Brentano and Three Types of Unconscious Intentionality

We saw that for Brentano, (i) all conscious states are intentional, and (ii) all intentional states are conscious. We also saw that felt pain is an apparent counterexample to (i): to feel pain is to be in a conscious state, a state that is not of or about anything. But there are also apparent counterexamples to (ii). Perhaps we should distinguish three classes of putattive counterexamples:

1. Intentionality without conscious awareness but with an easy transition to conscious awareness.
2. Intentionality with neither conscious awareness nor an easy transition to conscious awareness.
3. Intentionality below the level of mind.

Ad 1. One can be aware of X without being consciously aware of it, i.e., aware of it in such a way that one is aware of one's awareness of it.  Hector-Neri Castaneda used to refer to this sort of awareness as that of an externus. Suppose I have been driving for a while on 'automatic pilot': I have been negotiating turns, stopping at traffic lights, etc., but I have not been aware of being aware of the road, the traffic lights, etc. That sometimes happens. And then one snaps out of 'automatic pilot' mode.

Clearly, I was not unconscious during the period in question: I was conscious of the road, etc.; it is just that this primary outer-directed consciousness C was not accompanied by a simultaneous secondary inner-directed consciousness C*. Had I been unconscious, I would have crashed. I was conscious, not merely in the sense of being awake, but also in the sense of being conscious of objects; it is just that I was not conscious of being conscious of objects.

So I don't see the externus awareness as a counterexample to the claim that all intentional states are conscious states. At most it is a counterexample to the distinct claim that all intentional states are accompanied by what Brentano called inner perception, innere Wahrnehmung. C without C* is not an unconscious intentional state. For if C were unconscious, how could I be aware of the transition from C alone to C accompanied by C*?

Consider a related example. A piece of noisy machinery shuts off, a refrigerator or an  A/C unit. You note the absence of the sound, and at the same time realize that a moment before you had been unaware of being aware of it. And yet you had been aware of it, otherwise you would have not become aware of its absence. There was an externus-type awareness. Again, I do not see that this is a counterexample to Brentano's claim that all intentional states are conscious states.

Ad 2. Now consider a repressed memory of a traumatic event. The memory is intentional: it is about the event. Being repressed, it is below the surface of conscious awareness. But after a psychoanalytic session or twenty, it may be brought to the surface. That sometimes happens. What we should say is that the subconscious intentional state was potentially conscious, not that it was wholly unconscious. If it had been wholly unconscious, it could not have been brought to the light of consciousness. So I don't see that subconscious intentional states are counterexamples to the claim that all intentional states are conscious states.

Ad 3. The really interesting question is whether or not there could be intentional states that are neither actually nor potentially conscious. These would be states that could exist even if there were no consciousness. Hence, these would be states whose understanding would require no reference to consciousness at all. We could call them radically unconscious: neither actually conscious or self-conscious, nor potentially conscious. If there are such states, then it will makes sense to do what many philsophers and cognitive scientists do, namely, 'divide and conquer': separate  the problem of intentionality from the (hard) problem of consciousness. But if there are no such radically unconscious intentional states, then the two problems will not be susceptible of separate solution.

Here then is where we should look for clear counterexamples to Brentano's claim. Could there be intentional states that are neither actually nor potentially conscious?  Could there be intentionality below the level of mind?  That is a topic for the next post in this series.