| FORM: | ARTICLE |
| Author: | Natsoulas, Thomas |
| Affiliation: | U California, Psychology Dept, Davis, CA, USA |
| Title: | The stream of consciousness: X. A critique of James’s appendage theory of consciousness (first part). |
| Source: | Imagination, Cognition & Personality, 1995-1996. 15 (4): p.365-384Reference. |
| Language: | English |
| Subjects: | Thesaurus terms: Awareness Consciousness States James (William) |
| Added Keywords: | critique of James’s theory of inner awareness & appendage theory of consciousness |
| Classification Code: | Consciousness States (2380) |
| Population Terms: Human | |
| Abstract: | In this two-part article, a critique of William James’s theory of inner awareness, as this theory finds expression inThe Principles of Psychology(1890) is presented. By inner awareness, the author means the immediate awareness one has of some of our own mental occurrence instances. In the case of any mental occurrence instance, the actual or potential occurrence of an immediate awareness of it is a necessary condition for its qualifying as a state of consciousness. By an appendage theory, the author means one holding that inner awareness involves a distinct mental occurrence instance that has the respective conscious mental occurrence instance as its object. The contrasting intrinsic theory holds that every conscious mental-occurrence instance involves in its own structure immediate awareness of itself. James’s appendage theory proposes that, normally, the total brain process produces any mental occurrence instance, which is a basic durational component of the stream of consciousness, and then may produce a component that gives immediate awareness of the first. ((c) 1999 APA/PsycINFO, all rights reserved) |