eas MSaealsinaatis dacheusia wcSelf-Consciousness and Self-Determination Ernst Tugendhat translated by Paul Stern The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, EnglandStudies in Contemporary German Social Thought Thomas McCarthy, General Editor Theodor W. Adorno, Against Epistemology: A Metacritique Theodor W. Adorno, Prisms Karl-Otto Apel, Understanding and Explanation: A Transcendental-Pragmatic Perspective Richard J. Bernstein, editor, Habermas and Modernity Ernst Bloch, Natural Law and Human Dignity Ernst Bloch, The Principle of Hope Hans Blumenberg, The Legitimacy of the Modern Age Hans Blumenberg, Work on Myth Helmut Dubiel, Theory and Politics: Studies in the Development of Critical Theory John Forester, editor, Critical Theory and Public Life Hans-Georg Gadamer, Philosophical Apprenticeships Hans-Georg Gadamer, Reason in the Age of Science Jurgen Habermas, Philosophical-Political Profiles Jurgen Habermas, editor, Observations on “The Spiritual Situation of the Age” Hans Joas, G. H. Mead: A Contemporary Re-examination of His Thought Reinhart Koselleck, Futures Past: On the Semantics of Historical Time Claus Offe, Contradictions of the Welfare State Claus Offe, Disorganized Capitalism: Contemporary Transformations of Work and Politics Helmut Peukert, Science, Action, and Fundamental Theology: Toward a Theology of Communicative Action Joachim Ritter, Hegel and the French Revolution: Essays on the Philosophy of Right Alfred Schmidt, History and Structure: An Essay on Hegelian-Marxist and Structuralist Theories of History Carl Schmitt, The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy Carl Schmitt, Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty Michael Theunissen, The Other: Studies in the Social Ontology of Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, and Buber Ernst Tugendhat, Se/f-Consciousness and Self Determination‘This translation © 1986 by The Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Originally published as Selbstbewusstsein und Selbstbestimmung. Sprachanalytische Interpretationen, © 1979 by Suhr- kamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and re- trieval) without permission in writing from the publisher. This book was set in Baskerville by The MIT Press Computergraphics Department and was printed and bound by Halliday Lithograph in the United States of America. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Tugendhat, Emst. Self-consciousness and self-determination. (Studies in contemporary German social thought) Translation of: Selbstbewusstsein und Selbstbestimmung. Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. Self (Philosophy)—History— Addresses, essays, lectures. 2. Self-consciousness—History— Addresses, essays, lectures. I. Title. H. Series. BD450.T8813 1986 126 85-31235 ISBN 0-262-20056-2Contents Translator’s Introduction Author’s Preface Lecture 1 Introduction I: Preliminary Clarifications Lecture 2 Introduction II: Formulation of the Problem and Program Lecture 3 The Traditional Theory of Self-Consciousness at an Impasse Lecture 4 Descending from the I to “I” Lecture 5 Wittgenstein, I: The Impossibility of a Private Language Lecture 6 Wittgenstein, II: The Way Out of the Fly Bottle Lecture 7 Transition to the Problem of Self- Determination: Freud, Hegel, Kierkegaard Lecture 8 Heidegger on the Relation of Oneself to Oneself, I: The Approach Lecture 9 Heidegger on the Relation of Oneself to Oneself, If: The Elaboration vii XXXiil 1 18 39 56 77 98 120 144 171vi Contents Lecture 10 Heidegger on the Relation of Oneself to Oneself, III: Choosing Oneself Lecture 11 Mead, I: Symbolic Interaction Lecture 12 Mead, II: The Self Appendix: The Concept of Identity in Social Psychology Lecture 13 Concluding with Hegel, I Lecture 14 Concluding with Hegel, II Notes Bibliography Index 200 219 237 254 263 289 325 333 337Translator’s Introduction In Self-Consciousness and Self-Determination Ernst Tugendhat takes up a set of problems that have been a central preoccupation of the modern philosophical tradition from Descartes onward, namely, the special nature of self-consciousness, self-knowledge, and self-relation.' In ad- dressing these topics Tugendhat wrestles with a number of difficulties that are quite familiar within this tradition, such as the problems posed by the incorrigibility of first-person reports of conscious states, by the epistemic asymmetry between first- and third-person ascriptions of conscious states, and by the puzzles concerning the possibility of third- person access to the experiences, intentions, and beliefs of others. But he also takes into account a wider conception of self-consciousness and self-relation that has been neglected by much of the modern tradition—that is, the sense of self-consciousness and self-relation that is involved in an agent’s practical self-understanding in his activities and in his life as a whole. This is the sense of self-consciousness that may be ascribed to an agent when we say, for example, that he really knows ‘who’ he is or what he is doing with his life; it is a sense of self-consciousness that we might want to ascribe to someone as a virtue (or as a vice, if he is conspicuously self-deceived in his intentions), and hence it is closely related to the form of self-knowledge that is demanded in the Delphic motto gnothi seauton (Know thyself). From Descartes to Kant it was assumed that in the