0. Introduction

1Despite much recent interest in the phenomenological approaches to self-consciousness, the notion of minimal self(-consciousness) has not yet found its way to the analytic philosophy of perception in a substantive way. This paper draws a connection between the notion of minimal self and the naïve realist theory of perception. On the face of it, it might seem surprising to combine naïve realism, a prominent contemporary Anglophone theory of perception, and experiential minimalism (or, the ‘minimal self’ view), a pre-reflective model of self-consciousness that originated in the Phenomenological tradition. However, I will argue that combining naïve realism and experiential minimalism is explanatorily virtuous in that this enables the naïve realist to develop a more adequate account of the ‘subjective’ dimension of perceptual phenomenology. The central idea is that, given the ‘object-directed’ nature of their account, naïve realist theories of perception have paid inadequate attention to the ‘subject’ side of the relation that is constitutive of perception, and that this theoretical gap in naïve realism (that is, an account of the contribution made by the subject relatum to the overall phenomenology) can be fruitfully filled by appeal to the notion of minimal self drawn from recent phenomenological analysis.

2In what follows, I first clarify what naïve realism amounts to and specify two core theoretical commitments of naïve realism, relationalism (Section 1) and transparency (Section 2). I then go on to characterize minimal self as a ‘structural’ feature of phenomenal consciousness (Section 3), and demonstrate that the minimal self can supplement the philosophical framework of naïve realism in a novel, substantive way – by giving weight to the naïve realist’s account of perceptual acquaintance and transparency (Section 4). The suggestion is that, when explaining the nature of phenomenal consciousness, naïve realism and minimal self are natural allies.

1. Naïve Realism and Relationalism

3Naïve realism is the view that veridical perception involves a subject’s direct sensory awareness of some external-worldly entities. When explaining the ‘phenomenal’ (what it’s like) character of experience, naïve realists highlight the constitutive role of an ‘acquaintance’ relation which obtains between the subject and some mind-independent entities. The phenomenal character of my visual experience of the apple on my desk is (at least in part) constitutively dependent on and thus determined by the direct presentation of that red apple and its properties (e.g., redness, round-shapedness) that I am acquainted with.

5There are some important implications of the naïve realist’s commitment to relationalism. Firstly, the distinctive explanatory role assigned to the acquaintance relation and the mind-independent entities makes clear how naïve realism contrasts with sense-datum theories, the views that experiences involve a relation of acquaintance with some mind-dependent sense-data. It also gives rise to the tension between naïve realism and the mainstream accounts of phenomenal consciousness that are associated with reductive representationalism. Such representationalists stress a tight connection between phenomenal character and representational content, and therein neglect the explanatory role assigned to the ‘non-representational’, acquaintance relation. Naïve realists, by contrast, hold that the phenomenal character of experience is inexplicable in terms of the content of representational states or mind-dependent sense-data alone. For it must be explained ‘at least in part’ in terms of the obtaining of a unique, sui generis relation of acquaintance between the subject and her mind-independent surroundings.

2. Naïve Realism and Transparency

7Naïve realists are committed to explaining the so-called transparency intuition. It is the idea that perceptual experiences are ‘transparent’ or ‘diaphanous’ in the sense that, when having a perceptual experience of some external objects, we normally ‘see right through’ the experience and do not notice that we are having a perceptual experience. That is to say, the properties we are aware of in perception are attributed to the objects perceived only and not to the perceptual experience itself. When I see the red apple on my desk and try attending to the intrinsic features of my own visual experience of that apple, the only features I end up finding are features of the presented apple (e.g., its redness, round-shapedness, etc.).

9The strong transparency thesis is not the only option available for naïve realists, however. They can instead endorse a ‘weaker’ interpretation of transparency, according to which introspection can reveal the properties of the experience itself ‘when attending to the objects and properties of the world’. It is arguable that this is much closer to the original view of G.E. Moore who introduced the idea of the transparency of experience (Martin, 2002). As he wrote,

when we try to introspect the sensation of blue, all we can see is the blue: the other element is as if it were diaphanous […] Yet it can be distinguished if we look attentively enough, and if we know that there is something to look for (Moore, 1993, p. 41).

10After all, Moore himself was sympathetic to the idea that we can become aware of some properties of our own experiences with ‘effort and attention’. According to the weak interpretation, the transparency claim is simply that when one reflects on one’s own experience, one’s attention invariably points to the objects and properties that are experienced. In this way, one can be neutral on the possibility of being aware of some ‘non-diaphanous’ properties of experience that are possessed by one’s own experience, not by the objects of experience.

