The Stream of Consciousness: XX: A Non-Egological Conception

Abstract

This article develops the concluding section of a previous article of mine, which briefly contrasted William James's views on consciousness in The Principles with those of Susanne K. Langer in her own magnum opus. This comparative approach allows me to bring out vividly the fact that James's discussion of consciousness seeks to express a non-egological conception of the subject matter. James consistently refuses to adopt any theory according to which consciousness is brought into being by something more than the processes of the brain; there exists no mental spring or source from which the mental stream flows or has its origin; the ongoing activity of the brain, without knowing what it does, produces mechanically one state of consciousness after another. In contrast, Langer's descriptions of the organism as that which feels may be a way of implicitly introducing a physical ego, which does all that a metaphysical Subject or ego is supposed to do. A brain center that, as Langer holds, receives impressions of physiological processes above a certain limen and, by apprehending them, renders these processes into states of consciousness is a physical ego.