structure of self- consciousness—in knowledge of one’s experiences or of oneself— philosophy had discovered the basis for a secure, fully justified form of theoretical knowledge. Fichte and Hegel extended the foundationalviii Translator’s Introduction status of the principle of self-consciousness from theoretical to practical philosophy, seeking the basis for a rational, autonomous form of life in the fully developed concept of a practical relation of oneself to oneself. Nevertheless, in Tugendhat’s view, the modern philosophical tradition did not succeed, in its accounts either of theoretical or of practical self-consciousness, in identifying the relevant structures that could serve to elucidate the phenomena in question. Hence, if we hope to clarify the precise nature of self-consciousness in its theoretical and practical sense, we must critically examine the conceptual models by which the entire modern tradition was oriented in characterizing the phenomena and try to develop an alternative conceptual framework that more adequately captures their constitutive structures. This is precisely the task that Tugendhat sets himself in Se/f-Con- sciousness and Self Determination. He is quite clear about the sources of confusion that have misled the modern tradition in its construal of the self-consciousness relation. There are basically two models that have exercised crucial importance here. The first, which Tugendhat calls the subject-object model, treats consciousness essentially as a relation to an object; from this perspective, self-consciousness is under- stood as that peculiar relation to an object in which the object is identical with consciousness itself, that is, one has oneself ‘before’ oneself. The second misleading model is epistemological, involving the idea that in self-consciousness one gains a special access to oneself through a kind of inner perception, a turning of one’s observing gaze from outer objects to one’s inner self. How have these two models led the modern tradition astray in its understanding of the self-consciousness relation? They jointly contribute to the picture of self-consciousness as a reflexive relation in which the subject turns back upon himself, directs his glance upon a private, inner sphere and thereby directly apprehends himself qua object. In Tugendhat’s view, this picture is misguided in at least three crucial respects. First, it fails to recognize that the object that one is aware of in self-consciousness is not an object in the ordinary sense, but a propositional object. In expressing an awareness of a feeling of sharp pain, for example, it would be senseless to say “I know I” or “I know pain”; rather, one’s awareness is expressed in sentences of the form “T know that I am in pain.” Similarly, in practically relating to oneself as a human agent, one does not relate to something inside oneself, a core of one’s personality or subjectivity that one somehow ‘sees’;ix Translator’s Introduction rather, one relates to oneself practically in relating to (i.e., in deliberating about) the issue of how one is going to live—what sort of activities, relations, and so on one is going to engage in. It follows that the states of mind to which the phenomena of self-consciousness refer are prop- ositional attitudes, and hence that the attempt to grasp the latter in terms of a reflexive relation is deeply misdirected. Second, the epistemological orientation of traditional theories of self-consciousness toward the model of inner observation misleadingly reduces first-person self-ascription of conscious states to third-person ascription of perceptible predicates to material objects, which takes place essentially from the perspective of an observer. It is thereby implied that in ascribing conscious states to ourselves we first identify something ‘inside’ ourselves (an I or an ego), to which we then ascertain that a certain predicate, standing for a conscious state, attaches. As Tugendhat shows, this analogy breaks down on closer examination if one attends to the actual function of the singular term “TI” in iden- tification and to the rules of use governing the first-person self-ascription of predicates standing for conscious states. If one brings this reflexive model of inner seeing or observing to bear in trying to understand how we relate practically to ourselves as agents, the consequences are even more disastrous. For precisely what is inconceivable on this model is the sense in which our relation to ourselves as agents is constituted not in a contemplative perception of our inner self or personality, but in a volitional choice of what we are going to do with our lives and hence ‘who’ we are going to be. Finally, the third misleading implication of the traditional picture of self-consciousness is that it is an essentially solipsistic relation that the individual enjoys merely by reflecting back upon a private inner sphere to which he alone has privileged access. In Tugendhat’s view, self-consciousness in its theoretical and its practical sense is essentially linked to the rules of intersubjective speech and to the norms of the social community in which the agent defines those activities central to his life. Any attempt to make sense either of the first-person self- ascription of conscious states or of the practical self-relation outside of this intersubjective framework will necessarily fail to account for