The

 Mirror  of  the  World:  Subjects,  Consciousness,  and  Self-­‐Consciousness.  By  CHRISTOPHER  

PEACOCKE.  (Oxford:  Oxford  University  Press,  2014.  Pp.  xii  +  283.)  

José  Luis  Bermúdez    

(Texas  A&M  University)  

While  issues  of  selfhood,  self-­‐representation,  and  first  person  thought  have  been  a  recurrent  

theme  in  Christopher  Peacocke’s  writings  throughout  his  career,  The  Mirror  of  the  World  

represents  his  first  book-­‐length  treatment  of  the  subject.  It  is  a  very  welcome  addition  to  the  

literature,  displaying  Peacocke’s  characteristic  clarity  and  depth  of  thought  and  making  a  

number  of  important  and  innovative  contributions.    

The  basic  theoretical  framework  for  the  book  remains  that  outlined  in  his  2008  Truly  

Understood  (Oxford  University  Press).  The  first  person  concept  I,  like  every  other  concept  ,  is  

individuated  by  its  fundamental  reference  rule,  where  a  fundamental  reference  rule  states  

the  condition  that  fixes  an  object  as  the  concept’s  referent.  Grasp  of  the  first  person  concept  

(again,  like  very  other  concept)  is  fixed  by  the  subject’s  tacit  knowledge  of  the  fundamental  

reference  rule.  There  are  two  respects,  however,  in  which  the  first  person  concept  is  

distinctive  within  this  general  framework.  First,  Peacocke  emphasizes  the  explanatory  

priority  of  the  metaphysics  of  the  self  and  the  metaphysics  of  consciousness  over  the  theory  

of  concepts  –  in  explicit  opposition  to  the  typical  order  of  explanation  in  discussions  of  self-­‐

consciousness.  Second,  he  stresses  that  conceptual  self-­‐reference  is  grounded  in  more  
primitive,  nonconceptual  forms  of  self-­‐reference,  and  he  gives  an  overarching  account  of  the  

first  person  that  applies  to  both  its  conceptual  and  nonconceptual  forms.    

In  this  review  I  will  focus  primarily  on  the  relation  between  the  conceptual  and  

nonconceptual  first  person,  but  let  me  begin  by  noting  some  big  picture  aspects  of  

Peacocke’s  overall  view  that  will  help  orient  prospective  readers  of  this  book.  First,  from  a  

metaphysical  point  of  view  Peacocke  emphasizes  that  consciousness  and  conscious  subjects  

are  “coeval”.  For  a  state  or  event  to  be  conscious  is  for  there  to  be  something  it  is  like  for  the  

subject  of  that  state  to  be  in  it  –  and,  correlatively,  what  makes  something  a  conscious  

subject  is  that  it  is  capable  of  being  in  conscious  states.  The  metaphysical  position  enables  

him  to  dispense  with  “no  ownership”  or  reductionist  views  of  the  self.  Second,  there  is  

nothing  in  Peacocke’s  account  of  selves  or  self-­‐consciousness  that  he  thinks  requires  

embodiment,  and  so  he  sets  himself  against  theorists  such  as  Evans  who  hold  that  self-­‐

conscious  subjects  are  essentially  embodied.  Third,  and  also  a  point  of  difference  from  

Evans,  Peacocke  favors  a  minimalist  account  of  what  it  is  to  master  the  first  person  concept,  

one  that  makes  such  mastery  independent  of  any  de  se  forms  of  acquaintance  with  the  self.    

The  discussion  of  nonconceptual  self-­‐consciousness  in  The  Mirror  of  the  World  represents  a  

significant  extension  of  Peacocke’s  longstanding  interest  in  the  notion  of  nonconceptual  

content.  He  acknowledges  that  self-­‐representation  is  widespread  in  perception,  memories,  

and  action-­‐awareness,  both  in  sophisticated  concept-­‐using  subjects  and  in  non-­‐human  

animals  and    prelinguistic  infants.  All  of  these  representations  involve  a  nonconceptual  

representation  of  the  self  that  Peacocke  baptizes  i.  So,  when  I  see  that  I  am  approaching  a  
tree,  for  example,  what  I  see  is  that  i  am  approaching*  a  tree*  (where  the  stars  indicate  

nonconceptual  perceptual  content  constituents  that  would,  in  a  normal  concept-­‐user,  

rationalize  applying  the  concepts  approach  and  tree).  As  a  concept-­‐user  I  might,  but  need  

not,  form  the  corresponding  judgment  I  am  approaching  a  tree.    Peacocke  maintains,  though,  

that  a  non-­‐human  animal  might  have  a  perception  with  exactly  the  same  nonconceptual  

content,  even  in  the  complete  absence  of  conceptual  abilities.  This  would  be  what  he  terms  

