It would be a mistake to suppose that we can observe our conscious experience of anything -- of a significant or oriented object, that is to say -- while being at the same time completely disengaged or detached from that experience: the experience-of-an-object that we observe and the consciousness observing that experience-of-an-object are intimately related structural features of a single but complex experience-of-an-object. Every experience, in fact, is a structure involving an infinity of different levels of generality: every object consists of a plurality of more particular objects (or details) against a unifying background of greater generality. An experience-of-an-object involves an infinite hierarchy of fields (or backgrounds) of different levels converging upon a lower, and strictly ideal, limit or vanishing point -- absolute objectivity, instantaneous determinacy, pure unsignificance.
Every experience, then, is consciousness of a field, which is necessarily consciousness of consciousness of the fields of next lower order: as long as a field does not change I am conscious of that field -- in other words, I am self-conscious --, and this consists precisely in my being conscious of the changing of subordinate fields, in my being conscious of being conscious of those fields -- in other words, in my cognizing them (for cognition is essentially consciousness of consciousness). (Appendix VII will show that this account is rather simplified: consciousness of a field is consciousness of all probable changes of subordinate fields. We need not consider this here.) But consciousness of each of these more particular fields, until it changes, is in turn consciousness of consciousness of still more particular fields, and so on indefinitely. (Note, however, that it is only with the running up and down of this change from one level to another that the hierarchical structure of experience becomes explicitly manifest to reflexion; and reflexion, in any case, since its attention will at any time be directed to one part rather than another, never sees the entire hierarchy all at once except in a kind of recognitive synthesis.) From this it should be clear that experience-of-an-object at any level of generality, being at once both consciousness and cognition (or consciousness of consciousness at a lower level), can always be described as consciousness of experience-of-an-object of a lower level of generality, or rather, as consciousness of a number of such experiences. And, correspondingly, the object of an experience-of-an-object (of a going, an eating, a breathing, a speaking, a thinking), that is to say an object-to-be-experienced (a road-to-be-journeyed, a cake-to-be-eaten, a breath-to-be-inhaled, a talk-to-be-delivered, a thought-to-be-developed), can be described as a number of experiences-of-objects (of lower order) to be conscious of. But in order that we should have consciousness observing consciousness of consciousness, consciousness observing experience-of-an-object, an appropriate attitude (which can, however, never be totally absent if cognition, which is synthesis (composition), is to be possible) will be necessary: an object-to-be-experienced must be approached no longer simply in its capacity as a number of experiences-of-objects (of lower order) to be conscious of, but also and at the same time as a structure-to-be-observed. There is then one complex reflexive experience-of-an-object comprising consciousness of a number of experiences-of-objects and at the same time observation as a single structure, namely consciousness, of those same experiences-of-objects by that same consciousness. There is consciousness as consciousness.
The word observation, however, implies a total detachment that has found no place in our description: in cognition (consciousness of consciousness) there is no more than a semi-detachment, and in reflexive consciousness (consciousness 'observing' itself) the separation is very small. (The expression 'observation by consciousness' is misleading also in another way: it suggests a certain agency on the part of consciousness. But in fact, 'to be observed by consciousness' means simply 'to be actually present in a self-revealing manner'. 'Consciousness of...' must always be understood as 'the actual presence of...'.) Accordingly, we shall call the single complex experience we have just described sheer reflexion. In unreflexive experiences an object appears: in sheer reflexion a system of fields appears, one[7] pair of adjacent levels at a time, each field being my nature or self down to that level. (This sheer reflexive mode of experience can be developed by practice. A simple way of attaining it is to ask oneself 'what am I doing?': it will be found that one is already conscious of the answer.) Thus what is revealed in sheer reflexion is self-structure; and this structure is only mal-observed when it is observed at all, that is to say, with attempted detachment. In that case reflexion is no longer sheer but compromised, and what it reveals is a hypostatized ego (for it is an attempt, necessarily unsuccessful, to cognize an unchanging field, to approach it as an object proper). (It was indicated in the essay and above that reflexive consciousness of a sort must always be present in some degree, however small; but we must also note that reflexive consciousness is by no means always self-observation as such.)
Since tacit (or self-) consciousness is always involved as a structural necessity of experience-of-an-object, and sheer reflexion involves the explicit appearance of that structure within the unity of a single experience-of-an-object, the certainty inherent in sheer reflexion is the certainty that is tacit consciousness and it is at the same time the certainty of the present existence of tacit consciousness and of the other structural features of experience-of-an-object. And the certainty that is tacit consciousness is the certainty of the present existence of my experience-of-an-object.
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[7] [Remainder of this sentence is crossed out in pencil.]
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