the conditions of meaning presupposed in each of these modes of relating to oneself. Tugendhat develops his alternative model of self-consciousness through an interpretation of three philosophers who stand in a criticalx Translator’s Introduction relation to the prejudices of the tradition: Wittgenstein, Heidegger, and Mead. He turns to these philosophers because they are conceptual innovators. Each sought in his own way to disengage himself from the categorical assumptions of the tradition and to understand the phenomena of self-consciousness on a new basis. This is especially true of Wittgenstein and Heidegger. They both attempted to break away from the traditional notion of consciousness as a domain in which the subject ‘represents’ an object and in which one’s self is encountered through inner observation or perception. In Wittgenstein’s case, the repudiation of the model of inner ‘seeing’ led to an entirely new understanding of those sentences in which knowledge of one’s conscious states is articulated: They are to be understood as expressive and not as cognitive. In Heidegger’s case, the rejection of the con- templative model of self-consciousness led to the discovery (or recovery, if one considers Aristotle) of an entirely new dimension of self-relation neglected by the modern tradition: A self-relation constituted not in reflexively apprehending something inside oneself, but in adopting a practical, volitional stance toward the unavoidable question of how one is going to live. It is only in this connection—that is, of the practical relation to oneself—that the originality of Mead’s account of the self can be properly appreciated. What Mead demonstrates, according to Tug- endhat, is that one’s practical relation to oneself is not an individual, private affair; it is only articulated in an inner conversation with oneself that rests on an internalization of social norms and the possibility of conversing with others. It follows that one’s conception of oneself as a practical agent is constituted socially in both a genetic and structural sense, and that the prospect of a rational or reflective self-relation can only be understood in terms of achieving a possible consensus with other rational interlocutors about matters pertaining to the good life. It should already be apparent from these preliminary remarks that, contrary to the tradition, Tugendhat does not regard the topic of self- consciousness as a unitary one. Rather, it involves two distinct sets of phenomena, each of which requires its own separate philosophical elucidation. The first set of phenomena has to do with first-person knowledge of one’s own conscious states and is characterized by Tug- endhat as immediate epistemic self-consciousness; it is expressed in sentences of the form “I know that I ¢,” where ¢ stands for a conscious state. The second set of phenomena does not refer to an epistemicxi Translator’s Introduction or theoretical consciousness of oneself at all, but to a practical relation to oneself that each human agent necessarily adopts in deciding how to live his life, in addressing the inescapable choice of what to do and ‘who’ to be. Accordingly, Tugendhat’s discussion of self-consciousness falls into two main parts. The first deals with immediate epistemic self-con- sciousness. He begins by subjecting a recent, traditionally conceived account of this relation—that of Dieter Henrich—to a devastating “language-analytic” critique, and he then turns to Wittgenstein’s treat- ment of this problem in the Philosophical Investigations and in the “Notes for Lectures” in order to reconstruct an alternative view that avoids the absurdities of the old model. In the second part of the book he develops his account of the practical relation of oneself to oneself and of the higher-level reflective or autonomous self-relation through an interpretation of Heidegger and Mead, and he concludes by contrasting this higher-level conception of autonomy to a corresponding traditional conception, namely, the Hegelian view of freedom as expounded in the theory of ethical life (Sittlichkeit). While Tugendhat’s analysis of immediate epistemic self-conscious- ness contains several points of prime philosophical importance— including a perspicuous defense of Wittgenstein’s private language argument and an interesting attempt to reconcile the expressive and assertoric status of the ‘I @”’ sentences—I shall devote the remainder of this introduction to his concept of the practical relation to oneself and of self-determination. I have two reasons for doing this. First, there is a substantial body of secondary literature already available in English on the later Wittgenstein and on the problem of the “TI ¢” sentences. Second, and more importantly, Tugendhat’s conception of the practical self-relation and of self-determination breaks new philo- sophical ground and reorients areas of inquiry that have only recently attracted the attention of contemporary Anglo-American philosophers. It has a direct bearing, for instance, upon current discussions of such topics as the nature of human agency, the connection between the concept of a person and the idea of responsibility, and the significance of our capacity to engage in reflective, second-order evaluation of our wants and desires. His achievement here consists in disclosing the relevance of the concept of autonomy, in the specific sense