PSYCHE: http://psyche.cs.monash.edu.au/ Zahavi versus Brentano: A Rejoinder

Dan Zahavi has argued persuasively that some versions of selfrepresentationalism are implausible on phenomenological and dialectical grounds: they fail to make sense of primitive self-knowledge and lead to an infinite regress. Zahavi proposes an alternative view of ubiquitous prereflective self-consciousness—the phenomenological datum upon which Zahavi and self-representationalists agree—according to which it is a primitive, sui generis, non-relational property of consciousness. I argue that some Brentano-style, self-representationalist theories of consciousness are not subject to Zahavi’s criticisms. I articulate a version according to which consciousness involves selfacquaintance. This allows one to account for primitive self-knowledge and still maintain that ubiquitous, prereflective self-consciousness has a relational structure. I also unearth the premise upon which the regress objection depends and show that no selfrepresentationalist need be committed to it. I end by discussing the kinds of considerations that might allow one to decide between the two theories and the prospects for “naturalizing” them.