180161 VO-L Subject, Mode, Force (2016S)

These lectures will be quite demanding. We will cover a lot of ground. We will discuss and connect the philosophy of self-consciousness, of consciousness and intentionality, perception and action, of speech acts, practical and theoretical inference, and of collective intentionality. I will develop an account of consciousness and self-consciousness as essentially connected and of mode – what distinguishes e.g. belief and intention – and force – what distinguishes e.g. assertion and promise – as representational. A subject is never just aware of the world, but also always of its position relative to it and thus of itself. This position has temporal, spatial and causal, but also theoretical, epistemic or practical dimensions. For example, in asserting I arguably present myself as knowing what is the case, in ordering as knowing what to do. I go on to outline an account of theoretical and practical knowledge, rationality and inference as essentially parallel, criticizing standard accounts as theory-biased, as privileging the theoretical domain. In a final step I extend this picture of intentionality as essentially involving subjects’ awareness of themselves and of their position in the world to collective intentionality. The key here is the thought that when we perceive, act, believe and intend jointly with other creatures, we experience and represent them as co-subjects of such positions rather than as their objects. Audio recordings of the lectures will be made available on Moodle.