Abstract
One of the few things that most philosophers working within various traditions agree about is that the notion of consciousness is a key, or fundamental notion, both in epistemology and in any theory of the self. Discussions of consciousness as we know them began in earnest in the late seventeenth/early eighteenth century — largely under the influence of Cartesianism. This at least is the acknowledged historical source of present-day contributions to the theory of consciousness. In this paper I am concerned with another treatment of the notion of consciousness in early modern philosophy, the importance of which has not been sufficiently recognized by scholars, namely the treatment of the issue by the Cambridge Platonist Ralph Cudworth (1617–1688); and I shall examine and evaluate Cudworth’s contribution by way of considering it in the context of seventeenth century thought.1 Now, some might argue that it is rather misleading to speak, as I do in the title of this paper, of seventeenth century theories of consciousness, for, so it might be said, even though Cartesians and some other philosophers may have raised a number of issues which are relevant to a theory of consciousness, there really were no worked out theories of consciousness in the seventeenth century.
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K. J. Grau, for example (Die Entwicklung des Bewusstseinsbegriffs im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert, Halle 1916), does not discuss Cudworth at all. B. L. Mijuskovic (The Achilles of Rationalist Arguments, The Hague 1974) addresses the issue of ‘the unity of consciousness in the 17th and 18th centuries’ and discusses the Cambridge Platonists John Smith and, briefly, Ralph Cudworth (pp. 67–70) in that context. However, what Mijuskovic discusses under this title is the argument that a simple, immaterial soul is required to bind our thoughts together. Mijuskovic does not enquire into the concept of consciousness itself and how it may be distinguished from other, related concepts. I have made some remarks on Cudworth’s notion of consciousness in my German book, Lockes Theorie der Personalen Identitaet, Bonn (1983). This paper is a heavily revised and expanded version of those remarks.
Christian Wolff, Vernuenftige Gedanken von den Kraeften des menschlichen Verstandes und ihrem richtigen Gebrauche in Erkenntnis der Wahrheit, Halle (1713), I, par. 1: ‘Ich sage aber, dass wir etwas empfinden, wenn wir uns desselben als uns gegenwaertig bewust sind’. See especially Wolff’s Vernuenftige Gedanken von Gott, der Welt und der Seele des Menschen, auch allen Dingen ueberhaupt, Halle (1719), par. 194; in par. 731–736 the noun ‘Bewustseyn’ is used: ‘Also hebet die voellige Dunckelheit das Bewustseyn auf’ (par. 731). For further discussion of issues relating to consciousness see also Wolff’s Psychologia Rationalis, Frankfurt/Leipzig (1728), and Psychologia Empirica, Frankfurt/Leipzig (1732).
Two Dissertations concerning Sense, and the Imagination. With an Essay on Consciousness, London (1728). The work has been wrongly ascribed to a certain Zachary Mayne who had died in 1694. There is a recent edition of the Essay on Consciousness which contains an important introduction and notes (as well as a German translation of the work) by the editor: Reinhard Brandt (ed.), Pseudo-Mayne: Ueber das Bewusstsein 1728, Hamburg (1983).
The controversy took place from 1706 to 1708 and was initiated by Henry Dodwell’s An Epistolary Discourse, proving, from the Scriptures and the first Fathers, that the Soul is a Principle naturally Mortal, London (1706).
See R. R. Wellman, ‘The Question posted at Charmides 165a–166c’, in Phronesis (1964), pp. 107–113.
And especially: E. Martens, Das selbstbezuegliche Wissen in Platons ‘Charmides’, Munich (1973).
K. Gloy, ‘Platons Theorie der ‘episteme heautes’ im Charmides als Vorlaufer der modernen Selbstbewusstseinstheorien’, in Kant-Studien 77, pp. 137–164 (1986).
For questions of etymology and the notions of consciousness and conscientia in ancient thought see Friedrich Zucker, Syneidesis-Conscientia, Jena (1928).
