Concerning the Unity of Consciousness: Part II William James on Personal Conscious Unity

Abstract

Everyone agrees on one thing about consciousness. It possesses some sort of unity. Theorists of consciousness do not always give the same account of what this property amounts to, or of that from which they believe unity derives. In the present article, the unity of consciousness is discussed with reference to authors who have given to it some, larger or smaller, quantity of theoretical attention. Four main kinds of conscious unity emerge from the discussion, though these are not all uncontroversial. William James's treatment of one of these—called here “personal conscious unity”–is addressed in the greatest detail; but there remains a great deal more that needs to be said about all four kinds of conscious unity. The article is published in two parts.