Phenomenology
D.W. Smith’s Three-Facet Ontological Phenomenology
Consciousness as Form, Appearance, and Substrate
David Woodruff Smith analyzes consciousness through three facets of one activity: its form (intentionality), its appearance (how it is experienced, including qualia), and its substrate (its physical, biological, and cultural basis). He holds that an act is conscious because it carries inner awareness of itself as a modal character, part of the way it is performed, rather than through a separate higher-order state.
David Woodruff Smith, Ronald McIntyre
What consciousness is
Consciousness is a structured, world-involving activity with three inseparable facets: intentional form, phenomenal appearance, and a natural (physical, biological, cultural) substrate.
Mind and body
Smith compares the three facets to a computer’s program, interface, and hardware: one activity described three ways. Consciousness rests on a natural substrate but cannot be reduced to it, and no dualism is needed.
Mechanism
Inner awareness as a modal character with reflexive content: a conscious act is aware of itself in the manner it occurs, with no higher-order monitoring.
Core claims
- Every entity, including consciousness, can be distinguished into form, appearance, and substrate.
- A mental act is conscious when it includes awareness of its own occurring as part of its modal character.
- Thinking and judging have phenomenal character as well as sensing.
- Physicalism that studies only substrate and constructivism that studies only discourse both leave out consciousness itself.
Implications
- AI consciousness: Uncertain
- The program-interface-hardware analogy suggests the facets could in principle come apart from biology, but Smith ties consciousness to biological and cultural life and does not address machines.
Related theories
- Husserl’s Transcendental Phenomenology (Foundation)
- Zahavi’s Pre-Reflective For-Me-Ness (Overlap)
- Kriegel’s Cross-Order Self-Representation (Overlap)
- Rosenthal’s Higher-Order Thought (Contrast)
Sources
- Three Facets of Consciousness, David Woodruff Smith (2001)
- Mind World: Essays in Phenomenology and Ontology, David Woodruff Smith (2004)
- Consciousness with Reflexive Content, David Woodruff Smith (2005)
- Phenomenal Intentionality, Inner Awareness, and the Given, David Woodruff Smith (2021)
- Constitution Through Noema and Horizon: Husserl's Theory of Intentionality, David Woodruff Smith (2023)
- Husserl and Intentionality: A Study of Mind, Meaning, and Language, David Woodruff Smith and Ronald McIntyre (1982)
- Subjectivity and Selfhood: Investigating the First-Person Perspective, D. Zahavi (2005)
- Self-Representational Approaches to Consciousness, U. Kriegel and K. Williford (eds.) (2006)
- D.W. Smith’s Three-Facet Ontological Phenomenology, Landscape of Consciousness, Robert Lawrence Kuhn
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