of rational vlf-determination, for our notions of agency, responsibility for self, and ultimately even the good life. He manages to show how thisxii Translator’s Introduction concept— whose significance, partly owing to the influence of the Kan- tian tradition, is commonly restricted to the moral and political spheres narrowly conceived—is crucially linked to the standards of evaluation we apply to agents in deciding how they shall live, who they are, and what they take to be the good life. My remarks will fall into two parts. First, I shall try briefly to locate Tugendhat’s conception of self-determination in relation to the char- acteristic views on autonomy elaborated by Kant and Heidegger. I shall argue that Tugendhat’s idea of self-determination can profitably be situated somewhere between the Kantian idea of the autonomy of reason and the Heideggerean idea of authenticity, and in this respect can be understood as suitably remedying the excesses of both. Second, I shall consider some more recent debates concerning the concepts of human agency, responsibility, and reflective self-evaluation and try to indicate how Tugendhat’s account significantly advances the argument. What does it mean to relate to oneself, and in what sense can this be regarded as definitive of what it is to be a human agent? The central idea is roughly this: It is characteristic of human beings that they do not merely exist in a factual sense, subject to certain wants and desires, but rather always exist in such a way that they must assume a relation (either implicit or explicit) to their existence. This relation, moreover, cannot be understood as theoretical or contemplative, but must be grasped as volitional and practical. At the most basic level it involves adopting a stance of either afhrmation or negation toward one’s exis- tence, that is, facing the unavoidable choice of either continuing with one’s life or bringing it to an end. Of course, human beings do not face this situation of choice without further qualification: The question of being or not-being is always simultaneously the question of being or not-being in such and such a way, under such and such circum- stances, and hence it brings one up against the issue of how one intends to live one’s life and what sort of a person one wants to be. This implies that in relating to their impending future life human beings necessarily relate to a series of fundamental, practical questions (which need not be explicitly posed) concerning who they are, what they want, and what kinds of activities they intend to engage in. Tugendhat’s thesis is that in (either implicitly or explicitly) confronting and answering this spectrum of questions, human beings are involved in a relationxiii Translator’s Introduction to themselves in which they are required to define their identity; they do so in deciding which among a range of possible ways to live they want to make constitutive of their “existence.” Tugendhat is not merely interested in clarifying the general sense in which human agents relate to themselves in adopting those intentions and purposes that define their life-activities and hence their identity. He also wants to elucidate a second, more eminent sense in which an agent can be said to relate practically to himself—that is, in the mode of autonomy or self-determination. The notion of self-deter- mination that comes into play here is one that would incline us to say, for example, that someone has really settled for himself what he is doing with his life, what he wants, and ‘who’ he is; his preferences, standards of evaluation, and view of the good life are not determined by forces alien to him, such as the social expectations of others, but are decided by the agent himself. Tugendhat refers to this higher form of the practical relation to oneself in which one decides “for oneself” who one is and what kind of life one wants to lead as a reflective self- relation; it is characterized by a stance of self-questioning toward one’s wants and volitions and a concern for assessing the truth of those factual and normative beliefs that are implied in one’s preferences and actions. In developing his concept of the reflective self-relation, Tugendhat seeks to find a middle ground on the question of autonomy between Kantian rationalism and Heideggerean decisionism. Self-determination, properly conceived, can be understood neither as the pure autonomy of reason nor as the resoluteness of an exclusively individual, authentic choice. In one sense Tugendhat firmly endorses the revision of the idea of autonomy introduced by the tradition extending from Kier- kegaard to Heidegger: The concept of self-determination has practical relevance only as the self-determination of the person as an individual person, and not as the universal self-determination of reason. This means that the problem of self-determination arises principally in connection with what Tugendhat calls the fundamental practical ques- tion, namely, Who am I and what do I want to do with my life? This question reaches beyond the de facto characterization of the subject by his desires, goals, and purposes; the agent here poses the de jure question to himself: Am I living the kind of life that I really want, am I the sort of person that I ought to be? It is precisely because human beings have the capacity to step back from their wants, purposes,XIV Translator’s