12The spatial limitation of visual field is another example of an aspect of the phenomenal character of an ordinary visual experience that is not entirely determined by some worldly entities but amounts to “the way in which one’s visual awareness of those objects and events seems to be structured” (Soteriou, 2013, p. 117). When having a visual experience, there is a sense that what I see is only a subregion (part) of a larger space (whole) and a sense that there is more to see if my spatial viewpoint is altered. As Richardson puts it, “in vision having this feature [i.e., the boundaries of visuo-spatial field], it seems to me as if I, am limited, sensorily” (2010, p. 239). Such a ‘limitation’ aspect of a visual experience is not an aspect of some thing one is sensing like the frame of painting. Rather, it accounts for one’s own sensory limitations that one becomes aware of in having the visual experience. The idea is that the phenomenal character of an ordinary visual experience is not solely determined by the spatially organized aspects of the world that one becomes aware of, but also determined, in part, by the way my awareness is spatially structured and viewpointed (and thus limited). The point here is that there’s more to experience (and its phenomenology) than what simply derives from the objects of experience, and that such non-diaphanous aspects of experience (e.g., blurriness, spatial limitation of visual field) are worthy of attention and explanation.

13One of the main advantages of the weak transparency thesis is that it leaves room for the possibility of phenomenal variations without variations in the presented object as it is neutral on the possibility of becoming aware of such ‘non-diaphanous’ aspects of experience that do not simply derive from the external-worldly object. This makes room for the possibility that both features of the perceived object and features of the perceiving subject play a role in determining phenomenal character (Logue, 2012).

14When accounting for the ‘non-diaphanous’ aspects of experience and the idea of ‘a phenomenal difference without a difference in the presented object’, naïve realists typically appeal either to (a) variations in the subject relatum to explain variations in perceptual phenomenology without variations in the object (Logue, 2012), or to (b) some third relatum which embodies various conditions of possibility for the occurrence of perceptual experiences, such as sensory modalities (Soteriou, 2013), or a ‘viewpoint’ (Martin, 1998). They often speak of some ‘structural’ features of experience (French, 2014; Martin, 1992; Richardson, 2010; Soteriou, 2013). These are features of the phenomenal character of experience that are a matter not of the worldly entities one is aware of when having a perceptual experience (i.e., the ‘what’ of experience), but, rather, of the way or manner in which one is acquainted with those things in the environment (i.e., the ‘how’ of experience). The visuo-spatial field, for example, is a structural feature of ordinary visual experience in the sense that it accounts for the common manner in which I am visually aware of the scenes before me (e.g., seeing a red apple in front of me with my left eye closed, and seeing a yellow banana in the kitchen with my right eye closed). This means that whatever differences there are between these experiences, the phenomenal difference between them is not entirely constituted by the differences in the objects and scenes before me, but needs to be accounted for, in part, in terms of the difference in the sensory limitations of my visuo-spatial field.

15My upshot in the following is to demonstrate how the naïve realist’s account of the ‘subjective’ and ‘non-diaphanous’ aspects of perceptual phenomenology can be fruitfully informed by drawing from resources outside analytic philosophy of perception, namely phenomenological discussions of minimal self-consciousness. I will argue that the notion of minimal self, construed as a ‘structural’ feature of phenomenal consciousness (Section 3), refers to a subjective, non-diaphanous element of experience that is previously undiscussed by naïve realists. The aim is to show that phenomenological discussions of minimal self-consciousness can supplement the naïve realist framework in a novel way – by giving substance to the naïve realist’s account of perceptual acquaintance and weak transparency (Section 4).

3. Minimal Self and Phenomenal Consciousness

16The issue of reflexivity or pre-reflective self-awareness is a recurring theme in the classical phenomenological tradition (Husserl, 1959; Merleau-Ponty, 2012; Sartre, 1967) as well as in the mainstream literature on phenomenological psychopathology e.g., the ipseity-disturbance model of schizophrenia (Sass & Parnas, 2006). Experiential minimalism is the view that there exists a ‘pre-reflective’ or ‘reflexive’ dimension of selfhood that pervades our human mental life. The notion of minimal self refers to the very first-personal character or perspectivalness of our experiential life, accommodating the phenomenological fact that every conscious experience is given to me as my experience or for me. The minimalist claims that this most basic, experiential dimension of selfhood or ‘for-me-ness’ (Zahavi, 2014) is still largely overlooked in current accounts of phenomenal consciousness.

