Wednesday, 19 December 2018
Naturalistically the order would be first consciousness of..., next other-consciousness, being conscious of being the object of an other (like you) and last reflexive consciousness, being aware of yourself as if from a point outside yourself while remaining inside yourself (reflecting-reflected). Phenomenologically (e.g. Sartre) the order of the last two is reversed. Being conscious of an other consciousness contingently directed towards you is a further turn of the screw from the simple act of directing awareness to your own functioning, your being seen from the outside follows on from the possibility of being seen from the outside. Infants and some animals exhibit changes in the tenor of their engagement with the world if they are aware of being watched by something like themselves in contexts where we would be reluctant to ascribe self-reflective consciousness. As if it never would have occurred to them to take themselves as other. Phenomenologically, the gap between the subject and object shifts progressively further out. To be directed at the object is to 'know' that you are not the object, in reflection you experience that gap as generated from within yourself but frustratingly unbridgeable. In relation to the other the gap is in principle unbridgeable, you are separated by the entire world. As if each step results from the progressive failure to overcome the gap in the previous step. The entire world, the essence of being outside, is as much your own product as the void or slippage that enables reflection, but is not felt that way. You have given up on it, relaxed the tension, and allowed the reality before you to explode into infinitely many pieces.
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