Introduction roles, and activities and raise the question “Who am I in these manifold relations and what do I really want?” that the issue of self-determination acquires genuine significance. To be self-determining in this context implies that in raising this question the agent is in a position to decide for himself what types of activities he wants to engage in and what sort of person he wants to be; he does not find his choice ‘determined’ by his own immediate desires, by the expectations of others, or by the conventionally accepted norms of his community. What does it mean exactly to decide for oneself who one wants to be and how one wants to live? Tugendhat argues that one can be self-determining only insofar as one poses the practical question in its fundamental sense—that is, with reference to what one intends to do with one’s life as such. One cannot, of course, envision an agent who does not pose practical questions at some level, even if it is merely to deliberate about which means are most suitable for achieving a set of predetermined purposes or ends. The point is, however, that the significance of such questions can be either narrow or comprehensive. They have narrow significance if one’s purposes are not placed in question but only the means, or if one assesses immediate purposes in light of unquestioned long-range purposes or accepted social norms and values. In contrast, they have fundamental significance if one places one’s purposes, goals, and normative commitments into question without presupposing any further fixed (personal or social) points of reference that are not subject to question. According to Tugendhat, in raising this kind of practical question one is placing one’s life as a whole into question, because one is raising the issue of who one wants to be, that is, how one ought to understand oneself as an agent who desires and acts. Furthermore, the possibility of attaining (or approx- imating) self-determination in one’s decisions hinges on one’s willingness to raise the practical question in this comprehensive sense, for it is only on this basis that one can explicitly exercise a choice with regard to one’s fundamental life-possibilities. In explicating the concepts of self-determination and of choosing for oneself in terms of our willingness to raise the fundamental practical question, Tugendhat stands close to Heidegger’s treatment of autonomy in terms of the idea of authenticity. For what is characteristic of in- authentic existence is precisely that it involves Dasein’s failure explicitly to confront its own practical possibilities; rather, it allows itself to be guided by what is conventionally regarded as good (by the “‘they-XV Translator’s Introduction self”) and thereby evades the question (and fundamental choice) of who it wants to be. Contrariwise, authentic existence involves Dasein’s resolve not to conceal the range of practical possibilities that are open to it, but to address the question of what it is doing with its life independently of the fixed, conventional normative standpoints that prevail in the social community. Tugendhat’s conception of self-determination diverges dramatically from Heidegger’s model, however, in its assessment of the role of reason in guiding the way that one answers the fundamental practical question. In Tugendhat’s view, the principal failing of Heidegger’s account of self-determination is that it neglects the importance of the question of truth and rational justification as a constitutive feature of fully responsible, autonomous choice. It is for this reason that Tugendhat insists that self-determination is realized only in a reflective self-relation; reflective here means deliberative, that is, directed to an objectively justifiable choice of what is good. The point is that in raising the fundamental practical question one’s concern is not merely to decide for oneself what one wants, but also to decide what it is best for oneself to want, that is, what sort of life and identity would actually be best for oneself among the possible alternatives. Since the fundamental practical question is directed to the issue of what is good, better, and best, the answer at which it aims cannot be decided merely on the basis of the agent’s arbitrary subjective pref- erences. Rather, the answer that is sought is an objectively justifiable choice, a choice of what is actually (in truth) good for the agent. This implies that there are objective reasons for preferring one set of practical alternatives to another, that there are objective standards of evaluation whose relevance should not be ignored, and that the advice and counsel of others may be solicited in trying to ascertain what is objectively preferable. It is in this sense that Tugendhat argues that an autonomous self-relation must be directed to the question of truth and to a rationally justifiable choice; contrary to Heidegger, it cannot be understood merely as choosing independently and resolutely if this necessary relation to reason and to truth is overlooked. Tugendhat specifies at least three distinct ways in which the question of truth is relevant in answering the practical question regarding one’s own good. First, one must have (or strive for, as a regulative ideal) knowledge of oneself, of one’s underlying dispositions to volition and to action, in trying to decide what it is that one really wants to do