17Experiential minimalism comprises of two core claims: that minimal self is a universal, ‘structural’ feature of consciousness that is inherent in all forms of conscious experience, and that it is partly constitutive of phenomenal consciousness. To rephrase, the claim is that phenomenal consciousness entails a minimal self in the sense that the phenomenology of every conscious experience is at least in part constitutively dependent on a minimal self-consciousness. Note that the minimal self does not refer to some worldly entities, but to the very first-personal givenness or subjective ‘mode’ of experience. When having a visual experience of a red apple, I become aware of not only some sensible features like redness, round-shapedness and so on, but also the fact that the relevant visual experience of the red apple is given to me as ‘mine’ and ‘for me’. As Zahavi puts it,

18[T]he for-me-ness or mineness in question [that is, minimal self] is not a quality like scarlet, sour, or soft. It doesn’t refer to a specific experiential ‘content’, to a specific what, nor does it refer to the diachronic or synchronic sum of such content, or to some other relation that might obtain between the contents in question. Rather, it refers to the distinct givenness or how of experience (Zahavi, 2010, p. 59).

19The thought behind this mode-content distinction Zahavi puts in place is that there exists a formal, structural dimension of consciousness that is neither reducible to nor explainable in terms of some object or object-involving ‘content’ of experience, but is nevertheless constitutive of phenomenal consciousness as the subjective ‘mode’ of givenness. In other words, the phenomenal nature of consciousness is constitutively dependent not solely on some external-worldly entities that constitute the ever-changing ‘content’ of experience, but also on the way the subject’s experiences are pre-reflectively given to her as her own (i.e., the invariant, universal subjectiveness or the first-personal ‘mode’ of experience). Minimal self can be characterized as a necessary ‘structural’ feature of phenomenal consciousness in this sense. This is comparable to the ways in which naïve realists typically explain the specific manner in which we are perceptually acquainted with things in our environment in terms of some ‘structural’ properties of experience such as the visuo-spatial field (French, 2014; Martin, 1992; Richardson, 2010; Soteriou, 2013).

20I will now demonstrate how the minimal self can give weight to the naïve realist’s account of perceptual acquaintance and weak transparency.

4. Minimal Self, Perceptual Acquaintance and Weak Transparency

21The notion of minimal self describes the way that a conscious experience is given to the subject whose experiential limitations shape the perspectivalness of the relevant experience. It accounts for the basic phenomenological fact that I enjoy a unique, privileged access to my own experiential life that is in principle unavailable to experiences of others and vice versa. In this sense, the minimal self can be characterized in ‘relational’ terms, as a unique, non-representational relation of ‘self-acquaintance’ that obtains between the conscious subject and her own experiential life.

22Recall that naïve realism is committed to three core claims about the relation of ‘perceptual acquaintance’:

1. that it is constitutive of the phenomenology of conscious sensory experience,

2. that it is non-representational, and

3. that it obtains between the subject and some mind-independent entities.

23In comparison, experiential minimalism can be formulated as comprising of the following three claims about the relation of minimal ‘self-acquaintance’:

1. that it is constitutive of the phenomenology of every conscious experience,

2. that it is non-representational in that it is pre-reflectively given, and

3. that it obtains between the subject and her own conscious life (and her own experiential states that fall within it).

24Concerning the first pair of premises, neither of them has to be seen as presenting an exhaustive account of perceptual phenomenology, and thus they are compatible with each other. The combined claim would be that the phenomenal character of a perceptual experience is not only constitutively dependent on the obtaining of a relation of perceptual acquaintance but also on the obtaining of a relation of self-acquaintance. The second pair is also consistent in that their combination would simply amount to the view that both relations occupy the non-representational (pre-reflective) dimension of our conscious mental life. On the face of it, combining the third pair might seem problematic, partly because the ‘externalist’ tendency of naïve realism, expressed in its emphasis on the constitutive and explanatory role of the mind-independent entities to which the subject is perceptually acquainted, seems to be in tension with the apparent, ‘internalist’ characterization of the self-acquaintance relation that obtains between a conscious subject and her own experiential life. Note that, however, the relevant self-acquaintance relation should not be equated with the sort of acquaintance that may obtain between a conscious subject and some mind-dependent sense-data.

