Moore on awareness, transparency, and Erlebnis
摘要
This paper traces the evolution of G. E. Moore’s ideas regarding inner and outer awareness, transparency, and the doctrine of Erlebnis, as articulated in a series of papers published in the Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society and Mind between 1901 and 1915. I defend two theses. First, I argue that, during this period, Moore gradually moved from an observational view of consciousness in general, including self-consciousness, to a mixed view in which subjects are directly aware of the objects of consciousness, while they “live through” (erleben) their mental acts. Notably, this shift shows that a certain debate between objectifying and non-objectifying consciousness in the Phenomenological school of Brentano and Husserl was to some extent replicated in the early British analytic tradition. Second, I contend that this change in Moore’s thinking was motivated by an attempt to overcome the problem posed by the transparency of consciousness for the possibility of introspecting the act-object relation (an idea that he never abandoned). It is through this chief aim, I believe, that we can make sense of Moore’s shifting ideas concerning awareness.