Gertrud Jung, ‘Syneidesis, Conscientia, Bewusstsein’, in Archiv fuer die gesamte Psychologie 89, pp. 525–540 (1933).
O. Seel, ‘Zur Vorgeschichte des Gewissens-Begriffes im altgriechischen Denken’, in H. Kusch (ed.), Festschrift Franz Dornseiff, Liepzig (1953), pp. 291–319.
For the etymology of the English term see especially C. S. Lewis, Studies in Words, Cambridge (1960), pp. 181–213; see also the Oxford English Dictionary under ‘conscience’, ‘conscious’, and ‘consciousness’.
See for example Hobbes, Leviathan (1651), I, 7; and John Wilkins, An Essay towards a real Character, and a Philosophical Language, London (1668), p. 22.
R. Goclenius, Lexicon Philosophicum, Frankfurt (1613), pp. 247
R. Goclenius, Lexicon Philosophicum, Frankfurt (1613) 379
R. Goclenius, Lexicon Philosophicum, Frankfurt (1613) 971.
J. Micraelius, Lexicon Philosophicum, Stettin (1662) (second edition; first edition: (1653), column 1208: ‘REFLEXUM est, quod in se redit. Sic actus animi reflexus est, quo se ipsum intelligit’.
K. J. Grau, for example (Die Entwicklung des Bewusstseinsbegriffs im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert, Halle 1916) See also Grau op. cit. p. 105.
R. Goclenius, Lexicon Philosophicum, Frankfurt (1613) Goclenius, op. cit., p. 971: ‘Reflexio enim Intellectus eis est, cum postquam intellectus concepit rem aliqua, rursus concipit se concepisse eam, & considerat ac metitur, qua certitudine & modo illam cognoverit, ...”. See also p. 248.
Antony Cade, A Sermon on the Nature of Conscience (1621) especially pp. 19–22.
See also William Perkins, A Discourse of Conscience (1596).
William Ames, Of Conscience with the Power and Cases thereof (1639) (Latin edition 1630).
Henry Hammond, Of Conscience, London (1646).
Robert Sanderson, De Obligatione Conscientiae, London (1647).
Jeremy Taylor, Ductor Dubitantium, or the Rule of Conscience in all her general Measures, London (1660).
For scholastic definitions of conscientia see Timothy C. Potts, Conscience in Medieval Philosophy, Cambridge (1980).
R. Goclenius, Lexicon Philosophicum, Frankfurt (1613) See also Goclenius, op. cit., p. 447
J. Micraelius, Lexicon Philosophicum, Stettin (1662) Micraelius, op. cit., column 321.
References to Descartes’ works are to the standard edition by Ch. Adam and P. Tannery, Oeuvres de Descartes, revised edition, Paris (1964–76) (abbr.: AT) and to Rene Descartes. Philosophical Writings. Edited and translated by J. Cottingham, R. Stoothoff, D. Murdoch, 2 Vols., Cambridge (1984–5) (abbr.: Philosophical Writings).
On ‘conscience’ and ‘conscientia’ in Descartes and seventeenth century French thought see Ruth Lindemann. Der Begriff der conscience im franzoesischen Denken, Heidelberg (1938).
G. Lewis, Le Probleme de l’Inconscient et le Cartesianisme, Paris (1950).
Wilhelm Halbfass, Descartes’ Frage nach der Existenz der Welt, Meisenheim am Glan (1968), pp. 90–93
Wilhelm Halbfass, Descartes’ Frage nach der Existenz der Welt, Meisenheim am Glan (1968) 133–135.
Robert McRae, ‘Innate Ideas’, in R. J. Butler (ed.), Cartesian Studies, Oxford, Blackwell (1972), pp. 32–54.
Robert McRae, ‘Descartes’ Definition of Thought’, Robert McRae, ‘Innate Ideas’, in R. J. Butler (ed.), Cartesian Studies, Oxford, Blackwell (1972)
Robert McRae, ‘Descartes’ Definition of Thought’, Robert McRae, ‘Innate Ideas’, in R. J. Butler (ed.), Cartesian Studies, Oxford, Blackwell (1972), pp. 55–70.
