge of the existing outer world, as Husserl and also Royce present it” (Stein, 1964) –, they are derived from a very different starting point and use in terminology(10).
Conclusion:
Sokolowski claims that “we will always remain mysterious to ourselves”. (Sokolowski, 2008), I hope this will induce in us a feeling both of humility and passion in our dealings with the phenomenology of human beings.
We have here studied how Royce challenges the traditional conception of man. Firstly, through a redefinition of externality. One that may or may not result problematic, but which is, as we have seen, rooted in Royce’s idealism. Later, it was briefly considered how such external world can only be known to us by communication, thus, implying its dependence in our social consciousness. Such reflections demanded an analysis of social consciousness. This called for a theory of imitation, which was expounded through the example of a baby, in an attempt to follow Royce’s methods. Nevertheless, such theory of imitation turned out to be implausible or, at least, contrary to Royce’s aims and closer to Mill’s. After this, accepting Royce’s conclusions shed light in the process of achieving self-consciousness. This brought many insights that were, though only briefly, contrasted to Stein’s and Sokolowski’s. For the final part, Edith Stein’s work on empathy allowed us to rescue some of Royce’s conclusions. Nonetheless, Royce’s idealism prevents him from developing a successful theory. Hence, a realist stance, guided by Stein’s notion of empathy, seems to be the path to follow.
( 1 ) We shall not consider the differences there might be between both.
( 2 ) Royce does not explicitly refer to ‘human adults’ or to ‘grown-ups’, but I believe the use of these terms is legitimate and clarifies the matter.
( 3 ) See What is it like to be a bat? (Nagel, 1974)
( 4 ) The I.
( 5 ) Royce does not, at any point, say that only two stages are possible, though he only vaguely refers to some intermediate stages, as part of the process in a maturing mind. He writes, “consciousness of the infant until the gradually evolving social consciousness has reached a decidedly advanced stage” (Royce, 1894)
( 6 ) Though it is very similar and equally appropriate Somewhere else, Royce defines ‘social conformity’ as “imitation of expressive actions” (Royce, 1895)
( 7 ) The purpose of the example is not exactly the same as Royce’s.
( 8 ) For further critiques of the theory of imitation, see Scheler, 2008.
( 9 ) Royce does not deny that the Cogito, ergo sum may still hold, at least, epistemologically. But definitely not for the origin of our self-consciousness.
( 10 ) I hope such difference in terminology is not a major issue and can easily be overcome.
Works Cited:
[] Husserl, E. (2001). Logical Investigations (Vol. I). (J. Bermudez, T. Crane, & P. Sullivan, Eds.) London: Routledge.
[] MacIntyre, A. (2006). Edith Stein, a Philosophical Prologue. New York: Rowman & LiOlefield Publishers, Inc. .
[] Nagel, T. (1974, October). What Is lt Like to Be a Bat? The Philosophical Review, 83(4), pp. 435-450.
[] Parker, K. A., & Scott , P. (2022, Spring). The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosphy. Retrieved January 2024, from https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2022/entries/royce/
[] Royce, J. (1894, September). The External World and the Social Consciuosness. The Philosophical Review, III(5), pp. 513-545.
[] Royce, J. (1895, September). Self-consciousness, Social Consciousness and Nature. I. The Philosophical Review, IV(5), pp. 465-485.
[] Scheler, M. (2008). The Nature of Sympathy. New York: Routledge.
[] Sokolowski, R. (2008). Phenomenology of the Human Person. New York: Cambridge University Press.
[] Stein, E. (1964). On the Problem of Empathy. The Hague: Marcnus Nijhoff.
ÁLVARO MARTÍNEZ MARTÍNEZ