25To resolve the tension, consider the fact that both perceptual acquaintance and self-acquaintance are ‘psychological’ relations that constitute the condition for occurrence of (veridical) perceptual experiences. An important difference is that the former is a condition for the occurrence of perceptual experiences that is distinctive of veridical perceptions of the mind-independent world, whereas the latter is a condition for the occurrence of any conscious experience (e.g., veridical and non-veridical perceiving, as well as imagining, remembering, desiring, etc.). The key thought here is that: were we not subjects whose self-acquaintance is pervasive and universal, we would not be perceptually acquainted with things in the environment. This is not merely to say that we could not appropriate an experience as our own (as such), but rather to say that, in absence of self-acquaintance, there would not be any phenomenally conscious mental state at all. In other words, the relation of perceptual acquaintance is connected with the relation of self-acquaintance by the fact that, necessarily, if one is perceptually acquainted with some mind-independent entities in the environment (e.g., seeing a flying bird), this implies that one is also self-acquainted with one’s own experiential life (in the sense that one is in a position to be self-aware that it is one who is having this particular visual experience). The relation of perceptual acquaintance is dependent on the self-acquaintance relation in this crucial sense. To that extent, the tension between the naïve realist’s externalist tendency and the seemingly internalist characterization of the self-acquaintance relation can be resolved.

27This brings us back to the issue concerning how the naïve realist can account for the ‘weak’ transparency in the way that permits her to accommodate some ‘non-diaphanous’ aspects of perceptual phenomenology. The claim is that naïve realism, on its own, lacks resources to fully accommodate such ‘negative’ aspects of experience, and thus needs to be supplemented. As I see it, experiential minimalism can enrich the naïve realist’s weak reading of transparency, insofar as the minimal self is construed as one such ‘non-diaphanous’ feature of perceptual phenomenology. First, the minimal self can be construed as a ‘non-diaphanous’ feature of experience insofar as it does not simply derive from the perceived, external-worldly objects. It is ‘non-object-involving’. The minimalist holds that every conscious experience involves the most basic, primitive dimension of selfhood that is not grounded on or constituted by the objects of experience (i.e., some worldly entities) in the way that the qualitative or sensory aspects of perceptual phenomenology are. The minimal self does not refer to a feature of some mind-independent entities, but to a ‘structural’ feature of the experience itself which accounts for the way or manner in which the external-worldly objects are first-personally given to the subject.

28Second, the minimal self can be construed as a ‘non-diaphanous’ feature in that it occupies the ‘pre-reflective’ dimension of experience. It is non-diaphanous in the sense that it is beyond the scope of reflective self-awareness of experience as such. Experiential minimalism is a pre-reflective model of self-consciousness, according to which self-consciousness obtains not only when we explicitly and deliberately attend to our own experiential states through reflection, but whenever we implicitly and pre-reflectively, live-through an experience as a subject. This pre-reflective form of self-awareness amounts to a primordial form of self-directedness upon which other more advanced, reflective forms of self-awareness (which may require further conceptual, linguistic capacities) are grounded. Acknowledging such a pre-reflective dimension of experience gives us a more phenomenologically-sensitive picture of perception which respects the role of the subject in characterization of perceptual phenomenology. For naïve realists, this also gives reason to resist strong phenomenal externalism as it simply overlooks this pre-reflective dimension of phenomenal consciousness. To this extent, experiential minimalism can supplement the naïve realist’s weak reading of transparency, by giving substance to her account of the ‘non-diaphanous’ properties of experience as (i) non-object-involving and (ii) pre-reflectively given.

29The objective has been to legitimize the claim that the notion of minimal self can enrich the philosophical framework of naïve realism by drawing a connection between minimal self and two core theoretical commitments of naïve realism. As shown, the minimal self is not only compatible with, but can substantiate the naïve realist’s account of perceptual acquaintance and weak transparency in a novel way. In this sense, there are reasons to combine naïve realism, a theory of ‘outer’ sensory awareness of the world, and experiential minimalism, a theory of ‘inner’ reflexive self-awareness of one’s own experiential life.

***

30Let me conclude with some remarks on the potential benefits of combining naïve realism and experiential minimalism: First, it resolves the tension between the naïve realist’s emphasis on the role assigned to external-worldly entities and the fact that many naïve realist theories tend to resist austere phenomenal externalism. Amalgamating naïve realism and experiential minimalism illuminates the fact that there is a subjective (‘for-me’) dimension of phenomenal consciousness, while simultaneously accommodating the fact that the subject is perceptually acquainted with some mind-independent entities.

31Second, supplementing naïve realism with the minimal self accommodates the sense in which veridical perceptions and hallucinations can be both similar and different, phenomenologically speaking. They can be phenomenally similar in the sense that a subject of perception and a subject of hallucination can share the same phenomenological fact that they enjoy a unique, sui generis relation of self-acquaintance with their own experiential life that is unavailable to experiences of the other, while not sharing any qualitative aspects of perceptual phenomenology.