SM 401

Pre-reflective

The slippery nature of words

In the section Ontological Reciprocity (M401) I use the term ‘pre-reflective’, explaining that ‘We view the world through the unity of an embodied consciousness, and do not consciously separate the varied sensual factors of our experience’. [i]

To expand on this explanation; ‘pre reflective’ self consciousness is a concept used by phenomenologists to explain our awareness of self, and any experience as ‘my’ experience.  To be conscious of an object one must first be conscious of one’s ‘self’, and have a position from which to be aware.  Reflective self consciousness (I am thirsty) is only possible because one is already pre-reflectively conscious of ‘I’. Gallagher and Zahavi write that although phenomenologists have used a variety of words and phrases for this concept, philosophers such as Husserl, Merleau-Ponty and Sartre are in general agreement that such a concept is important for an understanding of consciousness.[ii]

Dorothee Legrand in her paper discusses this in terms of a bodily self.  She distinguishes the concept of an ‘embodied’ self from a ‘bodily’ self, describing the embodied self of Descartes as a mental self in a body, while ‘a bodily self would be a self that is (part of) the body’.[iii]

This leads rather well into current theories of free will, which describe our understanding of free will as emanating from the fact that we have a (bodily) sense of self, and that our biological construction and unified sensory perceptions create the impression (illusive or not, depending on which theory) that we have free will.

When I first grasped the meaning of ‘pre-reflective’ as an awareness of one's own consciousness I was rather disappointed, as my common sense understanding of the term was similar to that of ‘pre-verbal’; ie before verbalisation.  Pre-reflective being before (conscious) reflection, presumably subliminal.  Rather than ‘my own reflected-upon position before I reflect on the object’ I thought it meant pre any sort of reflection at all - in other words all those things that we do quite successfully without being conscious of them.  The way that we move around, perform tasks, interact with other moving objects, subliminally interpreting and negotiating life's obstacles in our various and combined sensory modes.  However, on reflection I think my disappointment was unwarranted, as these definitions merely emanate from opposite ends of the same meaning. The pre-reflective of philosophical definitions implies a conscious awareness of embodied self, whereas my assumption of a subconscious motor self prior to consciousness is probably the same.[iv]  

There is another possible ‘common sense meaning’ attached to ‘pre-verbal’, and that is that pre-reflective might be an emotional reaction prior to cognitive reflection.  Professor Mark Halstead has used the tem in this way by defining types of racism as ‘pre reflective gut racism’ and ‘post-reflective gut racism’.  ‘Pre reflective’ being an emotional response, and ‘post-reflective’ as rationalised justifications of the emotional response.  These definitions share similar structural relationships between the terms.[v]

Many others use the term in this way, presumably for the same common sense reason, using it to nominate an emotional, as opposed to a rational response.  A subliminal response in other words – which in fact it is.  The meaning of the word slides between discourses, apparently varying quite drastically in its usage, yet ultimately the meanings are quite closely aligned.  On the one hand it explains very well why we have a concept of self, which leads quite well into current theories of free will.  But on the other hand, it remains with ideas of the brain and conscious cognition, ignoring embodiment.  But then I suppose if we are discussing consciousness, we not discussing unconsciousness.

It appears that the subliminal embodied is only discussed in physiology and neurology; which isn't very interesting from an art point of view.  But it would admittedly be difficult to philosophically discuss the subliminal.  Freud tried, and just ended up with more of the same – a sort of subliminal cognition. [vi]