Abstract
States of consciousness only become objects of thought when we focus our attention on them in reflection. When this is not the case, thought is indeed present to itself, it is conscious, but it is not itself an object of thought, strictly speaking, and is certainly not the object of a distinct thought.
We have here a distinction between two forms of reflexivity, one that characterizes consciousness, the general property of our thoughts, and the other that characterizes a particular class of thoughts, namely higher-order thoughts involved in reflection. This distinction is articulated by several of Descartes' disciples, including Antoine Arnauld, who distinguishes "virtual reflection" (consciousness) from "express reflection" (reflection proper). In consciousness, thought is present to itself, but is not transformed into an object of thought. It is not objectified, as it is in express reflection. Expressive reflection is characterized by the fact that it involves two distinct thoughts: the reflecting thought and the reflected thought that is its object.
When Kant speaks of the "I think" that accompanies all our representations, he's talking about thought present to itself, not thought objectified and represented in the content of a higher-order thought. But what of the Cartesian Cogito? We show that, in the Cogito, there are two "I think" simultaneously. There is the "I think" content of thought, which is necessarily true "whenever I state it or conceive it", and which the subject cannot doubt. And then there's the act of thinking and the awareness of that act, the implicit "I think" of virtual reflection. It is this "I think" that comes into conflict with the potential thought content "I don't think" (or "I don't exist"), and renders this thought content unthinkable without pragmatic contradiction. Descartes' awareness of thinking when he tries (unsuccessfully) to doubt this state of affairs is what makes the thought content "I think" indubitable; but if this awareness belongs to virtual reflection, the thought content "I think" that it makes indubitable belongs to express reflection.
The cogito consists in reflecting the act of thinking in the content of thought itself: thought then represents itself. This is only possible if the reflexivity that characterizes consciousness (where it is thought itself that "alerts the soul to its presence") is preserved when it is made explicit in the express reflection effected by the cogito. We must therefore maintain the identity of reflective thought and reflected thought in the cogito. The duality of reflecting thought/reflexive thought must be understood as a duality of roles that goes hand in hand with the relation of representation, rather than as a necessary duality of role occupants, a duality that would prevent the same thought from playing both roles simultaneously.