Degree-­‐1  self-­‐representation,  as  opposed  to  fully  conceptual  self-­‐representation  (Degree-­‐2)  

and  the  complete  absence  of  self-­‐representation  (Degree-­‐0).  

Peacocke  gives  an  account  of  how  nonconceptual  first  person  contents  are  integrated  with  

each  other  in  terms  of  what  he  terms  self-­‐files,  exploiting  the  concept  of  an  object-­‐file  that  

originated  in  the  cognitive  science  of  perception.  An  object-­‐file  is  a  postulated  subpersonal  

mechanism  that  stores  and  updates  mental  representations  that  apply  to  the  same  thing.  A  

self-­‐file  is  the  file  that  each  subject  has  for  subject-­‐referring  representations  (or  rather  –  for  

the  subpersonal  precursors  of  those  representations).  Unlike  ordinary  object  files  self-­‐files  

do  not  require  any  kind  of  indexing  or  tracking  of  an  object  over  time,  since  none  of  the  

representations  in  the  self-­‐file  depend  upon  any  process  of    identification  (because  they  are  

intrinsically  subject-­‐referring,  as  described  earlier).    

What  makes  I  and  i  both  first  personal  representations  is  that  contents  involving  them  are  

intrinsically  subject-­‐referring,  where  a  mental  event  is  intrinsically  self-­‐referring  just  if  its  

content  refers  to  its  subject  as  a  function  of  the  type  of  content  it  involves.  So,  perceiving  

myself  in  a  mirror  is  not  intrinsically  subject-­‐referring  because  perceptual  states  need  not  
be  about  me.  In  contrast,  receiving  visual  proprioceptive  feedback  on  my  direction  of  

movement  is  intrinsically  subject-­‐referring  because  that  feedback  can  only  be  about  me.  

Conceptual  contents  involving  I  are  intrinsically  subject-­‐referring  because  the  reference  rule  

governing  I  is  simply  that  a  token  occurrence  of  I  in  an  act  of  thinking  refers  to  the  agent  of  

that  act.            

The  fundamental  reference  rule  for  the  nonconceptual  first  person  i  is  directly  analogous  to  

the  reference  rule  for  the  concept  I  –  viz.  whenever  i  occurs  in  a  mental  event  or  state  it  

refers  to  the  subject  of  that  state  or  event.  This  parallelism  at  the  level  of  reference  explains  

the  rationality  of  certain  types  of  (conceptual)  first  person  judgments  –  namely,  those  that  

involve  taking  nonconceptual  first  person  contents  at  face  value.  If  I  am  in  a  nonconceptual  

state  with  the  content  I  am  f,  where  f  is  the  nonconceptual  analog  of  the  conceptual  F,  then  it  

is  rational  for  me  to  judge  I  am  F    because  the  correctness  of  the  conceptual  judgment  

follows  from  the  references  rules  for  i  and  I  and  the  fact  that  the  subject  who  represents  

himself  as  f  is  also  the  subject  who  judges  himself  to  be  F.  In  other  words,  the  transition  

from  nonconceptual  content  to  conceptual  content  is  truth-­‐preserving  as  a  function  of  the  

type  of  contents  involved  and,  for  Peacocke,  that  provides  a  sufficient  explanation  of  the  

rationality  of  the  transition.  

