Retreat

Abstract

Abstract What connection, if any, is there between being self-conscious and being related to an objective world? This chapter examines two broad approaches to answering this question in twentieth-century philosophy. The first argues that it is a condition on being self-conscious that we think of the world as objective; the other argues that it is a condition on being self-conscious that we experience the world as objective. Each constitutes a retreat from the ambitions of the Cartesian and Kantian projects in that they aim to show only that self-consciousness requires our being intentionally directed towards an objective world. These arguments are clarified and discussed, and lessons from their failure are presented.