A Relation ‘that relates itself to itself’, Some Regress Threats, and a Mystery

Brentano’s metaphysics of consciousness faces several questions: Can a relation be self-relating without leading to counter-intuitive consequences? Has the vicious regress of conscious-making acts really been stopped by Brentano’s theory or is there a revenge regress? In this chapter I answer these questions on Brentano’s behalf. I will assess Gurwitsch’s argument against Brentano and argue that it shows that one of Gurwitsch’s premises is wrong, not that there is a new regress for Brentano. Pothast also does not show that there is a regress threat for Brentano because Brentano does not, as Pothast claims, hold that the secondary presentation presents itself as a presentation of itself. A similar criticism applies to Frank’s attempt to show that Brentano is open to a regress threat. The chapter concludes by investigating what distinguishes conscious and unconscious mental acts, and why and how self-referentiality makes for consciousness.