Antonio Millán-Puelles and Easy Problem of Consciousness

Abstract

The article is devoted to a book of a Spanish philosopher, Antonio Millán-Puelles. The book is called “The structure of Subjectivity” and pertain to the philosophical psychology domain. General approach of Millán to the theme and his mode of presenting it correspond to the basic trend of philosophy in Spain under Franco. More precisely, that philoso- phy, firstly, uses conceptual and terminological resourсe of scholasticism and, secondly, applies the method of phenomenological description with the goal to gain access to ontological foundations of reality. According to Millán-Puelles, subjectivity is a specific kind of being, that is, a living being which is the subject of its own acts. Treating the functioning of living things in the perspective of Aristotelian and scolastic distinction “potency / act”, Millán-Puelles affirms necessary complexity of subjectivity, its structural constitution. The main themes of Millán’s book are as follows: 1) the basic structure of subjectivity is formed as a union of the body and consciousness: subjectivity is not reducible to a pure consciousness; 2) subjectivity cannot be entirely transparent for itself; 3) subjectivity is radically appealed to the intentional transcending to another being; 4) but in the transcending to another being it simultaneously realizes and connotes itself.