identity in accordance with a version of the restricted thesis of relative

of
Psychological Self-Awareness: Self and Others 239
identity in accordance with a version of the restricted thesis of relative
identity holding at a time as well as over time. Corresponding to the restricted
thesis of relative identity at a time will be a thesis of relative distinctness
at a time, according to which questions of distinctness at a time
are always relative to a given sortal representation. If this were not so,
then because x and y are identical if and only if they are not distinct, it
would be possible to answer questions about identity without reference
to a given sortal representation, contrary to the thesis of relative identity.
The relevance of this to distinguishing self-awareness is as follows. Distinguishing
self-awareness is a general label for the various ways in which
a subject can recognize his distinctness from the environment and its contents.
According to the restricted thesis of relative distinctness, questions
about distinctness are relative to a given sortal representation. But what
is involved in answering a question about distinctness relative to a given
sortal? The key here, it seems to me, is recognizing that questions of the
form ‘Are x and y distinct with respect to sortal z?’ should really be rephrased
in the form ‘Can we count more than one instance of sortal z
here?’6 Once this is recognized, the Symmetry Thesis falls out soon
enough. Assume that sortal z is a psychological sortal. If a subject is to
be capable of recognizing that he is distinct from his environment with
respect to sortal z, he must be capable of posing and answering questions
of the form ‘Can more than one instance of sortal z be counted here?’
The capacity to pose such questions presupposes an understanding that
sortal z is at least potentially multiply instantiated (that there are, or at
least could be, other instances of sortal z), while the capacity to answer
them presupposes an ability to distinguish and count instances of sortal
z. Putting these together yields the conclusion that, insofar as sortal z is
to provide a form of distinguishing self-awareness, it cannot have solely a
first-person application. Distinguishing self-awareness requires a contrast
space, as a function of what it is to recognize distinctness.
Although the neo-Lockean argument does support the Symmetry Thesis,
it supports only the weak reading. The choice, it will be remembered,
was between construing the Symmetry Thesis as holding either that if a
subject has a range of psychological representations, he must have at least
some with a third-person application (the weak reading) or that none of
those psychological representations can have only a first-person application
(the strong reading). The defence I have offered of the Symmetry
240 Chapter 9
Thesis is based on the requirements of distinguishing self-awareness. It
follows, therefore, that a constitutive link between first- and third-person
application has been shown to hold only for those psychological representations
implicated in distinguishing self-awareness. I have not argued (and
do not believe) that the Symmetry Thesis holds in its strong form.
The psychological representations implicated in distinguishing selfawareness
are, of course, those psychological representations that define
the category (sort or kind) of psychological subjects. So the upshot of the
neo-Lockean defence of the Symmetry Thesis is that the psychological
representations that define the category of psychological subjects necessarily
have first-, second-, and third-person applications. In the next
section I will have more to say about what those psychological representations
actually are.
Let me turn now to an issue that has been hovering in the background
throughout this and the previous section. To what extent are the arguments
I have discussed in support of the Symmetry Thesis applicable at
the nonconceptual level to non-language-using creatures? The (unsuccessful)
argument from the Generality Constraint is closely tied to the putative
requirements of concept mastery, and hence is not straightforwardly applicable
at nonconceptual levels of representation. But the same is not
true of the just-offered neo-Lockean argument from distinguishing selfawareness.
The point of the argument is that a subject’s distinguishing
self-awareness depends on his capacity to discriminate and count individual
instances of a given category. I have put this point in terms of a subject’s
mastery of sortal representations, deliberately leaving open the
possibility that the categorization in question might be independent of
language mastery.7 Of course, as in earlier chapters, work is needed to
show that the categories in question can be understood and applied at
the nonconceptual level, and this task will occupy the final sections of
this chapter.
9.3 The Core Notion of a Psychological Subject
The existence of a constitutive link between psychological self-awareness
and awareness of other minds implies that the best place to look for primitive
forms of psychological self-awareness is in social interactions. A subject’s
recognition that he is distinct from the environment in virtue of
Psychological Self-Awareness: Self and Others 241
being a psychological subject must take place against the background of
a contrast space that includes other psychological subjects. This has a
clear implication for the sort of evidence that will settle the question of
whether psychological self-awareness can exist in a form that is nonconceptual
and independent of language mastery. What we are looking for
are social interactions involving prelinguistic or nonlinguistic subjects for
which the best explanation involves ascribing the appropriate form of
distinguishing self-awareness to a nonlinguistic or prelinguistic subject.
Clearly, the first step must be to clarify what exactly the appropriate form
of distinguishing self-awareness involves. That will be the subject of this
section.
A subject has distinguishing self-awareness to the extent that he is able
to distinguish himself from the environment and its contents. He has distinguishing
psychological self-awareness to the extent that he is able to
distinguish himself as a psychological subject within a contrast space of
other psychological subjects. What does this require? The discussion in
the previous section has shown how this question is to be answered. Distinguishing
self-awareness is relative to a given sortal categorization, and
psychological self-awareness is relative to the sortal category of psychological
subjects. We need to turn our attention to the sortal category of
psychological subjects. What are the criteria of identity and application
associated with the sortal category of psychological subjects?
The first point to make is that the category of a psychological subject
is what one might term a complex sortal category, analyzable in terms of
more basic categories. There are several relevant criteria of identity and
application for psychological subjects, and each of these criteria of identity
pick out a further psychological category. Each of these psychological
categories is itself independently analyzable. This is one of the reasons
why distinguishing psychological self-awareness is a matter of degree. A
subject can master some of the relevant criteria of identity and application
without mastering others. A subject in such a position will have a
restricted range of psychological categories in terms of which he can distinguish
himself from the social environment. The more of these psychological
categories a subject acquires, the closer he will move toward
distinguishing awareness of himself as a psychological subject.
The category of a psychological subject is vague, in the following standard
sense. There are borderline cases of individuals for whom (or which)