D. Radner, ‘Thought and Consciousness in Descartes’, in Journal of the History of Philosopohy 26, pp. 439–452 (1988).
AT V, pp. 220–2. See also Anthony Kenny (ed.), Descartes. Philosophical Letters, Oxford (1970), pp. 234–5.
‘Conscium esse est quidem cogitare et reflectere supra suam cogitationem’, Descartes et Burman (AT V, p. 149). See also John Cottingham (ed.), Descartes’ Conversation with Burman, Oxford (1976), p. 7, and Cottingham’s comments on this passage, p. 61.
AT V, p. 149; John Cottingham (ed.), Descartes’ Conversation with Burman, Oxford (1976) Cottingham, op. cit., p. 7.
Replies tot the sixth objections to the Meditations (AT VII, p. 422; Philosophical Writings, Vol. 2, p. 285). For attempts to attribute to Descartes a clear distinction between consciousness and reflection on the basis of this and similar passages see Robert McRae, Leibniz: Perception, Apperception, and Thought, Toronto and Buffalo (1976), p. 10, and more recently
Richard E. Aquila, ‘The Cartesian and to a certain ‘Poetic’ Notion of Consciousness’, in Journal of the History of ideas 49, pp. 543–562, esp. 546–7 (1988), Aquila does not mention Cudworth.
Wilhelm Halbfass, Descartes’ Frage nach der Existenz der Welt, Meisenheim am Glan (1968)
26b See Wilhelm Halbfass, Descartes’ Frage nach der Existenz der Welt, Meisenheim am Glan (1968), p. 92.
Traité de l’Esprit de l’Homme, Paris (1666), p. 54. On de la Forge see Albert G. A. Balz, Cartesian Studies, New York (1951), especially p. 95.
Antoine Arnauld, Des Vrayes et des Fausses Idées, Paris (1683).
Matthew Hale, The Primitive Origination of Mankind, London (1677), p. 24.
John Wilkins, Of the Principles and Duties of Natural Religion, London (1675), p. 3.
On this ‘reflection argument’ see Emily Michael and Fred S. Michael, ‘Two Early Modern Concepts of Mind: Reflecting vs. Thinking Substance’, in Journal of the History of Philosophy 27, pp. 29–49 (1989).
On the notion of plastic nature and its history, especially in the seventeenth century, see W. B. Hunter Jr.: ‘The Seventeenth Century Doctrine of Plastic Nature’ in The Harvard Theological Review 43, pp. 197–213 (1950)
also G. Aspelin, Ralph Cud-worth’s Interpretation of Greek Philosophy, Goeteborg (1943), pp. 13–15
G. Aspelin, Ralph Cud-worth’s Interpretation of Greek Philosophy, Goeteborg (1943) 26–31
John Passmore, Ralph Cudworth. An Interpretation, Cambridge (1951), pp. 19–28
Lydia Gysi, Platonism and Cartesianism in the Philosophy of Ralph Cudworth, Bern (1962), pp. 17–24
R. A. Greene, ‘Henry More and Robert Boyle on the Spirit of Nature’, in Journal of the History of Ideas 23, pp. 451–474 (1962).
See Plotinus, Enneads III, 8, 4: Vol. 8, 11/23. For the notion of consciousness in Plotinus see especially H. R. Schwyzer, ‘Bewusst’ und ‘unbewusst’ bei Plotin’, in Les Sources de Plotin. Entretiens sur l’Antiquité classique, Vol. V (Fondation Hardt), Geneva (1960), pp. 343–390; on the term ‘synaisthesis’ as feeling see pp. 355ff.
see also E. W. Warren, ‘Consciousness in Plotinus’, in Phronesis 9, pp. 83–97 (1964); and
G. J. P. O’Daly, Plotinus’ Philosophy of the Self, Shannon, Ireland (1973).
On the relationship of Cudworth to Descartes see John Passmore, Ralph Cudworth. An Interpretation, Cambridge (1951) op. cit., pp. 8–11, 23–28; Lydia Gysi, Platonism and Cartesianism in the Philosophy of Ralph Cudworth, Bern (1962) op. cit.