While  welcoming  Peacocke’s  commitment  to  the  nonconceptual  first  person  I  do  have  

questions  about  the  details  of  the  account  just  sketched  out  –  in  particular  about  the  

putative  reference  rule  for  the  nonconceptual  first  person  i.  As  Peacocke  emphasizes,  the  

paradigm  examples  of  nonconceptual  first  person  concepts  are  perceptual  –  as  when  I  see  
myself  approaching  a  tree  or  hear  someone  coming  closer  to  my  left.  It  is  very  unclear  to  me,  

however,  how  perceptual  content  can  have  components  that  refer,  in  the  way  that  linguistic  

expressions  or  mental  concepts  do.    When  I  see  myself  approaching  a  tree  what  I  see  is  the  

aiming  point  of  the  tree  (of  course),  together  with  visual  kinesthetic  information  about  my  

trajectory  derived  from  optic  flow  and  other  sources.  My  body  may  feature  in  the  

perception,  or  may  not  –  depending  on  lighting,  perspective,  and  so  forth.  But  my  body  is  

certainly  not  a  referring  expression  and  nor  is  there  anything  else  in  the  content  of  

perception  that  could  be  a  candidate  for  having  a  reference  rule.    

Theorists  who,  like  Peacocke,  see  the  content  of  perception  as  nonconceptual  typically  think  

of  it  as  analog  rather  than  digital.  Certainly  the  machinery  of  scenario  content  that  Peacocke  

developed  in  A  Study  of  Concepts  (1992)  fits  that  description.  But  surely  a  minimal  

requirement  for  perceptual  content  to  have  a  component  that  refers  is  that  it  be  digital,  

rather  than  analog.  In  A  Study  of  Concepts  Peacocke  postulated  a  level  of  content  that  he  

termed  protopropositional,  but  without  giving  much  elucidation.  I  would  imagine  that  the  

nonconceptual  first  person  i  is  located  at  the  protopropositional  level.  But  an  important  

challenge  in  developing  Peacocke’s  position  is  to  flesh  this  account  out,  so  that  we  know  

exactly  how  the  self  is  represented  and  referred  to  in  perception  and  other  nonconceptual  

first  person  states.  Peacocke  seems  to  assume  that  (in  this  area)  representation  involves  

reference,  but  that  assumption  requires  further  defense  and  discussion.  

The  discussion  up  to  now  has  focused  on  relatively  simple  instances  of  self-­‐consciousness  

associated  with  mental  and  physical  self-­‐ascriptions.  One  of  the  most  interesting  features  of  
the  book  is  Peacocke’s  discussion  in  Chapters  VIII  through  X  of  the  three  richer  forms  of  self-­‐

consciousness  that  he  terms  perspectival  self-­‐consciousness,  reflective  self-­‐consciousness,  

and  interpersonal  self-­‐consciousness.  Perspectival  self-­‐consciousness  is  the  ability  to  take  a  

third  person  perspective  on  oneself.  Reflective  self-­‐  consciousness  is  de  se  awareness  of  

being  in  a  de  se  state  (and  hence  allows  subjects  to  state  and  assess  their  reasons  for  being  

in  particular  states).  Interpersonal  self-­‐consciousness  is  my  de  se  awareness  that  another  

person  is  representing  me  as  a  self-­‐representing  subject  (a  subject  of  de  se  states).  Peacocke  

has  many  interesting  things  to  say  about  these  types  of  self-­‐consciousness  and  their  

interrelations.  Many  theorists  (myself  included)  have  thought  that  self-­‐consciousness  and  

other-­‐consciousness  are  interdependent.  Peacocke  rejects  this  view.  Perspectival  self-­‐

consciousness  can  be  enjoyed  without  a  conception  of  other  minds  (because  third  person  

perspectives  on  oneself  can  be  completely  non-­‐psychological).  In  fact,  Peacocke  also  argues  

that  interpersonal  self-­‐consciousness  need  not  require  perspectival  self-­‐consciousness  –  

because  I  can  attribute  psychological  concepts  to  you  without  taking  a  third  person  

perspective  on  myself.  Peacocke  also  suggests  that  reflective  self-­‐consciousness  may  also  

independent  of  both  perspectival  and  interpersonal  self-­‐consciousness,  thus  completing  a  

triple  dissociation  between  higher-­‐level  forms  of  self-­‐consciousness.  

Sadl;y  there  is  no  room  for  further  discussion,  or  for  comments  on  Peacocke’s  interesting  

engagement  with  Descartes,  Kant,  and  Sartre,  among  other  figures.  As  should  be  clear,  this  is  

a  very  rich  and  rewarding  book  –  required  reading  for  anyone  interested  in  the  metaphysics  

and  epistemology  of  the  self.