J. C. Gregory, ‘Cudworth and Descartes’, in Philosophy 8, pp. 454–467 (1933)
D. B. Sailor, ‘Cudworth and Descartes’ in Journal of the Histsory of Ideas 23, pp. 133–140 (1962)
on Descartes’ impact on seventeenth century English thought in general see now G. A. J. Rogers, ‘Descartes and the English’ in J. D. North and J. J. Roche (eds.), The Light of Nature, Dordrecht (1985), pp. 281–302.
John Passmore, Ralph Cudworth. An Interpretation, Cambridge (1951)
John Passmore, Ralph Cudworth. An Interpretation, Cambridge (1951), p. 31, says that for Cudworth ‘knowledge is always self-knowledge’.
For an interpretation of the passage in Plotinus H. R. Schwyzer, ‘Bewusst’ und ‘unbewusst’ bei Plotin’, in Les Sources de Plotin. Entretiens sur l’Antiquité classique, Vol. V (Fondation Hardt), Geneva (1960)
see Plotinus H. R. Schwyzer, ‘Bewusst’ und ‘unbewusst’ bei Plotin’, in Les Sources de Plotin. Entretiens sur l’Antiquité classique, Vol. V (Fondation Hardt), Geneva (1960), p. 371f. Plotinus also ascribes this basic self-feeling or ‘hoion synaisthesis’ to the One which cannot, unlike the Nous, have self-knowledge, because this would mean that the One would be divided into subject and object; see Ennead V, 4, 2.
See Rosalie L. Colie, Light and Enlightenment. A Study of the Cambridge Platonists and the Dutch Arminians, Cambridge (1957), pp. 117 ff.
Cudworth’s ‘consciousness’ was translated into French as ‘conscience’ and ‘connaissance reflechie’ (Rosalie L. Colie, Light and Enlightenment. A Study of the Cambridge Platonists and the Dutch Arminians, Cambridge (1957)
(Rosalie L. Colie, Light and Enlightenment. A Study of the Cambridge Platonists and the Dutch Arminians, Cambridge (1957). p. 126).
The best discussions of Leibniz’ notion of consciousness are those by Robert McRae, Leibniz: Perception, Apperception, and Thought, Toronto and Buffalo (1976), and by
Mark Kulstad, ‘Leibniz on Consciousness and Reflection’, in The Southern Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 21, Supplement (1983), pp. 39–66.
See for example John Turner, A Discourse concerning the Messias ... to which is prefixed a large Preface, asserting and explaining the Doctrine of the Blessed Trinity, against a late Writer of the Intellectual System, London (1685).
Richard Burthogge, An Essay upon Reason, and the Nature of Spirits, London (1694).
William Sherlock, A Vindication of the Holy and Ever Blessed Trinity, London (1690).
William Sherlock, A Defence of Dr. Sherlock’s Notion of a Trinity in Unity, London (1694).
Robert South, Animadversions upon Dr. Sherlock’s Book, London (1693).
Robert South, Tritheism Charged upon Dr. Sherlock’s new Notion of the Trinity, London (1695).
John Sergeant, Solid Philosophy Asserted, London (1697). For a discussion of the notions of conciousness in these works see my Lockes Theorie der personalen Identitaet, Bonn (1983), pp. 106–107 (Turner), pp. 76–78 (Burthogge), pp. 107–116 (Sherlock and South), pp. 121–3 (Sergeant). My main discussion of Locke’s conception of consciousness is on pp. 88–104.
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Thiel, U. (1991). Cudworth and Seventeenth-Century Theories of Consciousness. In: Gaukroger, S. (eds) The Uses of Antiquity. Australasian Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, vol 10. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-3412-5_4
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